Exports vs. investment: How political discourse shapes popular support for external imbalances

Ferrara, Federico Maria; Haas, Jörg; Peterson, Andrew; Sattler, Thomas

doi:10.1093/ser/mwab004

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…As De Vreese (2005, p. 52) notes, "frames may contribute to shaping social level processes such as political socialization, decision-making, and collective actions". Which frames prevail in the mediaand how they are presented-shapes people's understanding of the issues, and influences their support or rejection of them (Ferrara et al, 2021).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press

Waitkus

Wallaschek

2022

Soc Just Res

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Germany has one of the highest levels of wealth concentration of any Western capitalist country. Research on the legitimization of economic inequality highlights that wealth elites tend to stress meritocratic arguments for legitimizing elite positions and wealth accumulation. However, whether this is also the case for wealthy business owners and how the media tends to portray those remains largely unknown. Drawing on a unique sample of 899 press articles from eight different media outlets between 2014 and 2018, we find a rather generous media debate. Based on descriptive evidence and a latent class analysis, we identify six latent frames illustrating how wealthy business owners are portrayed in the press. We show that the sources of wealth (inheritance, investment, entrepreneurship) are often used to highlight these owners’ deep economic relevance to the German economy, while the use of wealth is predominantly framed as a mean for profit-seeking. For wealthy business owners, moral evaluation of personal conduct is less present in the media and, when it is present, is rarely negative. Our study is the first analysis of press coverage of the wealthiest German business owners indicating a legitimizing media debate of high wealth concentration in an advanced capitalist society.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press

Waitkus

Wallaschek

2022

Soc Just Res

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“…It is important, however, to acknowledge that causality can go both ways. For instance, the public discourse over economic policy can differ significantly which has an influence on public attitudes (Barnes and Hicks, 2018;Hopkin and Rosamond, 2018;Ferrara et al, 2021). Clearly, the analysis of the causalities behind our results is an important issue that future research should address.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Austerity limits the increase in public wages, which would constrain the export sector (Johnston, 2016;Manger and Sattler, 2020). Given the importance of the export sector and the societal consensus that supports the export-led strategy (Ferrara et al, 2021), voter congruence across political blocs should be high. This is not because a majority of voters work in the export sector but because each party has strong constituencies that have an interest in a thriving export sector, which is strengthened by 10 In Section A.2 of the Online Appendix, we provide an overview of how the spending and tax components of austerity were distributed in the three countries included in our analysis.…”

Section: Germany: Classical Export-led Growth Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three worlds of austerity: voter congruence over fiscal trade-offs in Germany, Spain and the UK

Hübscher

Sattler

Truchlewski

2022

Socio-Economic Review

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Political opposition to fiscal adjustments has varied significantly across countries. Our analysis links this variation to differences in the congruence of voter attitudes towards fiscal trade-offs across political blocs in different countries. These differences in attitudes, in turn, coincide with the implications of the distinct macroeconomic growth strategies that these countries pursue. Based on original survey data, we show that in Germany, supporters of different parties not only share similar views on the appropriate size of fiscal adjustment, but also on how to distribute these cuts across various spending items. In Spain, there is fundamental disagreement on the amount of austerity, but voters largely agree on the composition of fiscal adjustments. In the UK, there is disagreement between voters of diverging political blocs on both accounts. Variation in public attitudes, therefore, gives rise to very diverse political dynamics surrounding fiscal adjustments in different countries.

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“…Media framing is a powerful tool in this construction process (e.g. Kneafsey and Regan 2020 ; Ferrara et al 2021 ). Discursive framing by media narratives and problem articulation by representatives help us reconstruct distributional tensions and winner–loser relations that do not necessarily coincide with the analysis above.…”

Section: Theorising a Disconnect Between Actual And Perceived Costs O...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The silent losers of Germany’s export surpluses. How current account imbalances are exacerbated by the misrepresentation of their domestic costs

Polyak

2022

Comp Eur Polit

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Germany’s excessive current account surpluses mirror domestic problems. They are rooted in inequality and a weak home market, creating an overdependence on exports. Why, then, are policymakers so reluctant to reduce them? This paper argues that a contributing factor is the public misrepresentation of surpluses’ domestic costs. Imbalances are narrated as distributional conflicts between countries, not within them; and bilateral trade is framed as a competition, where surplus countries win. The analysis reconstructs stakeholders’ positions and discursive strategies through media narratives and Bundestag debates, using an original dataset of public statements. It finds evidence for a systematic bias disregarding the domestic losers of surpluses. Whenever imbalances are discussed, the triggering event is outside criticism, mainly from the European Commission and the US. The ensuing debate follows an ‘us versus them’ logic, where foreign critics clash with domestic defenders—mainly the government and export-sector organisations. The success narrative and identitarian discourse about an ‘export nation’ limits left-wing actors’ room to move beyond incremental criticism. The analysis finds an effect of European integration exacerbating imbalances. Germans fend off critics by an arena-shifting strategy: pointing out that exchange rates and trade are European-level prerogatives, disregarding internal policy levers for rebalancing.

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Exports vs. investment: How political discourse shapes popular support for external imbalances

Cited by 14 publications

References 68 publications

Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press

Legitimate Wealth? How Wealthy Business Owners are Portrayed in the Press

Three worlds of austerity: voter congruence over fiscal trade-offs in Germany, Spain and the UK

The silent losers of Germany’s export surpluses. How current account imbalances are exacerbated by the misrepresentation of their domestic costs

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