The Journey of Intellectual Property Rights Protection under Central-locality conflicts.x000d.--An Examination of the Influence of International Economic Institutions on Domestic Politics.

International trade agreements, as one important type of international institutions, have been argued to be an effective tool to shape domestic politics. The paper looks into a particular kind of international trade agreementâ€"the protection of intellectual property rights and examines whether international institutions are able to be internalized to affect China’s progress on intellectual property rights. The paper hypothesizes that the central-locality relationship could prevent China from fulfilling its commitments made to reduce IPR infringement. Despite the agreement reached between the central government and WTO, the increasingly decentralized fiscal structure boosts local governments’ political autonomy and instigates their economic incentives to cover IPR infringement in their zone. The pursuit of local governments for their own interests and their expanding power enable them to ignore or circumvent the appeal from the central government. Thus the influence of international institutions must be contextualized in concrete political institutions. It is necessary to break up the integrity of a state’s authority and introduce a multi-level analysis regarding to the internalization of international institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]