Recent micro-level studies have suggested that globalization - in particular, economic globalization and trade with China - breeds political polarization and populism. This study examines whether or not those results generalize by examining the country-level association between vote shares for European populist parties and economic globalization.
Using data on vote shares for 267 right-wing and left-wing populist parties in 33 European countries during 1980-2017, and globalization data from the KOF-institute, we find no evidence of a positive association between (economic or other types of) globalization and populism. EU-membership is associated with 4 to 6 percentage points larger vote shares for right-wing populist parties.
