The Role of Policy in Achieving Shared, Sustainable Economic Prosperity

Jeffry Frieden on Globalization, the Rise of Populism, and the Future of Democracy January 2020. GrowthPolicy’s Devjani Roy interview Jeffry Frieden, Chair of the Department of Government at Harvard and Stanfield Professor of International Peace, on globalization, the rise of populism, and the future of democracy. | Click here for more interviews like this one. […]

Compensation, Austerity, and Populism. Jeffry Frieden, December 6, 2019, Paper, “The existence of comprehensive social policies to compensate those who might be harmed by integration is widely seen as an important precondition for public support for economic and political integration in western Europe. However, many western European countries reduced spending on income maintenance after 1990. In countries hard hit by the sovereign debt crisis, there have also been significant cuts to social services. We evaluate the impact of levels of social spending on public support for populist parties. We also evaluate the impact of austerity measures on support for such parties. We examine a panel of 187 elections from 1990-2017 and analyze pooled cross-sectional data from eight waves of the European Social Survey. We find evidence that populist parties fare worse where countries spend more on social support, and where spending has not been reduced from historical levels. On the other hand, where countries spend less on income maintenance, and/or have decreased spending from earlier levels, populist vote shares are consistently higher, and the likelihood of supporting populist parties greater. This relationship holds when controlling for a range of individual and macroeconomic factors, including occupational and educational characteristics, unemployment, economic growth, and immigration rates. The growing strength of populist political parties is rooted in long-term economic and cultural changes, but appropriate social policies may moderate their appeal.” Link

Niall Ferguson on Capitalism in Crisis. Niall Ferguson, November 8, 2019, Video, “If your company has not been in the crosshairs—or let me be more precise—has not been on the receiving end of a Twitter storm, then don’t worry, it soon will be,” says Niall Ferguson in this talk on capitalism in crisis.” Link

What’s Driving Populism? Dani Rodrik, July 9, 2019, Opinion, “If authoritarian populism is rooted in economics, then the appropriate remedy is a populism of another kind – targeting economic injustice and inclusion, but pluralist in its politics and not necessarily damaging to democracy. If it is rooted in culture and values, however, there are fewer options.” Link

How the Failure of “Prestige Markets” Fuels Populism. Ricardo Hausmann, May 9, 2019, Opinion, “Given the requirements of today’s technology, dismissing expertise as privilege is dangerous. That’s why a well-functioning prestige market is essential to reconciling technological progress and the maintenance of a healthy polity.” Link

The Left’s Choice. Dani Rodrik, January 8, 2019, Opinion, “In the face of resurgent right-wing populism, the left’s relative weakness partly reflects the decline of unions and organized labor groups, which have historically formed the backbone of leftist and socialist movements. But four decades of ideological abdication has also played an important role.” Link

Identity Politics and Trade Policy. Elhanan Helpman, October 2, 2018, Paper, “We characterize trade policies that result from political competition when assessments of wellbeing include both material and psychosocial components. The material component reflects, as usual, satisfaction from consumption. Borrowing from social identity theory, we take the psychosocial component as combining the pride and self-esteem an individual draws from the status of groups with which she identities and a dissonance cost she bears from identifying with those that are different from herself.” Link

Populism, Liberalism, and Democracy. Michael Sandel, March 13, 2018, Paper, “The right-wing populism ascendant today is a symptom of the failure of progressive politics. Central to this failure is the uncritical embrace of a neo-liberal version of globalization that benefits those at the top but leaves ordinary citizens feeling disempowered. Progressive parties are unlikely to win back public support unless they learn from the populist protest that has displaced them —not by replicating its xenophobia and strident nationalism, but by taking seriously the legitimate grievances with which these ugly sentiments are entangled. These grievances are not only economic but also moral and cultural; they are not only about wages and jobs but also about social esteem.” Link

Max Weber Lecture with Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School), Fiesole 14. Dani Rodrik, February 2018, Video, “Dani Rodrik delivered a lecture on ‘Globalisation and the populist backlash’ at the EUI addressing how globalisation has affected the diffusion of populism and the distinctive casues of left-wing and right-wing populism.” Link

Giddy Markets and Grim Politics. Kenneth Rogoff, January 8, 2018, Opinion, “Economists have endless debates about whether culture or institutions lie at the root of economic performance. But there is every reason to be concerned that the recent wave of populism is a threat to both.” Link