The rise of free trade in comparative perspective.

Free trade developed in the nineteenth century as an ideology and controversial political issue. My research highlights the rise of free trade as such in midcentury in several countries, including Great Britain, France, and Belgium. In all these countries free trade associations formed during the 1840s and agitated on behalf of the liberalization of international trade, developed and maintained connections with one another, and pursued an internationalist vision of strong ties binding European nations to one another in economic cooperation. My research at the University of Antwerp will focus on Belgium's position in these debates, its internal debates about trade policy, and the activities of its free traders, giving special attention to the international Congress of Economists organized by the Association belge pour la liberté commerciale and held in Brussels in 1847. This research fits into my larger dissertation project, which seeks to identify the key tenets of free trade ideology in the mid-nineteenth century, examine the processes by which free trade associations formed and the demographics of their membership, follow the debates in the press and in parliaments regarding free trade, and finally appreciate the ways that the discourse surrounding free trade changed throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth (and implicitly how this discourse compares to that of the twenty-first century).

Keywords:TRADE LIBERALISATION, 19TH CENTURY

Disciplines:Economic history, History

Project type:Collaboration project