Cultural backlash to globalization and right-wing power: Import competition shaping sexual beliefs in Western Europe

Sammanfattning: Does economic globalization impact sexual beliefs, contributing to the rise of right-wing parties? Although voters may not discern threats from trade shocks, individual economic insecurity theoretically impacts cultural attitudes and sparks a backlash towards outgroups, in turn contributing to right-wing candidates that campaign leveraging intolerance. Considering that scholars provide evidence for import competition strengthening support for right-wing parties, this study accounts for the peculiarities of European Parliament elections and their electoral outcomes of 2019. To test these hypotheses, I use rich individual-level survey data, the Eurobarometer 91.4, and construct the measure of import competition per worker (IPW) using trade data from Eurostat Comext from 2015 to 2019, normalized and weighted by regional employment conditions retrieved from ARDECO. I provide a novel modification to the instrumental variable strategy to rule out endogeneity and specify the 2SLS estimation based on recent literature. The analysis presents estimates showing that imports from BRICS and low-income countries affect in different magnitudes attitudes towards same-sex, transgender, and intersex relationships. Estimates are positive and robust, thus opposing a causal cultural backlash mechanism for the case of Western European sexual beliefs. The novel evidence suggests that they are not leveraged by right-wing candidates to the European Parliament, and heterogeneity tests allude to country-specific processes to be determined in future research. Additionally, effects are concentrated among ingroup members of society, slightly stronger for males, while sexual minorities notably display positive attitudes driven by globalization shocks.