Abstract
During the 1980s, the application of data processing and communication technologies in the service sector began to create unprecedented business opportunities, fuelling demands for new rules to govern trade in services. The inclusion this subject in the agenda of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations marked a major step in efforts to create a regime. Howerer, it was not the only one. This research examined the processes by which governments, multinational enterprises and local business interests sought to shape the agendas for dealing with those issues and to influence the choice of institutions in which different aspects of the arrangements would be negotiated, since it was inextricably linked to the principles, rules and decision-making procedures that would characterise the resultant regime. The focus was on the impact of disparities in terms of knowledge, market shares and bargaining strength in different institutions on the processes of regime formation