Bogna Gawronska-Nowak,

Lazarski University,

Warsaw, Poland,

E-mail: b.gawronska@lazarski.edu.pl

Expert knowledge status quo in the Internet provided public debate on Free Trade Agreements. Meta analysis of Polish literature

Krzysztof Beck,

Lazarski University,

Warsaw, Poland,

E-mail: beckkrzysztof@gmail.com

Paul Valdivieso,

Institute of Socio-Economic Enquiry 

Warsaw, Poland,

E-mail: pvaldg@gmail.com

Abstract. Recently the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have been drawing public attention enormously being affected by new waves of political populism, alter-globalisation, and some other tendencies redefining the patterns in the world economic ties. From the European perspective, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have brought “on board” serious public concerns about environmental protection, food quality, job security, and citizen rights. Donald Trump openly criticizes the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) calling it “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this [US] country”. The main purpose of this paper is to define expert views on FTAs in a measurable way. We want to capture the expert dissemination effect in Polish language Internet sources. Defining a mismatch between social perception and expert knowledge is the main aim of our research project on “Social expectations concerning FTAs: perception versus reality”, to which this paper, as we believe can contribute, at the same time contributing into diagnosing and analysing actual public debate on FTAs in Poland.

Received: September, 2018

1st Revision: December, 2018

Accepted: February, 2019

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2019/12-1/14

JEL Classification: F13, F14, F53, F55, Z13

Keywords: Free Trade Agreements (FTA), meta-analysis, social perception, Polish public opinion