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Restrictions to media freedom, in the form of repressive defamation legislation, are thought to affect the amount of information about corruption that the media report. Exploiting variation in regulation of speech across states in a federal country, Mexico, and using a novel data set based on content analysis of the local press, I estimate the effect of lack of freedom on the coverage devoted to acts of malfeasance by public officials. Corruption receives significantly less attention in states with a more repressive defamation law. Instrumental variable models corroborate the interpretation of the negative association between regulation and coverage as a causal 'chilling effect.'. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractWe investigate the impact of globalization on electoral outcomes in 15 Western European countries over 1988–2007. We employ both official election results at the district level and individual‐level voting data, combined with party ideology scores from the Comparative Manifesto Project. We compute a region‐specific measure of exposure to Chinese imports, based on the historical industry specialization of each region. To identify the causal impact of the import shock, we instrument imports to Europe using Chinese imports to the United States. At the district level, a stronger import shock leads to (1) an increase in support for nationalist and isolationist parties, (2) an increase in support for radical‐right parties, and (3) a general shift to the right in the electorate. These results are confirmed by the analysis of individual‐level vote choices. In addition, we find evidence that voters respond to the shock in a sociotropic way.

We show that support for the Leave option in the Brexit referendum was systematically higher in regions hit harder by economic globalization. We focus on the shock of surging imports from China over the past three decades as a structural driver of divergence in economic performance across U.K. regions. An IV approach supports a causal interpretation of our finding. We claim that the effect is driven by the displacement determined by globalization in the absence of effective compensation of its losers. Neither overall stocks nor inflows of immigrants in a region are associated with higher support for the Leave option. A positive association only emerges when focusing on immigrants from EU accession countries. The analysis of individual data suggests that voters respond to the import shock in a sociotropic way, as individuals tend to react to the general economic situation of their region, regardless of their specific condition.

Is there a popular backlash against globalization? When did it start and in which forms? What do we know about its causes? We address these questions in the context of advanced democracies. We see the 'globalization backlash' as the political shift of voters and parties in a protectionist and isolationist direction, with substantive implications on governments' leaning and enacted policies. We discuss the empirical evidence on the backlash. We develop a theoretical discussion within the framework of the crisis of embedded liberalism. We nest within this framework theoretical results from international economics showing how the backlash may arise within standard trade models when considering the 'social footprint' of globalization. These theoretical insights are consistent with available empirical evidence pointing to the role of globalization as a driver of the backlash. Yet, globalization is only one of the drivers of the backlash. There are other economic factors playing a similar role, such as technological change, fiscal austerity, and immigration. Moreover, cultural concerns such as status threat, authoritarianism, and nativism do play a relevant role, with a significant interplay with economic drivers. This calls for a broad and comprehensive approach to the backlash, both from an academic and from a policy making perspective.