Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-rvbq7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T02:38:25.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Quitting globalization: trade-related job losses, nationalism, and resistance to FDI in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2019

Yilang Feng ,
Andrew Kerner  and
Jane L. Sumner Open the ORCID record for Jane L. Sumner [Opens in a new window]
Yilang Feng
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Andrew Kerner
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States
Jane L. Sumner*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jlsumner@umn.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Existing research has found that American politicians benefit from trying to attract investment and creates jobs. In this paper, we build on this work by describing the drivers of Americans' attitudes toward inward foreign investment (FDI). We posit that foreign and Chinese investment are different than domestic investment in the public imagination and that nationalism and proximity to deindustrialization interact to shape public opinion about them. We propose and test two theories of this interaction using a survey experiment that randomizes whether a respondent is responding to a statement about “business investment,” “foreign business investment,” or “Chinese business investment”. We find that (1) Americans are skeptical of business investments by Chinese, and, to lesser degree, “foreign” firms; (2) the gap in enthusiasm for generic business investment and foreign/Chinese business investment rises with local trade-related job losses; and (3) the distinction between nationalists' and non-nationalists' attitudes toward FDI declines in local job losses.

Keywords

Experimental researchinternational political economypublic opinion
Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 292 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D, Autor, D, Dorn, D, Hanson, GH and Price, B (2016) Import competition and the great US employment sag of the 2000s. Journal of Labor Economics 34, S141–S198.Google Scholar
Autor, DH, Dorn, D, Hanson, GH and Song, J (2014) Trade adjustment: worker-level evidence. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, 1799–1860.Google Scholar
Autor, DH, Dorn, D and Hanson, GH (2016) The China shock: learning from labor-market adjustment to large changes in trade. Annual Review of Economics, 8, 205–240.Google Scholar
Autor, DH, Dorn, D and Hanson, GH (2017) When work disappears: manufacturing decline and the falling marriage-market value of men (No. 23173). National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w23173.Google Scholar
Baughn, CC and Yaprak, A (1996) Economic nationalism: conceptual and empirical development. Political Psychology 17, 759–778.Google Scholar
Bobo, L (1983) Whites' opposition to busing: symbolic racism or realistic group conflict? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45, 1196.Google Scholar
Brief, AP, Umphress, EE, Dietz, J, Burrows, JW, Butz, RM and Scholten, L (2005) Community matters: realistic group conflict theory and the impact of diversity. Academy of Management Journal 48, 830–844.Google Scholar
Che, Y, Lu, Y, Pierce, JR, Schott, PK and Tao, Z (2016) Trade Liberalization with China Influence US Elections? (No. w22178). National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w22178.Google Scholar
Corasaniti, N, Burns, A and Appelbaum, B (2016) Donald Trump vows to rip up trade deals and confront China, N.Y.. TIMES (28 June, 2016), http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/politics/donald-trump-trade-speech.html.Google Scholar
Dutt, P and Mitra, D (2005) Political ideology and endogenous trade policy: an empirical investigation. Review of Economics and Statistics 87, 59–72.Google Scholar
Feigenbaum, JJ and Hall, AB (2015) How legislators respond to localized economic shocks: evidence from Chinese import competition. The Journal of Politics 77, 1012–1030.Google Scholar
Filindra, A and Pearson-Merkowitz, S (2013) Together in good times and bad? How economic triggers condition the effects of intergroup threat. Social Science Quarterly 94, 1328–1345.Google Scholar
Greenberg, S and Zdunkewicz, N (2016) Public anger about corporate power dominant factor in views on trade & TPP. Available at https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/greenberg-polling-memo-july-2016.pdf.Google Scholar
Guisinger, A (2014) Racial diversity and redistribution: Explaining (white) Americans’ continued support for trade protection. In Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Hiscox, MJ (2006) Through a glass and darkly: attitudes toward international trade and the curious effects of issue framing. International Organization 60, 755–778.Google Scholar
Jackson, JW (1993) Realistic group conflict theory: a review and evaluation of the theoretical and empirical literature. Psychological Record. 43, 395–415.Google Scholar
Jensen, NM and Lindstädt, R (2013) Globalization with whom: context-dependent foreign direct investment preferences. Working Paper.Google Scholar
Jensen, NM and Malesky, EJ (2018) Incentives to Pander: How Politicians Use Corporate Welfare for Political Gain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, JB, Quinn, DP and Weymouth, S (2017) Winners and losers in international trade: The effects on US presidential voting. International Organization 71(3), 423–457.Google Scholar
Kerner, A, Sumner, JL and Richter, BK (2017) Exposure to Chinese offshoring and support for free trade. Working Paper.Google Scholar
LeVine, RA and Campbell, DT (1972) Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group Behavior. Oxford, England: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Macesich, G (1985) Economic Nationalism and Stability. New York, NY: Prager.Google Scholar
Mansfield, ED and Mutz, DC (2009) Support for free trade: self-interest, sociotropic politics, and out-group anxiety. International Organization 63, 425–457.Google Scholar
Mansfield, ED and Mutz, DC (2013) US versus them: mass attitudes toward offshore outsourcing. World Politics 65, 571–608.Google Scholar
Margalit, Y (2011) Costly jobs: trade-related layoffs, government compensation, and voting in U.S. elections. American Political Science Review 105, 166–188.Google Scholar
Pandya, SS (2010) Labor markets and the demand for foreign direct investment. International Organization 64, 389–409.Google Scholar
Pandya, SS (2014) Trading Spaces: Foreign Direct Investment Regulation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1970–2000.Google Scholar
Pandya, SS (2016) Political economy of foreign direct investment: globalized production in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 455–475.Google Scholar
Paquette, D (2017) 18 September, 2017 Los Angeles Times, Wisconsin governor signs bill offering Foxconn $3 billion in tax credits.Available at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foxconn-wisconsin-20170918-story.html.Google Scholar
Pierce, JR and Schott, PK (2016 a) Trade liberalization and mortality: evidence from US counties (No. w22849). National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Pierce, JR and Schott, PK (2016 b) The surprisingly swift decline of US manufacturing employment. American Economic Review 106, 1632–1662.Google Scholar
Pinto, PM (2013) Partisan Investment in the Global Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Pinto, PM and Pinto, SM (2008) The politics of investment partisanship and the sectoral allocation of foreign direct investment. Economic and political 20, 216–254.Google Scholar
Rho, S and Tomz, M (2017) Why don't trade preferences reflect economic self-interest? International Organization 71, S85–S108.Google Scholar
Rosen, D and Haneman, T (2017) New neighbors 2017 update: Chinese FDI in the United States by Congressional district Rhodium Group. Available at http://rhg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RHG_New-Neighbors_2017-Update_Reduced.pdf Rhodium Group. China Investment Monitor. Available at http://cim.rhg.com.Google Scholar
Rosen, D, Hanneman, T and Gao, C (2016) Two-way street: 2017 update Rhodium Group. Available at http://rhg.com/reports/two-way-street-2017-update.Google Scholar
Sabet, S (2016) Feelings first: non-material factors as moderators of economic self-interest effects on trade preferences. Unpublished manuscript, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Available at http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ssabet/files/sabet_feelings_first_.pdf.Google Scholar
Scheve, K and Slaughter, MJ (2004) Economic insecurity and the globalization of production. The American Journal of Political Science 48, 662–674.Google Scholar
The Economist (2016) What the world thinks about globalization. Available at https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/11/daily-chart-12.Google Scholar
Tingley, D, Xu, C, Chilton, A and Milner, HV (2015) The political economy of inward FDI: opposition to Chinese mergers and acquisitions. The Chinese Journal of International Politics 8, 27–57.Google Scholar
Zárate, MA, Garcia, B, Garza, AA and Hitlan, RT (2004) Cultural threat and perceived realistic group conflict as dual predictors of prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40, 99–105.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Feng et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/MUDDIH
Link
Supplementary material: File

Feng et al. supplementary material

Feng et al. supplementary material 1

Download Feng et al. supplementary material(File)
File 37.4 KB