Populism and Support for Protectionism: The Relevance of Opposition to Trade Openness for Leftist and Rightist Populist Voting in The Netherlands

Abstract

Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data (n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.

It's not Economic Interventionism, Stupid! Reassessing the Political Economy of Radical Right‐wing Populist Parties

“…Whereas welfare state chauvinism is about protecting the welfare state against the external threat of immigrants, econonomic protectionism is about protecting the country against the external threat of unregulated free trade. Among right‐wing populist voters nativism is closely tied to opposition to trade openness (Van der Waal and De Koster ). While liberal proponents of free trade argue that, in the long term, it is beneficial for economies to be open because it allows them to specialize, radical right‐wing populists see trade in the short‐term as a zero‐sum game where the production of goods can either employ people in the one's own counry or abroad.…”

Euroscepticism among Dutch Leftist and Rightist Populist Constituencies: How can the U‐Curve be Understood?

“…The first two are explanations that may be valid for both leftist and rightist populist constituencies, as they may be conceived of as threats to the people as sovereign. These focus on: their anti‐institutional mood (Canovan, ; Kriesi, ), reflected in distrust of political institutions and politicians (Kemmers et al, ); and opposition to international free trade (Van der Waal and De Koster, ). The third explanation matches a conception of the people as a class and revolves around economic concerns and focuses on opposition to inequality, such as economic egalitarianism (De Koster et al, ; De Vries and Edwards, ).…”

“…Opposition to international free trade does not, in fact, reflect economic concerns, but cultural concerns related to free trade's disruption of the national and cultural order (Hainmueller and Hiscox, ; Margalit, ; Van der Waal and De Koster, ). Concomitantly, support for protectionism proves to be part of the link between ethnocentrism and voting for a rightist populist party, albeit a very minor part (Van der Waal and De Koster, ).…”

“…We measured economic egalitarianism by means of items used in previous research in the Dutch context (see, for example, De Koster et al, ; Van der Waal and De Koster, ): The state should raise social benefits. There is no longer any real poverty in the Netherlands. Large income differences are unfair because everyone is essentially equal. Companies should be obliged to allow their employees to share the profits. …”

“…Ethnocentrism was measured using six items indicating negative prejudice towards outgroups taken from Eisinga and Scheepers () and recently used in the Netherlands (see Van der Waal and De Koster, , ). Foreigners carry all kinds of dirty smells around. With Moroccans you never know for certain whether or not they are going to be aggressive. Most people from Surinam work quite slowly. Most Turks are rather self‐indulgent at work. Foreigners living in the Netherlands should adapt to Dutch uses and customs. The Netherlands should have never let foreign guest workers in. …”