Social Psychology and Public Support for Trade Liberalization

Kaltenthaler, Karl; Miller, William J.

doi:10.1111/isqu.12083

Cited by 49 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…18. Edwards 2006Guisinger 2014;Herrmann, Tetlock, and Diascro 2001;Kaltenthaler, Gelleny, and Ceccoli 2004;Kaltenthaler and Miller 2013;Lindsey and Lake 2014;Mansfield and Mutz 2009;Mayda and Rodrik 2005;O'Rourke and Sinnott 2001;Rankin 2001;Rathbun 2016. affected by trade." 19 Xiaobo Lü, Kenneth Scheve, and Matthew Slaughter add that people exhibit "inequity aversion," and therefore prefer trade policies that minimize inequality or combat poverty.…”

Section: Self Interest and The Potential Role Of Economic Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

Rho¹,

Tomz²

2017

Int Org

251

195

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The dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.Over the past two decades, open-economy politics (OEP) has emerged as the dominant paradigm in the field of international political economy. Scholars working in this tradition reason "from the most micro-to the most macro-level." 1 They use economic theory to derive the policy preferences of individuals and groups within a country, and then investigate how political institutions and international bargaining translate preferences into actual policies. Initially developed to explain trade policy, OEP has been extended to many other issues, including international monetary policy, capital controls, foreign investment, foreign aid, and immigration. 2 Today OEP is recognized as the principal approach to international political economy in the United States, and it has transformed scholarship in other parts of the world as well. 3 We are grateful for helpful comments from many colleagues, including

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Section: Self Interest and The Potential Role Of Economic Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

Rho¹,

Tomz²

2017

Int Org

251

195

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…) . In this sense, it should not be surprising that variation in trust has been found to predict attitudes toward a wide range of foreign policy issues, from the use of force to support for free trade (Brewer and Steenbergen ; Chanley ; Brewer ; Binning ; Kaltenthaler and Miller ). Individuals who display less international trust, who are more cynical about the prospects of exploitation by others and thus should be most concerned about maintaining reputations for resolve, should demand audience costs primarily to punish the President for displaying inconsistency, and should hardly be bothered by the President's threat of force.…”

Section: Bringing the Audience Back Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory

Kertzer

Brutger

2015

American J Political Sci

175

165

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According to a growing tradition in International Relations, one way governments can credibly signal their intentions in foreign policy crises is by creating domestic audience costs: leaders can tie their hands by publicly threatening to use force since domestic publics punish leaders who say one thing and do another. We argue here that there are actually two logics of audience costs: audiences can punish leaders both for being inconsistent (the traditional audience cost), and for threatening to use force in the first place (a belligerence cost). We employ an experiment that disentangles these two rationales, and turn to a series of dispositional characteristics from political psychology to bring the audience into audience cost theory. Our results suggest that traditional audience cost experiments may overestimate how much people care about inconsistency, and that the logic of audience costs (and the implications for crisis bargaining) varies considerably with the leader's constituency.

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“…Americans support trade if the U.S. economy will benefit, irrespective of their personal gains. The nonmaterial consequences of economic policies matter, too: Ethnocentrism (Mutz & Kim, ), fears of foreign cultural influence (Margalit, ), social trust (Kaltenthaler & Miller, ), and racial attitudes (Guisinger, ) predict public opposition to free trade.…”

Section: Moral Void: the Absence Of Empirical Ethics In The Study Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Hazard: German Public Opinion on the Greek Debt Crisis

Rathbun

Powers

Anders

2018

Political Psychology

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The recent Eurozone crisis and negotiations over bailout packages to Greece are more than a simple controversy about financial resources. They have a decidedly moralistic overtone. Giving more funds is thought by some to be unfair to hard‐working taxpayers and does not teach Greece an important moral lesson. Yet much international political economy scholarship neglects such considerations. We build on moral psychology to understand the ethical drivers of both German support and opposition to the 2015 Greek government bailout package. We analyze original survey data to show how morality is an essential factor in Germany's hard‐line approach. Our results show that caring and European attachment are associated with bailout support, while authority, national attachment, and retributive fairness drive opposition. Some morals also have boundaries: National attachment attenuates the effect of harm/care on support for foreign financial assistance but strengthens the effect of fairness on bailout opposition. Moral psychology helps us understand foreign policy but must be adapted to account for multiple potential ingroups.

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Social Psychology and Public Support for Trade Liberalization

Cited by 49 publications

References 34 publications

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

Decomposing Audience Costs: Bringing the Audience Back into Audience Cost Theory

Moral Hazard: German Public Opinion on the Greek Debt Crisis

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