Neither Left-Behind nor Superstar: Ordinary Winners of Digitalization at the Ballot Box

Abstract

The nascent literature on the political consequences of technological change studies either left-behind voters or successful technology entrepreneurs ("superstars"). However, it neglects the large share of skilled workers who benefit from limited but steady economic improvements in the knowledge economy. This paper studies how workplace digitalization affects political preferences among the entire active labor force by combining individual-level panel data from the United Kingdom with industry-level data on ICT capital stocks between 1997-2017. We first demonstrate that digitalization was economically beneficial for workers with middle and high levels of education. We then show that growth in digitalization increased support for the Conservative Party, the incumbent party, and voter turnout among beneficiaries of economic change. Our results hold in an instrumental variable analysis and multiple robustness checks. While digitalization undoubtedly produces losers (along with some superstars), ordinary winners of digitalization are an important stabilizing force content with the political status quo.

Left Behind Whom? Economic Status Loss and Populist Radical Right Voting

“…These studies alternatively investigate two sets of explanations: distal or proximal. Firstly, the heterogeneous support for PRR parties among workers Figure 1: Theoretical approaches in extant research on status politics is explained through a set of distal economic causes such as exposure to automation (Gallego et al 2020;Im et al 2019;Kurer 2020) and international trade (Ballard-Rosa et al 2018;Colantone and Stanig 2018). 4 With respect to workers' life course, these phenomena do not necessarily lead to financial loss or unemployment (e.g., Cortes 2016).…”