The Ideological Foundations of Economic Protectionism: Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation, and the Moderating Role of Political Involvement

Abstract

Even though economic globalization and foreign trade are major topics in the political discourse of most societies and negative attitudes toward international trade are prevalent, there is a lack of research investigating the ideological roots of protectionist preferences from a psychological perspective. In the present research, we examined the implications of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) for trade attitudes. Using data from two nationally representative samples from the United States (Study 1) and Germany (Study 2), we found that RWA predicted protectionist attitudes above and beyond economic self‐interest. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between RWA and opposition to international trade was moderated by political involvement. The association of SDO with protectionist attitudes was inconsistent across the two studies and was not moderated by political involvement. Taken together, these results emphasize the importance of basic ideological orientations and the psychological dispositions they reflect in explaining public attitudes toward international trade.

The Economic Origins of Authoritarian Values: Evidence From Local Trade Shocks in the United Kingdom

“…Using data from the American National Election Studies from 2000 to 2008, Johnston (2013) finds that authoritarian values are the most consistent indicator of individuals' support for import restrictions across all years and models. In Germany, Jedinger and Burger (2020) find that authoritarian values correlate with support for restrictions on foreign trade, controlling for a wide range of other factors.…”

The Backlash Against Globalization

“…In light of this mixed evidence about the role of material self-interest, other authors argue that noneconomic factors such as cultural concerns, identity, ideology, or concerns about sovereignty are much more important drivers of the globalization backlash than material concerns. For example, opposition to economic globalization is stronger among individuals holding right-wing authoritarian, nationalist, and isolationist values and attitudes ( Jedinger & Burger 2020, Mansfield & Mutz 2013) and among those concerned about the negative sociotropic effects of trade (Mansfield & Mutz 2009). Opposition to political and sociocultural globalization is related to concerns about restrictions on national sovereignty (Ecker-Ehrhardt 2014) and a cultural backlash against mainstream culture and neoliberalism (Hopkin & Blyth 2019, Norris & Inglehart 2019.…”

Who Is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

“…Other work suggests that populist radical right parties have greater electoral potential when a higher percentage of immigration opponents hold more redistributive economic views in a protection-based attitude package (Pardos-Prado 2015; see also Cochrane 2013;Gidron and Ziblatt 2019;Lefkofridi and Michel 2017;Webb and Bale 2014). Jedinger and Burger (2019) found that economic protectionism -a part of traditional left-wing platforms -correlates positively with right wing authoritarianism (Altemeyer 1996), an individual difference that reflects cultural traditionalism and authoritarian intolerance. Carmines, Ensley, and Wagner (2016) found that Republicans with a protection-based attitude package were the most likely to support Donald Trump during the 2016 primaries.…”