Representation and reward: the left-wing anti-globalization alliance, contributions, and the congress

Abstract

Left-wing opposition to globalization lives, among voters and interest groups, both labor and progressive. But have left-wing opponents of trade successfully cultivated representation? Using the US Congress as a case, I show that two distinct groups of Democrats vote in characteristically progressive and protectionist ways on trade bills. These groups, especially progressives, are rewarded with excess campaign contributions from publicly anti-trade groups. A dyadic research design shows that interest group/representative relationships degrade noticeably when members of Congress vote for trade bills that interest groups have opposed. While recent events have highlighted business interests and right-wing economic populism, left-wing opposition to globalization remains a vibrant third face of contemporary domestic contestation over trade that will be especially important where populists fade.

Keywords:

• Globalization
• unions
• fair trade
• campaign contributions
• representation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 On opposition to trade from labor unions, see Jansa and Hoyman (2018), Saltzman (1987), Engel and Jackson (1998), Jackson and Engel (2003). On opposition to trade from the progressive left, see Ehrlich (2010, Ehrlich, 2018), Postnikov and Bastiaens (2020), Bastiaens and Postnikov (2020).

2 The complex effects of trade can complicate simple mappings from labor to the left and business to the right (McKibben & Taylor, 2020). Labor and capital stuck in uncompetitive industries might target one party jointly, for example. Right-wing politicians use opportunistic appeals on trade to attract workers, too. The highly articulated preference heterogeneities within factors and industries that characterize 21st century trade politics make exceptions to the labor-left and capital-right tendencies especially common. Still, these tendencies are observed frequently across countries and over time, and provide a useful structure for understanding the partisan politics of materially driven trade opposition.

3 Note that the claim here is not that labor is uniformly protectionist; workers in some occupations, industries, or firms may be quite pro-trade. The only claim is that workers or unions that are opposed to trade will generally use left-wing parties as a vehicle for their concerns because of left-labor links.

4 Mansfield et al. (2021), Mutz (2018), Nguyen (2017), Goldstein and Gulotty (2019).

5 Locke (2013), Postnikov and Bastiaens (2014), Hafner-Burton (2005), Morin et al. (2018), Bernauer and Nguyen (2015), Spilker et al. (2018).

6 Though, see Fowler et al. (2020).

7 The voting data comes from GovTrack.us. I provide a complete list of the trade bills in Appendix A, tables A1 and A2.

8 A 3-dimensional model offered only marginal improvement ($92.2\mathrm{\%}$ and $95.1\mathrm{\%}$).

9 In the House, the second cluster reduces unexplained variance relative to one cluster by $38\mathrm{\%};$ a sixth and seventh cluster by $4.6\mathrm{\%}$ and $2.7\mathrm{\%},$ respectively. In the Senate, that sixth and seventh cluster reduce variance by $4.5\mathrm{\%}$ and $2.2\mathrm{\%}.$

10 All data on legislator characteristics is from https://voteview.com/data.

11 State trade data is from https://usatrade.census.gov/ and is measured in the year of the campaign cycle.

12 Voting in a Protectionist fashion has a clearly and consistently negative impact on contributions from pro-trade groups.

13 Future work might distinguish among these alternatives as more data becomes available on patterns of voting and contributions over time.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iain Osgood

Iain Osgood is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. His research examines the special interest politics of trade and global production.