International Trade, Openness and Integration

Openness provokes widely different responses, depending on what aspects of openness are under discussion. While trade openness has long received much support from economists, it has frequently been viewed with suspicion by industry groups and trade unions threatened by foreign competition. Openness in terms of easier migration is generally supported by business keen to access cheap and educated labour from the global economy but strongly opposed by many who fear the greater competition for jobs and pressure on social services. FDI has been both opposed by nationalist governments anxious to avoid any sign of dependence on big foreign business (such as India’s in the 1970s) and welcomed by nationalist governments keen to promote economic growth, modernization and national glory through accessing new technology (such as India’s in the 1990s and 2000s). Much of this debate has been difficult for economists to engage with, particularly when openness is considered in terms of ‘ideas from other countries’ and so has been left to the more narrative-historical approaches of historians. Good examples of such debates discussed here include the closure of China to the rest of the world after the fifteenth century and the impact of the Spanish Inquisition in Europe from the late fifteenth century.