Globalization and Its (Dis-)Content: Trade Shocks and Voting Behavior

Dippel, Christian; Gold, Robert; Heblich, Stephan

doi:10.3386/w21812

Cited by 142 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…37 Autor et al (2016) and Dippel et al (2015) provide evidence consistent with the idea that trade-induced changes in inequality can alter the political equilibrium, even in "full democracies". In particular, these works show that import competition, and the associated increase in inequality, lead to political polarization and the rise of more "extremist" parties in, respectively, the US and Germany.…”

supporting

confidence: 60%

Economic Integration and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation

Magistretti¹,

Tabellini²

2017

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study whether economic integration fosters the process of democratization and the channels through which this might happen. Our analysis is based on a large panel dataset of countries between 1950 and 2014. We instrument actual trade with predicted trade constructed by estimating a time-varying gravity equation similar to Feyrer (2009). We find that economic integration has a positive effect on democracy, driven by trade with democratic partners and stronger for countries with lower initial levels of economic and institutional development. These results are consistent with a learning/cultural exchange process whereby economic integration promotes the spread of democracy from more to less democratic countries. We corroborate this interpretation by providing evidence against alternative mechanisms, such as income effects, human capital accumulation, and trade-induced changes in inequality.

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 60%

Economic Integration and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation

Magistretti¹,

Tabellini²

2017

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The regional control variables include factors that may affect both political attitudes and the income distribution, such as net migration rates, economic growth, and the level and growth of manufacturing jobs. I control for manufacturing jobs as there is empirical evidence that increasing regional exposure to trade with lower income countries during this period led to the destruction of manufacturing jobs and stronger support for extreme political parties (see Dippel et al., ; Malgouyres, ). The estimates of β are positive and very similar to the baseline results in Table , implying that inequality had an impact on political polarization beyond any contemporaneous changes on immigration flows, economic growth, and manufacturing jobs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent empirical evidence has shown that trade shocks, which have reduced demand for local manufacturing (and have therefore led to job losses), have contributed to the increasing polarization observed in the United States (Autor, Dorn, Hanson, & Majlesi, ). Similarly, exposure to trade with low‐income countries in France and Germany has been linked to the rise of extreme right political parties (Dippel, Gold, & Heblich, ; Malgouyres, ). Immigration has also been associated with political polarization in Austria, where higher immigrant inflows have increased the share of votes received by the far right‐wing political party, with residents voicing concerns about the effects of immigrants on the labor market along with “compositional amenities” (Halla, Wagner, & Zweimüller, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of income inequality on political polarization: Evidence from European regions, 2002–2014

Winkler

2019

Economics & Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article investigates whether income inequality leads to political polarization and provides new evidence that an increase in the Gini coefficient at the local level increases the probability of supporting a political party at the extreme left and right of the ideological distribution. Using individual data for 25 European countries from 2002 to 2014, I find that increasing inequality leads on average to more support for left‐wing parties. I also find that increasing inequality leads to more support for far‐right parties among older individuals. Support for far‐right parties seems to be driven by rising anti‐immigrant sentiments. The results are robust to different specifications, including an instrumental variable that addresses the endogeneity of income inequality.

show abstract

“…Similar polarizing trends were evident in Western Europe where the negative employment effects of manufacturing imports from China were linked to rising support for more right‐wing and protectionist political parties (Colantone & Stanig, ). In Germany, however, political polarization was delayed by strong growth in manufacturing exports, a more balanced regional distribution of industry, and active labour‐market policies to assist workers displaced by trade shocks (Dippel et al, :36). That was not the case in Britain.…”

Section: Uneven and Combined Development: The Conjuncture Of 2016mentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development

Rosenberg

Boyle

2019

J Historical Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article uses the theory of uneven and combined development (U&CD) to produce a novel explanation of ‘Brexit and Trump’ – the two shock political events of 2016. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we identify the global conjuncture of historical unevenness in which the votes occurred: how the neoliberal transformation of the advanced capitalist countries was synchronized with the radically different process of primitive accumulation in China. Second, we apply the theory of U&CD to this peculiar ‘simultaneity of the non‐simultaneous’: the ‘big country’ effects of China's industrialization, we find, were thrice multiplied by its combination with the advanced sectors of the world economy, which accelerated China's take‐off, brought forward its export phase, and widened its export profile at a moment of maximum openness in international trade. Finally, this produced the pattern of development that led to the events of 2016: the resultant trade shocks intensified the internal inequalities of British and American societies in ways that match the geography of the Leave and Trump votes. The analysis has a wider intellectual implication too, for the phenomena of historical unevenness and combination are intrinsic to the history of the global political economy; and the theory of U&CD therefore has a unique contribution to make to the field of International Political Economy.

show abstract

Globalization and Its (Dis-)Content: Trade Shocks and Voting Behavior

Cited by 142 publications

References 50 publications

Economic Integration and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation

Economic Integration and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation

The effect of income inequality on political polarization: Evidence from European regions, 2002–2014

Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the history of uneven and combined development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About