Global Competition and Brexit

Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’: on the misrecognition of race and class

“…Further, ‘globalization’ was presented by the media, politicians and commentators as the proxy issue against which people, particularly working‐class people, were voting (Calhoun ; Goodwin and Heath ; Hobolt ) . It was globalization, they argued, that had created the ‘left behind’ as a consequence of processes of automation, of ‘the globalization‐induced shock’ to manufacturing sectors (Colantone and Stanig ), the increasing preponderance of low‐wage immigrant (and minority ethnic) labour, and the policies of outsourcing in both the UK and the US that led to jobs moving abroad. It was the cumulative economic consequences of such policies, then, that were said to be responsible for the unexpected victories of both Brexit and Trump and the working class was popularly argued to have delivered this result in both places (Goodwin and Heath ; Mckenzie ; Turney, Levy, Citrin and O'Brian ).…”

Jobs at risk? Task routineness, offshorability, and attitudes toward immigration

“…To appeal to such workers, they frequently refer to a nostalgic 'better' past prior to economic and societal upheavals (Gidron and Hall, 2017;Gest et al, 2018;Im et al, 2019). Their discourse frequently blames processes such as international trade, European enlargement, and immigration for the 'worse' present (Schumacher and van Kersbergen, 2016;Owen and Johnston, 2017;Colantone and Stanig, 2018;Goerres et al, 2018). To revert to the 'better' past, radical right parties therefore propose limiting and reversing such processes which these parties claim to have contributed to the 'worse' present.…”

“…Another approach ties opposition to immigration to dwindling economic prospects, irrespective of whether poorer economic prospects are a direct result of immigration or not (Geraci et al, 2017, see also Colantone and Stanig, 2018 for an analysis on Brexit). This line of reasoning contends that migration, technological change, and trade all involve labor market risks, but for the grand majority of people, the exact mechanisms through which these risks manifest themselves are rather unclear.…”

Prejudice and the Brexit vote: a tangled web

“…Data from Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that, whilst the 20 areas reporting lowest educational attainment in the UK voted leave in the EU referendum and the 20 areas with highest educational attainment voted remain, it is not simply a case of educational attainment; rather, it is an issue of relative deprivation and a feeling of being 'left behind' in society (Goodwin and Heath, 2016). In a similar vein, Colantone and Stanig (2016) found that attitudes towards migration were better predicted by the effects of 'import shock' of goods impacting manufacturing in an area than levels of migration to that area itself, although the Joseph Rowntree Foundation findings do suggest that a sudden influx into an area (5-10% of a local population change in 10 years) does correlate with percentage of leave voters in those areas. Interestingly, and in support of Allport's (1954) seminal work on prejudice and discrimination which examined how intergroup contact could work to reduce prejudice, a fascinating comparison by Kaufmann and Harris (2015) sheds light on why some of the areas with the highest levels of immigration voted remain in the EU referendum whilst other areas with little immigration voted leave and cited immigration as a major issue.…”