Conclusions: Emerging Powers in the WTO – Beware the Glass Ceiling.

This concluding article argues that while the actions of emerging powers have left an indelible mark on the way multilateral trade is governed, they have not been able to disrupt to any significant degree the deeper structures of power that underpin the World Trade Organization (WTO). While emerging powers have proven to be important players in the Doha negotiations, particularly in the closing stages, they have ultimately come up against a glass ceiling that prevents their further rise. This ceiling is the product of a series of institutional factors that combine to facilitate alterations in the general arrangement of members one-to-another but which prevent deeper configurations of power from being disturbed. The result is that while we may have witnessed some changes in the multilateral trading system, these have been more akin to a rearrangement of the multilateral furniture than to a fundamental transformation of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]