Matthew A. Castle

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Political Science and International Relations Programme at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. 

I research issues in international and comparative political economy, with a particular interest in the politics of trade and trade agreements. My work asks how negotiators make new global rules and institutions, and how these institutions shape domestic politics and international cooperation. In particular, I focus on the shift away from multilateral (World Trade Organization) and towards preferential forms of rule-making such as in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). What explains this shift in venue, and what are its consequences for global governance at a time of rising powers and the gradual decline of the supremacy of the United States? Why has trade become so political in recent years? How do countries sustain international cooperation over the long-term? 

My book project, How does global order change ? Precedent, domestic politics and the evolution of international trade rules from 1950 to 2020 is funded by a Marsden Fast Start grant. Global challenges are prompting states to contest, renegotiate, or modernise international trade rules. Yet by design and happenstance, existing rules and institutions are resistant to change: negotiators design global trade rules to provide a stable and predictable institutional environment, and these rules become ‘sticky’ over time. This project explores this juxtaposition of continuity and change in the global trade regime. How do negotiators successfully promote new norms in the trade regime, in the face of institutional and political constraints on innovation ? I hypothesise that like-minded states cooperate to overcome these constraints. To test this hypothesis, I use quantitative analysis on a database of trade treaties and qualitative evidence from New Zealand. By documenting and explaining normative innovation within the institutional context of the trade regime, I contribute to advancing our understanding of how global order evolves.

Before joining Victoria University of Wellington, I completed my PhD at the Department of Political Science at McGill University, where I was a Fellow in the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS).