1. Celeste Beesley Ida Bastiaens
Exploring the Globalization-Participation Connection: Survey Evidence on Voting Patterns among Winners And Losers
Celeste Beesley
Ida Bastiaens

2. Research vs. Reality: Globalization & Voting
Trump, Brexit  Voters are successfully pushing back against globalization
Political science evidence that globalization depresses voter turnout (Steiner 2010, Karp and Milazzo 2016)
How can we reconcile these empirical results with recent events? Why might voters now mobilize against globalization?

3. Contribution
Distributional Impacts of Globalization Matter
Electoral and Policy Context Matters

4. Puzzle in Current Research: Gov’t RTM but Less Voting?
Micro-level survey data research: Broader public perceive government has room to maneuver under globalization (Hellwig, Ringmuth, and Freeman 2008)
Political engagement on non-economic issues (Hellwig )
Macro-level panel data research: Globalization decreases voter turnout (Karp and Milazzo 2016, Steiner 2010, 2016)
Trade no impact on voter turnout, FDI decreases it (Marshall and Fisher 2015)
Assumptions about decreased room to maneuver

5. Our argument: Globalization Losers more likely to turnout to vote when they perceive probable electoral victory
Distributional impacts of globalization critical
Prospect Theory
↑ grievance ↑ likelihood of taking action, i.e., voting
Losers more likely to vote than winners
However, mediated by perception of individual on likelihood of winning
Strategic Voter/Representation Model
If my views shared by large group ↑ likelihood of voting
If my views shared by a small minority ↓ likelihood of voting

7. Testable hypotheses
Globalization’s losers, who also perceive themselves to be in the majority, are more likely to vote than globalization’s winners
Globalization’s losers, who also perceive themselves to be in the majority, are more likely to vote than globalization’s losers who perceive themselves to be in the minority

8. Original Qualtrics Survey
DVs:
Room to Maneuver:
“How much does the government’s economic policies influence how your family is doing economically/ national economy is doing? None at all (1)… A Great Deal (6).”
Likelihood of Voting:
“How likely are you to vote in the next election? Very likely (4), somewhat likely, not very likely, not likely at all (1).”
IVs:
Neutral information about either Trade or MNCs (Randomized, but all receive it)
Self Reported Losers vs Winners:
Prime on Globalization
Then ask, “Thinking about you and your family personally,  do you think multinational companies in [OR trade between] the U.S. and other countries is a very good thing, somewhat good, somewhat bad or a very bad thing?”
Perception on American Public View of Globalization
“In your opinion, do most Americans believe that globalization is good for the economy or bad for the economy?” (0= good, 1=bad)
Controls: Female, partisanship, income, age, education, political interest, policy affects family, RTM
Model: Ordinary Least Squares (ordered logit as robustness check) on 1500 respondents in USA

9. Corroborating Previous Findings: Globalization and Room to Maneuver

10. Corroborating Previous Findings: Globalization and General Voting Behavior

11. Testing our hypotheses: Losers*Majority Perception

12. Controls: female, partisanship, income, age, education, political interest, policy affects family, RTM

15. Robustness Check: MTurk

16. Conclusions & Future Research
Lend insight into why the losers of globalization are engaging more in elections in recent years
Messaging surrounding globalization policy very important
Context of the election matters
Questions to continue to explore:
Do findings translate outside majoritarian electoral systems?
Does argument apply to other forms of political participation (protest, donations)?
What is impact of other forms of globalization (migration, financial flows) on voting?

17. Appendix

18. Globalization Primes
MNC Treatment: “A multinational company is a firm that has business and/or production operations located in more than one country. In 2016, US multinational companies invested over $300 billion in new business operations in other countries (around 2% of total national production). Foreign multinational companies invested over $468 billion in new business operations within the United States (around 3% of total national production). Investment in multinational companies both into and out of the United States increased over the past year. Foreign investment into the United States increased nearly 20% and US investment abroad increased by 7%.”
Trade Treatment: “Imports occur when American firms and consumers buy goods and services produced by other countries. Exports occur when foreign firms and consumers buy goods and services produced in the United States. In 2017, the US imported $2.9 trillion worth of goods and services (around 15% of total national production) and exported $2.3 trillion worth of goods and services (around 12% of total national productions). Both imports and exports increased by around 6% over the previous year.”