Explaining Popular Support for Corporate Tax Avoidance in Ireland

• In Event: Information, Media and Policy Attitudes in a Populist Age

Abstract

This article examines the role of the mass media in shoring up popular support for corporate tax avoidance, using the case of Apple in Ireland. Using an original and novel survey experiment, we find that media frames play an important role in shaping attitudes toward Apple’s corporate tax avoidance strategies. The more nationalistic the media frame, the more respondents support the Irish governments approach to supporting US multinationals. However, we also find that respondents exposed to treatments questioning the morality and fairness of Ireland’s facilitation of Apple tax avoidance are more likely to acknowledge the negative impact on Ireland’s European neighbours. These results are largely robust to the inclusion of control variables for ideology, age, previous voting behaviour, and gender. These findings suggest that media frames are an important factor in shoring up popular support for those components of national growth regimes that are politically controversial. More broadly, our findings suggest that to understand popular support for national varieties of capitalism in Europe, we need to examine the role of the country-specific media.

Authors

• Liam Kneafsey, Trinity College Dublin

• Aidan Regan, University College Dublin