The Politics of the Backlash Against Globalization: Discourse, and Attitudes

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The rising electoral success of politicians and parties campaigning on anti-globalization platforms, and the increasing politicization of various forms of international economic integration over the last decade, have prompted the development of a rich literature on the backlash against globalization. This literature has explored in-depth various determinants of the backlash, including both economic and cultural explanations. However, it also raises important new questions: how does anti-globalization rhetoric and discourse affect individuals’ attitudes and support for democratic norms? How do other norms, such as traditional gender roles or opposition to right-wing extremism, shape views on globalization? What role do strategic actors play in the backlash against globalization?

Our panel explores these questions in the context of a number of advanced democracies in North America and Western Europe. In the first paper, Andrew Kerner and Jane Sumner explore the relationship between gender norms and support for globalization. They argue that attitudes towards globalization are shaped by the fact that voters perceive economic integration as a threat to jobs that are traditionally coded as “male” in the United States. In the second paper, Sara Goodman studies the effect of invoking immigration as a threat to norms related to democratic citizenship in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. She finds that immigration threats are filtered through political cleavages in polarized settings.

Similarly focusing on the effects of political rhetoric on individual attitudes, Nina Obermeier analyzes the relationship between growing extremism among right-wing populist parties and public opinion towards different forms of international economic integration in Western Europe in the third paper. Finally, Aycan Katitas explores the effect of anti-globalization priming by political elites on public opinion towards free trade and immigration in the United States, using a large-scale survey experiment to test how anti-trade and ethnonationalist ads affect political attitudes. Together, these papers point to new areas of research within scholarship on the backlash against globalization and deepen our understanding of this increasingly important topic.

Sub Unit

• Division 16: International Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• Gender Roles and Threat Perception Due to Globalization - Andrew Kerner, Michigan State University; Jane Lawrence Sumner, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Right-Wing Populism and Support for International Economic Integration in Europe - Nina Obermeier, Cornell University

• Economic Shocks, Political Cues, and the Backlash Against Globalization - Aycan Katitas, Princeton University

• The China Paradox: What Trade Rules for a (Developing) Economic Powerhouse? (Pre-Recorded) - Kristen Hopewell, University of British Columbia

• Mass Public Opinions Towards Trade Balances: Mercantilism 2.0 (Pre-Recorded) - Tanja Schweinberger, University of Geneva

Discussant

• James Hodgdon Bisbee NYU