The WTO Primer: Tracing Trade's Visible Hand through Case Studies

Adam Smith famously described the marketplace as being guided by an "invisible hand". The modern international marketplace is guided by a set of rules of the game embodied in the visible hand of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This book describes the WTO from its post-WWII beginnings in the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) through a series of negotiated enhancements of these agreements. It describes the WTO's origins, structure and growth pains as it has had to face challenges from within and without. Case studies illuminate the diplomatic and domestic political issues accompanying the difficult decisions confronted by the WTO.

About the Author
Kevin Buterbaugh is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southern Connecticut State University. He has also written articles and reviews in the areas of U.S. Defense Policy, International Relations, Political Economy and U.S. State and Local Politics. Richard Fulton is Professor of Political Science at Northwest Missouri State University. He is Moderator of the Missouri London Program and helped initiate the Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies. He has edited a book on the American Revolution and written several articles and reviews on political anthropology and political economy including a recent bibliographic essay on the WTO in Choice Magazine.