Job Insecurity, Local Sociotropism and Anti-Globalization Sentiment

• In Event: Analyzing the Globalization Backlash: New Explanations

Abstract

Individual expressions of anti-globalization sentiment require both a predisposition and activation in order to be expressed. Exposure to trade shocks activate such attitudes in those that perceive insecurity as to their future job prospects. We offer a novel definition of job insecurity, based on the distance both in task and geographical space between occupations, and hence the predisposition to anti-outsider attitudes. Exposure to local, geographically proximate globalization-sourced shocks activate those sentiments, and isolationist and nationalist attitudes emerge. We find strong evidence that US survey respondents in occupations that experience high degrees of risk or vulnerability are more likely to express anti-globalization sentiment, and these sentiments are magnified when those individuals are also exposed by virtue of the district and industry of employment to a globalization shock. Local sociotropism, combined with job insecurity, intensifies anti-outsider sentiments.

Authors

• James Hodgdon Bisbee, NYU

• B. Peter Rosendorff, New York University