2013 年 64 巻 p. 125-145
This paper aims to reveal the reason why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement initiated by New Zealand has successfully expanded. The paper argues that, in order to gain access to its main trading partners, New Zealand employs the ‘building block’ approach, by which a high-level FTA is concluded among like-minded countries and expanded gradually to overcome ‘broader-deeper trade-off’, and complements it with ‘unclear accession rules’ and ‘divide and rule’ strategies. This hypothesis is validated by a qualitative analysis using Trade Minister Groser’s testimony and by a quantitative analysis through estimating a panel logit model on the attributes of TPP participants.