Ideas in International Trade: Programmatic Beliefs of the EU and China in the WTO

Ideas have often been used as an explanatory framework for states’ interactions in international trade. This article deepens the debate on normative ideas in international political economy, conceptualizing beliefs as driving factors in international trade. I offer a categorization of different levels of ideas, differentiating between worldviews and programmatic beliefs. I look at the role of domestic beliefs on the functioning of the economy in the European Union (EU) and China’s policy actions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) between 2001 and 2021. I argue that programmatic beliefs guide actors’ policy actions in the WTO, and that different sets of programmatic beliefs – the EU’s idea of free trade and China’s idea of state-led economic growth – lead to different policy actions in international trade.