The Backlash Against Globalization

Abstract

In recent years, the world has seen a rising backlash against globalization. This article reviews the nature, causes, and consequences of the globalization backlash. It shows that, contrary to a popular narrative, the backlash is not associated with a large swing in public opinion against globalization but is rather a result of its politicization. The increasing influence of globalization-skeptic actors has resulted in more protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist policies, some of which fundamentally threaten pillars of the contemporary international order. Both material and nonmaterial causes drive the globalization backlash, and these causes interact and mediate each other. The consequences are shaped by the responses of societal actors, national governments, and international policy makers. These responses can either yield to and reinforce the global backlash or push back against it. Understanding these dynamics will be an important task for future research. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24 is May 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Environmental Impacts and Public Opinion About International Trade: Experimental Evidence from Six OECD Countries

“…Our findings have important implications for policy makers, especially in light of the current backlash against globalization (Norris and Inglehart 2019;Rodrik 2018;Walter 2020). Especially in this zeitgeist, in which the negative effects of trade liberalization are omnipresent, we believe that our results provide a glimmer of hope.…”

Challenges to globalization and its impact on prevailing international liberal order

“…Monetary globalization likewise matters, extremist rightwing parties tend to flourish in the fallout of worldwide monetary crisis that hit communities more earnestly by global monetary stuns and the crisis show a more grounded support for nationalist parties. Similarly, the impacts of trade stuns on voting conduct have been built up by the worldwide monetary crisis as well as the euro crisis (Walter, 2021). Trade has solid distributive outcomes, produces grievances and assists inequality in both developing and developed nations, and this examination propose that inexorably, this is met with a backlash response.…”

“…These patterns have been increased by a decline in income, corporate and wealth taxes cultivated by monetary globalization, which have added to an ascent in inequity as well as limited the state's capacity to remunerate the losers of these progressions. These major monetary changes have together expanded local discrepancies as well as socio-economic disparities, which have given a favourable ground for globalization backlash (Walter, 2021).…”

“…International institutions as assorted as the International Criminal Court, the World Health Organization, or the European Union have lost significant member nations, and drives for new peaceful accords have been difficult to finish up. At long last, there is additionally developing reaction against cultural and social globalization, for example, antiimmigrant response, anti-tourism contests, as well as an overall worry about the loss of local culture, values and traditions in a globalized world (Walter, 2021).…”

“…A persuasive narrative holds that challenge to globalization is entrenched in the mass public, where an emerging percentage of losers of globalization progressively lash out against globalization in its various appearances. The most definite and weighty instances of this eminent backlash are the political achievements of nationalist applicants, for example, Jair Bolsonaro or Donald Trump and the Brexit choice vote (Walter, 2021).…”