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Open economy politics and trade policy*

ABSTRACT Has 25 years of accumulated empirical research informed by the open economy politics (OEP) perspective deepened our understanding of how politics influence trade policy? This paper offers an answer to this question based on a survey of empirical research on individual trade policy preferences, the impact of domestic political institutions on trade policy outcomes, and the relationship between international institutions and trade policy outcomes. I reach a rather disappointing conclusion: although every contribution to the OEP research program is rigorous and robust, the individual findings have not produced consensus on any of the major questions at the center of research. Consequently, we know no more about the politics of trade policy today than we knew three decades ago. This lack of progress in OEP's variable-based approach creates opportunities for research that relies on a pattern-based approach informed by the logic of causal complexity.