Negotiating Capital and the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement

The 2019 European Union (EU)-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement is, so far, the EU’s largest bilateral free trade agreement. While the agreement itself is an example of the growing strength of the EU-Japan relationship, it is also an example of how two vastly different trade regimes can overcome entrenched structural and administrative styles to reach a consensus. This paper analyzes one of these barriers: negotiating capital. This concept represents the political economy of how trade negotiators utilize their legal expertise, negotiating flexibility, and limited resources to maximize free trade agreement outcomes. However, trade negotiators have differing amounts of negotiating capital, which depends on their home states’ structural and administrative constraints and how the trade negotiators define and develop their trade expertise. The EU’s and Japan’s contrasting structural and administrative approaches to trade negotiations and how trade experts define and develop their expertise lend a unique opportunity to understand how changes in negotiating capital can alter free trade agreement negotiation outcomes. Ultimately, the EU’s inclusive, quasi-federal structure and the negotiators’ need to consider the limitations on their trade mandate show how their negotiating capital is relatively limited and translates into a more integrated agreement text, i.e., provisions on public opinion. On the other hand, Japan’s top-down reformist trade regime leads to a more reactive strain of negotiating capital relying heavily on adherence to hierarchy and limited inclusiveness, resulting in agreement commitments that are generally weak and narrow. Negotiating capital is an important reality that all trade negotiators face. It is politically and strategically important for parties to understand how these various factors’ political economy impacts free-trade negotiations and outcomes. Received: 10 May 2022Accepted: 18 July 2022