How Labor Market Inequality Transforms Mass Politics

Abstract

Why do left parties lose vote shares in times of economic crisis and hardship? Why do right-wing governments implement seemingly left-wing policies, such as labor market activation? Why is representation becoming more and more unequal? And why do workers vote for right-wing populist parties? Several political science theories propose meaningful and important answers to these key questions for comparative politics, focusing on identity politics, programmatic convergence of parties or exogenous constraints. However, there is an additional and distinct approach to all of the questions above, which emphasizes socio-structural transformations in the labor market: most of the processes above can be understood with reference to increasing labor market inequality and its political implications. The relevance and explanatory power of labor market inequality for mass politics have not been fully acknowledged in comparative political science and this is the reason for this symposium. Labor market inequality affects political preferences and behavior, electoral politics, representation, and government strategies. The main purpose of our symposium is to make broader comparative politics research aware of the crucial structural changes that labor markets have undergone in the advanced capitalist democracies of the OECD, and of the tremendous implications these changes have had for politics.

The Causes of Populism in the West

“…Rather than focusing on individuals' particular, current, economic circumstances, some scholars argue that fear of the future is more consequential. If individuals are worried that their financial situations will worsen over time, perhaps because the industries they are employed in are threatened or in decline as a result of automation, foreign competition, and so on, then they may be susceptible to the antiestablishment, scapegoating populists (Emmenegger et al 2012, Häusermann et al 2020, Im et al 2019, Kriesi & Bornschier 2012, Rovny & Rovny 2017. Other scholars argue that, rather than focusing on individuals' assessments of their current or future economic or financial circumstances, what really matters in determining support for populism is the individual's assessment of how the broader society or economy is doing currently and is likely to do in the future.…”

The rightward shift and electoral decline of social democratic parties under increasing inequality

“…Central to the debate is the pronounced reduction in class voting compared to the heyday of Social Democrats in the 1960s and 70 s. Much evidence now exists that the far-right has made substantial inroads among the working class in recent years (Afonso and Rennwald 2018;Mosimann et al 2019;Rydgren 2013) and Social Democratic parties have suffered losses amongst its traditional working-class base (Arndt 2013;Gingrich and Häusermann 2015;Rennwald 2020). Some scholars believe this is occurring because voters are increasingly being mobilised via identity rather than distributive politics (Häusermann et al 2020;Häusermann and Kriesi 2015). Most notably, populists on the far right have been able to capitalise and make identity issues more salient, which has precipitated a debate surrounding the benefits of Social Democrats pursuing a so-called 'accommodation strategy' .…”

Labour market institutions and immigration policy attitudes: The moderated impact of economic vulnerability

“…The theoretical framework is based on earlier work on the impact of labour market inequalities on mass politics in the past two decades (Häuserman et al, 2020; Kurer et al, 2019; Rehm, 2016; Rueda, 2008). Whereas some have concentrated on the preference cleavages as a consequence of socio‐economic status differences from the perspective of skills, education levels, income and employment status (Rueda, 2005), others have used a prospective measure of risks involved in potential job losses (Rehm, 2016; Schwander & Häusermann, 2013).…”

“…Instead, when it comes to the contextual mitigators, macroeconomic conditions (such as unemployment rates and economic growth) and the demographic composition of host societies (such as the stock share of immigrants) have mostly been the centre of attention (Bearce & Roosevelt, 2019; Billiet et al, 2014; Polavieja, 2016). This gap is particularly troublesome because the extent to which economic vulnerabilities trigger polarised policy attitudes is shown to vary substantially between countries (Grande et al, 2019; Häuserman et al, 2020; Heath et al, 2020; Pardos‐Prado, 2020). Furthermore, evidence from comparative political economy demonstrates that economic insecurities are substantively altered by the protective and compensatory social policy conditions in a country, such as unemployment replacement benefits and employment protection measures (Anderson & Pontusson, 2007; Vlandas & Halikiopoulou, 2019).…”