Identifying Attributes of a Favourable FTA: A Back Room Boy’s Perspective

Modern trade wars are pushing the world deep into protectionism. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have, therefore, risen to unprecedented levels. Why should policy makers fully understand the factors that make a FTA successful? Lessons from other studies can help this objective, but scholarship is quite scattered and at times fails to consider all or most of the key aspects in aggregate. We summarize and synthesize this scholarship and with qualitative tools – employing Gioia methodology backed by case study research design – we identify what makes a FTA successful. We also validated these aspects and their relationship to FTAs in focus groups. Free Trade Agreements, Pakistan, Qualitative Case Study Design, Regional Trade, Protectionism, Archival Record, Focus Group