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- Title
Intellectual Property in Practice: Filtering Testimony at the United States Trade Representative.
- Authors
Dent, Alexander S.
- Abstract
Policy is made in small-scale situations mediated by language. This article examines the ways in which the United States Trade Representative establishes a mandate by esoterically interpreting canonical texts and then using that mandate to filter testimony. Its goal is to maintain a watch list of countries that disrespect intellectual property. This involves managing intertextual relations in ways that efface some perspectives and highlight others, while creating three subjectivities: industry, public interest, and foreign governments. The end result is a policy document of markedly partial epistemology that combines direct citation of industry statements with obscure pronouncements that lack empirical basis. The article concludes by considering the ways in which policy-makers modulate between specificity and non-specificity in order to build their authority. In this case, as in others, this authority supports corporations over public-interest groups.
- Subjects
UNITED States; INTELLECTUAL property policy; COMMERCIAL law; UNITED States. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; PRESSURE groups; PUBLIC welfare
- Publication
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2013, Vol 23, Issue 2, pE48
- ISSN
1055-1360
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/jola.12016