Globalization Backlash in Developing Countries: Broadening the Research Agenda

• Author: Niccolò W. Bonifai,Nita Rudra,Irfan Nooruddin
• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211037575
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2021, Vol. 54(13) 2416–2441

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140211037575

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Globalization Backlash

in Developing Countries:

Broadening the

Research Agenda

Nita Rudra

1

, Irfan Nooruddin

1

, and

Niccol `

o W. Bonifai

1



Abstract

This special issue explores why the globalization backlash is roiling rich in-

dustrialized countries. But why is the backlash less salient in developing ones?

In this piece, we challenge scholars to consider why the backlash has not

diffused widely to the developing world. We argue support for globalization

depends on citizens’expectations of future economic mobility. This is high in

the early phases of globalization which encapsulates many developing

economies. Since information about globalization’s effects is limited, observed

mobility of some sustains optimism that the new economic order will allow

everyone to prosper. Over time, unrealized expectations of mobility for less-

skilled workers puncture this optimism. Such workers in rich countries are

long past the honeymoon phase of globalization and confronting realities of

stagnant incomes and job precarity. Barring visionary policies unlikely to

emerge from today’s polarized politics, their discontent will soon be shared by

their developing country counterparts, dooming future globalization.

Keywords

globalization, political economy, economic policy, economic liberalization,

developing countries

1

Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nita Rudra, Government, Georgetown University, Intercultural Center (ICC) 594, 37 & O

Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA.

Email: nr404@georgetown.edu

A dense set of multilateral frameworks was built after the Second World War

to support a deeply globalized economy. This global order was enabled by a

commitment to openness across the advanced industrial world, which reaped

the benefits of trade and investment opportunities manifold. National incomes

rose and average citizens in these countries came to take for granted a quality

of life—in terms of income and opportunities—that would have been un-

imaginable for their grandparents. Yet, amidst this wealth and prosperity, a

curious backlash against the proverbial hand-that-fed-them has emerged.

Populist xenophobic responses to globalization have become the political

mainstream, with leaders questioning the legitimacy of the very global liberal

order their predecessors built, in spite of the many benefits their citizens had

experienced.

1

The articles in this issue explore the political and economic causes and

consequences of greater international market openness. Taken as a set, and in

conjunction with the broader literature, this special issue generates new

evidence and insights into the growing globalization backlash in rich in-

dustrialized countries, such as Switzerland, the United States, the United

Kingdom, and other Western European countries. They also expose a core

puzzle, yet unanswered: why has the globalization backlash been sharper and

more vituperative in rich countries than in developing ones?

In 2002, 91% of Americans surveyed said that trade was good for their

country. By 2007, this had fallen to 63%. Sharp drops in public support for

trade openness also occurred in other developed nations, such as Italy and

France. Yet support for economic openness remains strong in many devel-

oping countries. For example, in 2002, over 99% of those surveyed in

Vietnam expressed approval of trade and this support had only marginally

reduced in 2014 (Pew Center, 2018). Public support for trade is matched by

government enthusiasm for openness, as suggested by the proliferation in the

cumulative number of South-South preferential trade agreements (see

Figure 1).

Of course, not all developing countries are equally gung-ho abut trade. In

2007, over 35% of respondents in Egypt believed trade to be either “bad”or

“very bad.”Between 2002 and 2018, the general public in Brazil, India,

Mexico, and South Africa reduced their support toward trade, though the

average level remained still relatively high (trade is “somewhat good”). These

data suggest that support for globalization varies not only across rich and poor

countries but also within countries over time. A key question is why? Our

collective search for answers in this special issue has focused almost ex-

clusively on conditions that prevail in advanced industrialized countries (e.g.,

formal compensation mechanisms, sovereignty costs related to membership in

a unique political and economic union) to explain support for globalization,

with an implicit assumption that the explanatory utility of these factors,

slightly adjusted for context, “travels”to the developing world. The truth is

Rudra et al. 2417