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" The Politics of Fair Trade argues that fair trade is more than just labels on specialty coffee products. Nor is fair trade just protectionism in disguise. Rather, fair trade is opposition to unrestricted trade based on sincere concerns about environmental and labor conditions abroad. Fair traders are not trying to protect jobs or the economy at home, but do not want to see workers exploited and the environment degraded in their trading partners. Academics and policymakers are ill equipped to deal with fair trade concerns because they wrongly assume trade preferences run along a single dimension from free trade to protection. This book introduces a multidimensional theory of trade policy preferences, arguing that people can oppose trade for different and unrelated reasons. The book then demonstrates, using public opinion data in the U.S. and EU and Congressional voting data in the U.S., that fair traders are sincere and not simply protectionists. The book demonstrates why fair trade poses a threat to free trade and argues that free traders should include stronger and enforceable labor and environmental standards in trade agreements in order to win the support of fair traders. Doing so will enable free trade to continue while also helping to improve conditions in developing countries, satisfying the concerns of both free traders and fair traders. "--

The political economy of trade literature argues that the policy of compensating those who lose from trade is an important component of maintaining public support for free-trade, a linkage known as the compensation hypothesis or embedded liberalism thesis. This article tests the causal mechanisms underlying the compensation hypothesis by examining support for trade-related compensation using survey data from the United States. Expectations about the effects of trade strongly predict support for trade-related unemployment insurance, with those who expect to lose more likely to support and those who expect to gain more like to oppose, but has no influence on support for general unemployment insurance despite previous research suggesting it should.

The embedded liberalism thesis, a major component of the trade policy literature in political science, argues that governments can build support for free trade by compensating economically those hurt by trade, usually with welfare or education policies. This strategy depends, though, on opposition to trade being driven by employment factors, such as job or income loss because of increased competition. The current fair trade movement raises many non-employment criticisms of trade such as concerns about the environment and labor standards but the literature tends to treat these concerns as traditional protectionism in disguise. This article argues, instead, that for many, these concerns are sincere and that this presents a growing challenge to the compromise of embedded liberalism. The article demonstrates this by examining survey data in the United States and showing that those who support fair trade tend to have characteristics that are opposite those who support economic protection. Adapted from the source document.