International economists are careful to avoid explicit consideration of the political process in their analysis of international commercial policy. This behaviour is understandable since international economists do not have a comparative advantage in politics. Most economists avoid political considerations by assuming a ‘national interest’ on issues such as the tariff (this generalisation does not apply to studies of distribution effects). While this is a justifiable simplification for examining the optimum tariff and perhaps optimal policies—see, inter alia, Bhagwati (1971)—the national interest assumption is a troubling one, particularly for discussions of tariff changes in democracies. It conflicts with the observation that in competitive political systems, changes in policy which benefit one political party usually hurt the interests of the other party. In this paper, we consider explicitly the opposing interests of two political parties on the question of protection.
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