The Link Between the Shift in Politics and Globalization (VIDEO)
Harvard University and The Fletcher School, Tufts University
This conversation was recorded on December 5, 2018.
The Issue:
The 2016 election was unique in that — for the first time in 75 years — candidates from both political parties, Donald Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders, ran for their party's nomination on platforms that were explicitly hostile to international trade and investment. Why did this happen? In this video, Jeffry Frieden, Professor of Government at Harvard, discusses his research on county-level voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. elections.
What this Means:
Many of the counties that saw the biggest swing in voting patterns between the 2008-2012 elections and 2016 were counties in the industrial belt that have suffered decades of decline due to technological change and trends in international trade and investment. In this context, broad international economic trends have an on-the-ground impact on local society and local politics and, eventually, on national politics.