Economic Insecurity and the Rise of the Right

Walter Bossert (1, 2) , Andrew E. Clark (3, 4) , Conchita d'Ambrosio (5) , Anthony Lepinteur (5)

1 CIREQ - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative
2 University of Montreal
3 PSE - Paris School of Economics
4 PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques
5 INSIDE - INtegrative research unit on Social and Individual DEvelopment

Economic insecurity has attracted growing attention in social, academic and policy cir- cles. However, there is no consensus as to its precise de_nition. Intuitively, economic insecurity is multi-faceted, making any comprehensive formal de_nition that subsumes all possible aspects extremely challenging. We propose a simpli_ed approach, and character- ize a class of individual economic-insecurity measures that are based on the time pro_le of economic resources. We then apply our economic-insecurity measure to data on political preferences. In US, UK and German panel data, and conditional on current economic resources, economic insecurity is associated with both greater political participation (sup- port for a party or the intention to vote) and notably more support for parties on the right of the political spectrum. We in particular _nd that economic insecurity predicts greater support for both Donald Trump before the 2016 US Presidential election and the UK leaving the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Mots clés: Economic index numbers; Insecurity; Political participation; Conservatism; Right-leaning political parties; Trump; Brexit

Domaines: Economies et finances

Walter Bossert, Andrew E. Clark, Conchita d'Ambrosio, Anthony Lepinteur. Economic Insecurity and the Rise of the Right. 2019. ⟨halshs-02325984⟩