Associate Professor Timm Betz has co-authored -- alongside Paul Binder and Jonas Geus (both LMU-Munich) -- a new article in the British Journal of Political Science. 

The article, titled, "Global Markets and Local Representation," describes a thus far unexplored consequence of globalization pressures: the place-based nature of globalization pressures reinforces local identity and moves voters towards candidates with local ties, especially when they hit key industries in local economic clusters. The paper offers a novel perspective on how economic globalization affects politics, and highlights the political consequences of spillovers in local economies.

Read the abstract below and the full article on the journal's website.

ABSTRACT:

How do global market pressures affect domestic politics? A well-established literature documents that import competition fuels the rise of populist leaders and right-wing parties. We shift attention to a thus far unexplored consequence: the place-based nature of globalization pressures moves voters towards candidates with local ties. These effects are most pronounced where import pressures raise the salience of pre-existing local identities, and where import pressures hit key industries in local economic clusters, creating spillovers throughout the community. We offer evidence from elections to the US House of Representatives from 2002 to 2016, focusing on candidates’ place of birth as expression of local ties. Our results provide a novel perspective on how economic globalization affects politics: local ties are a key dimension of descriptive representation, translating the place-based economic consequences of globalization into politics. Moreover, we highlight how indirect exposure to global markets through spillovers shapes the political response to globalization.