Conference Participation of Melike A. Kocacik Senol (POLS Ph.D. Student)

Political Science Ph.D. student Melike Ayse Kocacik Senol participated "ECPR Joint Sessions 2019 UCL Mons" conference on 8-12 April 2019. She took place in the "Formal and Informal Intergovernmental Organisations in Time: Explaining Transformations in Global Governance" workshop, and presented her paper entitled "Ministerial Declarations and Decisions: Text-as-Data Approach to Assess the Converging Economic Policies in WTO".

Ministerial Declarations and Decisions: Text-as-Data Approach to Assess the Converging Economic Policies in WTO

Abstract: How do the ministerial declarations change over time? Ministerial meetings are one of the most influential gatherings in WTO for debating how to proceed in world trade. These gatherings are important for states since they propose their agenda during meetings. To examine whether these statements change over time and result with convergence or divergence among the statements of countries will enhance our knowledge about the transformation of WTO.

To investigate the changes in trade policy positions and who are the main agenda setters in WTO, Melike Ayşe Kocacık Şenol creates a new dataset by using quantitative text analysis. By using ministerial declarations and ministerial decisions from 1996 to 2017, she is able to measure the policy offerings of statements and will assess how these statements are distinct from each other as well as from the ministerial decisions. Text-as-Data offers an innovative approach to understand the primary and one of the most valuable sources for political data, texts, in detail. Moreover, comparing and contrasting the changes in economic policy decisions across time and space is an important empirical quest for decrypting the transformation of global trade governance.