Globalization and Populism in Europe

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University (Zentrum für Internationale Studien (ZIS)), course: International Political Economy, language: English, abstract: This paper is dedicated to the question how so-called globalization shocks affect voting outcomes and the rise of populism. The thesis brought forward is that strong 'domestic institutions' help soften the societal turmoil caused by globalization, both economically and politically. Building on existing arguments (Rodrick, Manow), the paper argues, however, that the mere existence of strong domestic institutions in the established sense is not enough to prevent populist movements from rising, but needs to be accompanied by feasible policies and a problem-oriented rhetoric that addresses the whole of society. Doing so, the essay systematically distinguishes between economic and political tasks of domestic institutions. The hypothesis is that populists are only successful if domestic institutions fail to fulfil their economic or political task, or in other words, when either 'domestic economic institutions' or 'domestic political institutions' fail. To prove the argument, the paper looks at different examples of domestic institutions in Europe and measures their success in recent elections (reflected in the voting share for populist parties, as of July 2019).