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The Doha Round impassethese factors further skewed the domestic political calculus away from supporting DohaRound deals that extended benefits to China which, under the Most Favoured Nationprinciple, they must.• Fifth, no mechanism with sharp incentives to bring closure to the Doha Round hasbeen introduced.In the Uruguay Round, the larger trading nations made it clear that any reluctance to signall of the accords negotiated in 1993 would preclude a country from membership of thethen-to-be-created WTO. Fearing the consequences of becoming second class citizensin the world trading system, each member of the then-GATT overcame their objectionsand signed the Uruguay Round accords. The central prerequisite for employing sucha tactic is agreement on a final accord between the leading trading nations—whichexisted in 1992-3 but not in 2011.Concluding remarksUltimately, numerous factors—some of which could not have been anticipated when theDoha Round was launched in 2001—account for the inability to bring this multilateraltrade negotiation to a successful conclusion. The roots of many of these factors liein national political choices including sustained unilateral tariff reforms in manydeveloping countries, prevailing global economic conditions, the rise of China, and alack of a decisive mechanism to stop negotiators from postponing difficult choices to alater day. If this analysis is correct, it suggests that institutional fixes at the WTO alonewould not have avoided the Doha Round impasse.The approach taken here represents a marked point of departure from much of the moderneconomic literature on the WTO. For nearly 20 years, trade economists have sought todevelop theoretical rationales for the WTO, which are predicated on the assumptionthat there is a basis for a deal among negotiating parties. For sure, understanding theincentives created by WTO accords once nations can agree is important. However, theprincipal feature of the Doha Round has not been accord—it has been impasse. More117