Trade as Villain: Falling Support for Globalization and the Fading American Dream

• In Event: Analyzing the Globalization Backlash: New Explanations

Abstract

The loss of confidence in the American Dream, due to job insecurity, wage stagnation and growing inequality is consequential. The result is a shift in expectations about social and economic mobility that we argue divides Americans’ views of the outside world. To show this effect we examine trade policy attitudes. While no issue was more central to 19th century politics, subsequently, trade policy engendered limited controversy. Today, commercial policy has re-emerged as a source of division among the voting public. To evaluate our argument, we collected and analyzed data from different original sources. First, we draw upon an original panel data set with repeat-observations of the same individual respondents as a way to measure the degree to which attitudes have shifted. Second, we examine whether an individual's underlying beliefs about the requisites of individual economic success are an important determinant of his/her preferences over globalization. Finally, to more directly test the mechanisms by which declining social mobility translates into greater sensitivity to elite frames on trade, we supplement our survey panel data with additional original data from several experiments where we primed survey respondents so as to focus them on the economic hardships US workers have experienced because of international competition. In sum, this study focuses on workers who feel their economic futures are being unjustly punished by ongoing changes in the labor market due to trade. We find that those who are most tied to the myth of an American Dream, that is, who believe in a meritocracy, are the most likely to respond to an anti-trade elite cue.

Authors

• Cameron Ballard-Rosa, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Judith Lynn Goldstein, Stanford University

• Nita Rudra, Georgetown University