Linking Global Trade and Human Rights

"The concept of policy space is critical to understanding the impact of globalization on public policy in the twenty-first century. For the purposes of this book, a policy space is an arena where national governments have the freedom and capacity to design and implement public policies of their own choosing (Grindle & Thomas, 1991; Koivusalo et. al., 2010). In market economies, policy spaces reflect the insight that certain realms of public life should be governed by collective decision making designed to advance the public interest whereas in other realms markets reign (Drache, 2001). The spatial metaphor expresses, in other words, the claim that there are certain sites where government action has legitimacy. Ultimately, national policy spaces matter because they provide opportunities for governments to be innovative in the development of public policy on these sites, especially in terms of advancing social justice goals (Jacobs, 2004). The unifying theme of this book is that there are major reconfigurations of social and economic policy spaces for national governments on the international landscape during the hard economic times that follow global financial crises. After the 2008 financial crisis, state action extended into new areas and was being deployed in new and innovative ways from the Cash for Clunkers program in the US to successful anti-poverty programs in Brazil. In India the national Rural Employment Scheme to guarantee a minimum number of paid hours annually to hundreds of millions of its poorest is the largest social welfare scheme in the world"--