Interstate Rivalry and Public Support for Globalization

• In Event: Mass Politics of Trade Cooperation

Abstract

The current anti-globalization backlash in the western world has largely been attributed to economic distress or anxiety about immigrants in certain communities. We demonstrate that perceived strategic competition with rising rival powers, and China in particular, offers an additional explanation for the landscape of support for globalization among the American public today. Leveraging a priming experiment embedded in a geographically representative survey fielded in November 2018, we find that, consistent with recent public opinion polls, there is considerable heterogeneity in public support for trading with the world and with China. Support is divided sharply across partisan lines, with Democrats being significantly more in favor of both. The effect of perceived interstate rivalry on attitudes is moderated by partisanship and exposure to economic distress. Reminding respondents of rivalry with China significantly reduces Democrats’ support for trading with the world and particularly those Democrats insulated from import competition, but has little effect on Republicans. Our findings suggest that perceived inter-state rivalry can play a significant role in building support for an anti-globalization stance, particularly among constituents who have high baseline support for globalization. A replication study we fielded in August 2019, however, suggests that this anti-globalization reaction among Democrats in response to rivalry with China might have been short-lived.

Authors

• Lauren Prather, University of California, San Diego

• Weiyi Shi, University of California, San Diego