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The trade policies of Brazil, India and South Africa have significant historical similarities: these countries are original WTO members; they adopted import-substitution industrialization; promoted neoliberal reforms; have been playing important roles in their regional contexts; and, more recently, they have also formed alliances and coalitions (IBSA, G20) in order to increase their capacity to influence the trade regime. At the same time, they are intensifying bilateral and regional ties which are different in scope and degrees of institutionalization. The result is that, despite of having similar roles which are derived from their status as middle powers, these three countries have developed different strategies concerning their trade policy. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze comparatively the trade policies of Brazil, India and South Africa in the multilateral and regional environments. Our contention is that there are significant differences in their conduct on those two levels, in such a way that it is not possible to establish a fixed pattern of trade policy amongst middle powers, at least not amongst these three. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is in your Salad? An Ecological Political Economy of the Salad Bowl of CaliforniaCalifornia produces one third of the food eaten in the United States and exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products. Monterey County, California, has some of the most intensely farmed landscape of the world and one of the most prosperous farming regions of the global North. It produces about 40 percent of the total exports originating from California. The Salinas Valley, known as the ‘Salad Bowl’, produces a large portion of the total exports originating from California. The lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes and carrots produced here, may be part of industrialized ‘precision’ farming but are heavily dependent on human labor, specifically migrant labor. This paper interrogates the ‘nature’ and the ‘dirt’ on agriculture/ecology in light of California’s global agribusiness. It adopts an ecological political economy approach to examine the foundations of this agribusiness based on the desire to maximize productivity and profit in order to compete in a global market. It examines the systematic transformation of food into a commodity that hides devastating ecological and social costs. In particular, it examines the heavy dependence on migrant labor and conditions of labor camps to make connections between economy and ecology. The paper also examines how Salinas Valley communities are reclaiming resources, human dignity and confronting consumption.It compares these efforts to the Landless Movement in Brazil and the Organic Movement in India. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international coalition formation process has played a central role in the dynamics of multilateral and regional trade negotiations, particularly as concerns the outlook for the re-balance of central-peripheral forces of the international system. The reopening of a new round of multilateral negotiations, focusing precisely on new thematic challenges regarding international trade and routes to development, reintroduces the centrality of the role of South-South alliances.In practice, cooperative efforts of this nature are already making themselves felt with the formation of a series of coalitions, whereas emphasis must be placed on G-20 and G-3 (IBSA). The essential aspect to be retained is that, taking into consideration the dimension of the convergence of international business interests strictly speaking, the partnership between India and Brazil, at the starting point of efforts to build international coalitions, is clearly counterintuitive.With a basis on the Compared Foreign Policy Analysis, the objective of this paper is to contribute towards a more comprehensive understanding of the bases (domestic and international) of the formation of international coalitions, of the South-South type in the new context of the multilateral agenda. A comparative matrix will be built as an analytical instrument. Based on databased with variables, the compared analysis of these variables will permit the itemization of vectors of convergence and divergence among the countries capable of indicating the stability and effectiveness of the coalition. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]