Electoral consequences of globalization for social democratic parties across European regions

Abstract

The paper investigates the influence of regional import shocks from low-wage countries on electoral support for European social democratic parties in 289 NUTS2 regions (2002–2022). The estimates suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the import shock from low-wage countries over an election period may lead to a decline in support for social democratic parties between 0.6 and 1.2 percentage points. Similar results also apply to imports from Asian economies, such as China and India. The negative impact on electoral support for social democratic parties is amplified in moderately industrial and predominantly rural regions. For the former, the decline in industrial employment led to a shift of social democratic voters to the radical right. In contrast, in the latter case, the relatively slower growth of employment in the tertiary and quaternary sectors and the peripheral position of these regions caused a shift to the radical left.