Power Transitions and International Economic Cooperation

• In Event: The Mass Politics of the Backlash against Globalization

Abstract

What explains the rising tensions in trade politics between the U.S. and China? Unlike existing research, which points to the domestic distributional effects of trade with China, we highlight the international political concerns that arise from the transition of power between the two countries. We expect that public support for bilateral economic cooperation shrinks in the declining country because citizens are increasingly concerned about unequal gains from international economic cooperation. In contrast, citizens in the rising country are keen to foster global cooperation to reap the economic benefits of economic openness and to promote their political clout within international world politics. By means of a survey experiment with nationally representative samples from both China and the United States, we examine how citizens respond to information about the evolution of their countries' economic power vis-à-vis one another. The results confirm our hypotheses. Moreover, the impact of the power transition on support for bilateral cooperation is similar across partisan camps and among citizens with diverse socio-economic status.

Authors

• Quynh Nguyen, Australian National University

• Thomas Sattler, University of Geneva

• Tanja Schweinberger, University of Geneva