Multifaceted effects of globalisation on welfare attitudes: When winners and losers join forces

Sijeong Lim, Seiki Tanaka

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

How does economic globalisation influence individuals’ welfare state preferences? Moving beyond the unidimensional understanding of globalisation exposure, we intersect two dimensions of exposure perceptions (gain vs loss and individual vs societal impacts) and propose a novel typology: collective winner, lone winner, lone loser and collective loser. We then explain the preference gap among losers (collective losers vis-à-vis lone losers) and among winners (collective winners vis-à-vis lone winners) by considering three distinct motivations for welfare state support: compensation, risk-pooling and inequality reduction. We illustrate the usefulness of our typology using an original survey in South Korea. We find that lone winners are far more supportive of welfare spending than collective winners. At the same time, collective losers are found to be much more supportive of welfare spending than lone losers. We provide some first-cut evidence that the insurance-seeking motivation common to lone winners and collective losers drive their welfare state support.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-51
Number of pages21
JournalBritish Journal of Politics and International Relations
Volume24
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Feb

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.

Keywords

  • South Korea
  • collective loser
  • economic globalisation
  • insurance seeking
  • lone winner
  • sociotropic perception
  • welfare state attitude

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Political Science and International Relations
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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