Do Parties Matter? Party Positions and European Voters’ Attitudes toward Economic and Political Globalization

Abstract

To what extent do party positions influence voters’ attitudes toward the economic and political aspects of globalization? Initially an issue following a left-right dimension of conflict, globalization increasingly divides mainstream from nonmainstream parties. In this study, I argue that parties help citizens form opinions on globalization issues. I then use data on voters’ attitudes and party positions on globalization to test this supply-side theory of globalization attitudes on both economic and political dimensions. Holding demand-side factors such as economic self-interest and predispositions/values constant, I find that party positions strongly affect voters’ views on economic and political globalization, with the effect being similar to that of education. Moreover, I find that the effect of cues from left- and right-populist parties is much more negative than that of mainstream parties, replicating previous elite-level findings on the positioning of these party families. Finally, green party cues show conflicting results for the economic and political dimensions, with green cues affecting voters negatively on economic globalization but positively on political globalization. The findings in this study call for a deeper exploration of the supply-side determinants of globalization attitudes.

Full text

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The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in Foreign Policy
Analysis, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orae002.
Do Parties Matter? Party Positions and European Voters’ Attitudes Toward
Economic and Political Globalization
Alex Honeker, Texas A&M University, Qatar
Twitter/X: @alexhoneker | E-mail: alexhoneker@tamu.edu
To what extent do party positions influence voters’ attitudes toward the economic and
political aspects of globalization? Initially an issue following a left-right dimension of
conflict, globalization increasingly divides mainstream from nonmainstream parties. In this
study, I argue that parties help citizens form opinions on globalization issues. I then use data
on voters’ attitudes and party positions on globalization to test this supply-side theory of
globalization attitudes on both economic and political dimensions. Holding demand-side
factors such as economic self-interest and predispositions/values constant, I find that party
positions strongly affect voters’ views on economic and political globalization, with the
effect being simi- lar to that of education. Moreover, I find that the effect of cues from left-
and right-populist parties is much more negative than that of mainstream parties, replicating
previous elite-level findings on the positioning of these party families. Finally, green party
cues show conflicting results for the economic and political dimensions, with green cues
affecting voters negatively on economic globalization but positively on political
globalization. The findings in this study call for a deeper exploration of the supply-side
determinants of globalization attitudes.
Keywords: globalization; party positions; party families; free trade; European Union; public
opinion

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1. Introduction
To what extent do party positions influence voters’ attitudes towards economic and political
aspects of globalization? The post-2008 financial crisis world has seen the rise of populist politics
from left and right and with it the elevation of anti-globalization politics to the center of the
political arena. Originally seen as an issue related to free markets and economic liberalism,
globalization—that is, the free flow of goods, services, and capital across the world and the
increasing integration of countries into regional and international organizations—has been
embraced by mainstream parties from left and right. This has been particularly the case post-1990s
with the advent of ‘Third Way’ politics (Giddens 1998) and the pro-market move of social
democratic parties across Europe (Glyn 2001; Ladrech and Marliere 1999). In the last two decades,
however, populist radical parties from left and right—from Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement
National in France to Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland to Spain’s Podemos—have used the
window of opportunity opened by mainstream parties’ convergence to challenge the pro-
globalization consensus of the last decades (De Vries et al. 2021; Walter 2021).
Most studies on the origins of globalization attitudes have tended to focus on demand-side
factors such as economic self-interest derived from theories of international trade (Scheve and
Slaughter 2001; Hays et al. 2005; Mayda and Rodrik 2005; Jamal and Milner 2019) and symbolic
predispositions and values such as xenophobia and ethnocentrism (Margalit 2012; Mutz and Kim
2017), nationalism (Rankin 2001), and isolationism (Mansfield and Mutz 2009). More recent
studies, however, have started to focus on supply-side factors such as party cues and heuristics,
stressing the tendency of the mass public to see events and issues from the point of view of political
elites (Zaller 1992), whether due to an affective attachment to the party they identify with
(Campbell et al. 1960) or as a shortcut to lower information costs (Downs 1957).

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Previous studies find that citizens rely, to a great extent, on elite and party cues to form
opinions on globalization-related issues such as international organizations (Dellmuth and Tallberg
2021) and free trade agreements (Naoi and Urata 2013; Hicks et al. 2014; Dür and Schlipphak
2021). Elite framing effects have also been shown to play an important role in shaping attitudes
towards trade and globalization (Hiscox 2006; Ardanaz et al. 2013). Moreover, the role of populist
parties in stirring anti-globalization sentiment has gained increasing attention in the literature
trying to explain the sources of the anti-globalization backlash (Walter 2021; Honeker 2023).
In this study, I argue that party positions and cues play a crucial role in shaping voters’
views on economic and political globalization, two issues traditionally seen as complex or ‘hard’
for regular voters to fully understand without party or elite heuristics (Carmines and Stimson 1989;
Coan et al. 2008). I, therefore, expect that: first, party positions will affect voters’ attitudes towards
economic and political globalization; and second, different party family cues will influence voters’
views on economic and political globalization in a pattern similar to that previously identified by
the party politics literature at the elite level, with cues from populist or radical left and right parties
having a much more negative effect on globalization attitudes than cues from mainstream parties
(Hooghe et al. 2002; Marks et al. 2006; Burgoon 2012; Colantone and Stanig 2019; Trubowitz and
Burgoon 2020).
I test these hypotheses by combining voter- and party-level data from 26 European
democracies and controlling for the most well-known demand-side factors previously theorized
by the political economy and political psychology literatures to influence globalization attitudes. I
find that party positions on both economic and political aspects of globalization at time t-1 strongly
affect voters’ attitudes towards economic and political globalization at time t. In most cases, this
effect is similar in magnitude to that of education level, one of the most consistent predictors of

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globalization attitudes. Moreover, when exploring cues from different party families, I find that
cues from left- and right-populist parties have a significantly more negative effect on voters’
attitudes than cues from mainstream parties, for both economic and political globalization. Finally,
green party cues show different effects for economic (negative) and political (positive)
globalization.
This study brings together the literatures on public opinion formation, party positioning on
globalization, and voters’ attitudes towards globalization. I incorporate the role of supply-side
factors to the literature on public support for globalization while also using more comprehensive
measures of attitudes beyond support for imports and the European Union. Moreover, by
measuring economic and political globalization separately, I am able to discriminate the
differential effects of party cues on these two dimensions, such as those of green parties. In this
sense, while previous studies on the backlash against globalization have focused on the role of
populist radical parties from left and right, this article suggests green parties also play a role in the
politicization of economic aspects of globalization.
The findings showcase the crucial role political parties play in politicizing and shaping
foreign policy attitudes among voters and call for a greater exploration of the interplay of supply-
and demand-side factors in structuring voters’ support for globalization and other foreign policy
issues. Finally, future studies should also more closely look into the extent to which ‘green
protectionist’ cues drive the current rise in protectionist sentiment across the developed West.
2. Party Cues and Voters’ Policy Attitudes
While the positions of individual parties and party families on globalization issues has been the
focus of several studies (Hooghe et al. 2002; Kriesi et al. 2008; Haupt 2010; Ward et al. 2011;

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Burgoon 2012; Sen and Barry 2020), the relation between party positions and voters’ attitudes
towards different facets of economic and political globalization remains a less explored topic. Most
studies to date on the determinants of voters’ globalization attitudes have focused on attitudes
towards international trade (particularly, attitudes on imports), and have mostly explored demand-
side factors such as economic self-interest derived from theories of international trade (O’Rourke
and Sinnott 2001; Scheve and Slaughter 2001; Hays et al. 2005; Mayda and Rodrik 2005; Jamal
and Milner 2019) and symbolic predispositions and values (Rankin 2001; Mansfield and Mutz
2009; Margalit 2012; Mutz and Kim 2017), neglecting supply-side factors such as party cues and
heuristics.1
At the voter level, the literature on public opinion formation has long theorized about the
importance of party heuristics and elite cues in voters’ information processing and opinion
formation. Party elites provide information to voters when forming their opinions, resulting in the
public tending to see events and issues from the point of view of political elites (Zaller 1992).
Voters employ the information and cues supplied by political parties to derive policy preferences
and perform political evaluations (Bartels 2002; Kam 2005; Carsey and Layman 2006).
The role of party cues in structuring policy attitudes appears to be particularly relevant
when it comes to complex issues such as international affairs and foreign policy (Coan et al. 2008),
about which voters have less knowledge (Delli Carpini and Keeters 1996), with globalization
issues being a subset of these. Previous studies on the determinants of voters’ attitudes towards
international organizations (Dellmuth and Tallberg 2021), free trade agreements (Naoi and Urata
2013, Hicks et al. 2014; Dür and Schlipphak 2021; Honeker 2023), and EU integration (Ray 2003;
1 An exception is the study of party positions and voters’ attitudes towards the European Union and EU integration
(see, for instance, Ray 2003, Steenbergen et al. 2007, Hellström 2008, Down & Wilson 2010, Maier et al. 2012,
Pannico 2020, among others).

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Hellström 2008; Maier et al. 2012) suggest that citizens rely, to a great extent, on elite and party
cues to form opinions on globalization-related issues (for an alternative bottom-up view, see
Kertzer and Zeitzoff 2017, and for a dual-process view see Steenbergen et al. 2007).
Complementing the literature on party cues are studies that show that voters seem to pay attention
to parties’ campaign messages and their policy positions and shifts (Adams et al. 2014; Fernández-
Vázquez 2014). Because foreign policy issues in general, and globalization issues in particular,
are more complex and technical in nature (with the exception of the EU, which is likely to activate
an emotional attachment to national identity), I argue that party cues are likely to play a crucial
role in shaping voters’ attitudes.2 I, thus, hypothesize that:
H1: Parties’ globalization positions at time t-1 will affect voters’ globalization attitudes at time t.
3. Party Elites: Mainstream Convergence and Populist Politicization
The literature on European party politics has traditionally divided political parties between
mainstream and non-mainstream. Mainstream parties have historically been the main parties of
government and, following theories of spatial competition (Downs 1957), have occupied the
moderate ideological spectrum from center-left to center-right. In that sense, the main mainstream
party families have been social democrats, Christian democrats, liberals, and conservatives. On
the other hand, non-mainstream parties are usually conceptualized as those having a more extreme
position on the ideological space (either far-left or far-right) or competing outside the main socio-
economic cleavage (the latter referred to as ‘niche parties’) (Meguid 2005; Adams et al. 2006;
2 Besides a top-down approach where party cues shape voters’ views and a bottom-up approach where voters’
characteristics such as self-interest and values shape their attitudes, an alternative could be that party elites anticipate
public opinion and adjust the party positions accordingly. However, due to the complex nature of globalization issues,
although theoretically possible, this process of anticipated response to public opinion is unlikely (with the exception,
perhaps, of attitudes towards the EU).

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Abou-Chadi 2016). Party families fitting the non-mainstream or niche label are populist radical
parties from left and right, and green parties. Of these, those who have never been in government
have also been referred to as ‘challenger parties’ (De Vries and Hobolt 2020).
During the 1970s and 1980s, economic integration was seen by European political elites as
a way to advance a pro-market agenda—and, thus, mainstream right parties (liberals,
conservatives, and Christian democrats) were the main supporters of the European Single Market
(Fligstein 2009). Since the 1990s, however, free trade agreements and global economic integration
have also become associated with multilateralism and international cooperation, themes that have
been frequently championed by mainstream left political parties (mainly social democrats) in what
some authors have called ‘social democratic multilateralism’ (Held and McGrew 2002). Thus, the
placement of globalization-related issues on a left-right dimension has become less clear.
Moreover, the rise of ‘deep integration’ trade agreements (Lawrence 1996), which go far beyond
a simple reduction in tariffs to include policy harmonization on labor and environmental
regulations, and the evolution of the European Single Market into the supranational institution of
the European Union have somewhat decoupled globalization from an exclusive association with
the economically liberal right.
As mainstream parties have somewhat converged on a pro-globalization agenda since the
1990s, non-mainstream challenger parties from the populist radical left and the populist radical
right have seen an opportunity to politicize globalization-related issues such as further
Europeanization (De Vries and Hobolt 2020) and global economic integration (Colantone and
Stanig 2019; Walter 2021; Zaslove 2008) in order to expand their electoral appeal to segments of
the electorate concerned with a loss of national sovereignty and negatively affected by economic
openness. For instance, previous studies have found evidence of increasing electoral gains for

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populist radical right parties among working class voters (Oesch 2008; Rydgren 2012; Ivaldi 2015;
Oskarson and Demker 2015; Harteveld 2016), former voters of social democratic parties
(Arzheimer 2013; Adorf 2018), and voters from regions more exposed to Chinese imports
(Colantone and Stanig 2018).
Previous studies find evidence of this divergence between mainstream and populist party
elites on globalization issues. Hooghe et al. (2002) find that radical left and right parties are
significantly more opposed to European political and economic integration than mainstream
parties. Similarly, Marks et al. (2006) find that hard Left and ‘hard TAN’ parties (those on the
extreme Traditionalist-Authoritarian-Nationalist end of the GAL-TAN3 dimension) are the main
opponents of European integration, both in Western and Eastern Europe. Burgoon (2012) finds
that both former Communist and nationalist right parties are more likely to espouse anti-EU and
anti-globalization positions overall, whereas mainstream parties are mostly supportive of both the
EU and overall globalization. Colantone and Stanig (2019) identify radical right and far left parties
as the main exponents of economic protectionism and isolationism in Europe, while mainstream
left and right parties mostly support liberalization. Similarly, Zaslove (2008) explores how most
populist right elites have combined opposition to economic globalization to their historical
opposition to political globalization. Finally, Polk and Rosén (2023) find that parties on the
economic hard-left and the cultural hard-right are more likely to support trade protectionism.
Figure 1 uses data from expert surveys and party manifestos to illustrate this divergence
between mainstream and populist parties’ positioning on economic and political globalization and
the so-called ‘inverted U shape’ found in previous studies, with populist radical parties from left
3 ‘GAL’ refers to ‘Green-Alternative-Libertarian.’

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and right at the bottom of the inverted U shape, and mainstream parties (social democrats, liberals,
conservatives, and Christian democrats) at the top of the curve.
While the politicization of globalization by populist radical parties from left and right
shares the populist appeal to ‘the people’ against ‘the elites’, they differ in the main focus of said
politicization. On the one hand, populist radical left parties see globalization as a product of
capitalism and business interests at the detriment of working-class voters. On the other hand,
populist radical right parties see deep integration agreements and supranational structures as
threats to national sovereignty and the nation-state.
Figure 1. Party Elites’ Stances on Globalization Issues.
Notes: Graphs plot the mean position by party family. Subfigures a-c based on Chapel Hill Expert Survey
(Jolly et al. 2022); subfigure d based on Comparative Manifesto Project (Volkens et al. 2019).
Abbreviations: PopLeft=Populist Left, Grn=Green, SocDem=Social Democrat, Lib=Liberal,
Con=Conservative, CDem=Christian Democrat, PopRight=Populist Right. Created by author.

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Both party families associate anti-globalization politics with issues they have traditionally owned
(Walgrave et al. 2012): anti-capitalism in the case of the populist left (Fagerholm 2017) and
nativism in the case of the populist right (Golder 2016; Mudde 2007). I, thus, expect that:
H2: Cues from populist radical parties will lead to anti-globalization attitudes among their voters,
while cues from mainstream parties will lead to pro-globalization attitudes among their voters.
While non-mainstream parties have been less friendly towards economic and political
globalization than mainstream parties (Burgoon 2012; Colantone and Stanig 2019), previous
studies have identified greater opposition among populist parties from left and right than among
green parties (Burgoon 2012). This, in part, reflects a move towards more mainstream positions
among many European green parties in the last two decades, showcased by their increased support
for EU integration (Bomberg and Carter 2006; Hooghe et al. 2002), some green parties’ pragmatic
turn on issues such as NATO membership (Carter 2001), and the formation of green-conservative
government coalitions in Germany at the state level and Austria and Finland at the national level.
However, most green parties still find themselves on the protectionist end of the spectrum when it
comes to economic globalization, adopting a critical position towards free trade agreements and
the role of multinational firms (MNCs). This is illustrated by green parties’ opposition to most
trade agreements negotiated by the EU—for instance, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) and EU-Mercosur (European Green Party 2014, 2019)—and their rhetoric
against consumerism and the activity of multinational firms (MNCs). I, therefore, hypothesize that:

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H3: Cues from green parties will lead to more pro-globalization attitudes among their voters on
political integration relative to populist radical parties. The effect of green party cues on economic
integration will not be significantly different than that of populist radical party cues.
4. Data and Method
I test these hypotheses with data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP)’s National
Identity Waves conducted in 1995, 2003, and 2012-2015 (ISSP Research Group 2015),4 the
Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP; Volkens et al. 2019), and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey
(CHES; Jolly et al. 2022). The ISSP dataset provides different measures of voters’ views on
economic globalization (attitudes towards imports, the principle of free trade, and MNCs) and
political globalization (attitudes towards the European Union and the home country’s participation
in international organizations). My two main dependent variables are indexes of support for
Economic Globalization and Political Globalization,5 which follow a 0-1 continuous scale. The
use of these two indexes has different advantages. First, as the factor analysis confirms, a two-
factor model measuring economic and political globalization as two separate dimensions has a
superior fit than a one-factor model, showing that these two dimensions, while related, still have
unique characteristics. Second, measuring these two dimensions separately allows me to uncover
differences in support for economic and political facets of globalization at the party family level.
Third, and related to the previous point, while previous studies have focused on the role populist
radical parties have played in the backlash against globalization overall, other party families may
play a role in the backlash against only one dimension of globalization, whether political or
economic. Thus, separating these dimensions allows me to explore that possibility.
4 See countries included in Appendix A.
5 See confirmatory factor analysis in Appendix B.

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To test H1, I merged the ISSP dataset with data on party positions from party manifestos
and expert surveys. The main independent variable is the position of the respondent’s party before
the ISSP survey was conducted (Party Position t-1) on two economic issues (the EU single market
and free trade) and two political issues (the EU and internationalism), taken from party manifestos
and expert surveys. To test H2 and H3, my main independent variable is Party Family, a
categorical variable indicating which party family an individual voted for in the previous general
election, where 10 categories are represented (Populist Left, Green, Social Democrat, Liberal,
Conservative, Christian Democrat, Populist Right, Ethnic/Single Issue Party, Agrarian, and
Others). Each individual party in the ISSP dataset was matched to their respective party family
based on the categorizations used by the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) and the Chapel
Hill Expert Survey (CHES).6 Those categorized as Others include respondents who answered
‘other,’ ‘invalid/blank vote,’ ‘refused,’ or ‘no answer.’
I control for a series of covariates previously shown to influence attitudes towards
globalization-related issues. First, I control for symbolic or nonmaterial predispositions and
values shown to predict globalization attitudes: Nationalism, a 4-item index measuring feelings
of national superiority (Mayda and Rodrik 2005; Mutz and Kim 2017); Xenophobia, a 6-item
index of anti-immigrant sentiment (Mansfield and Mutz 2009), and Isolationism, a question
measuring retrenchment from global affairs (Hurwitz and Peffley 1987; Mansfield and Mutz
2009).7
6 Populist Left parties are those categorized as ‘Socialist/Left’ (CMP) or ‘Radical Left’ (CHES) and Populist Right
parties those categorized as ‘Nationalist’ (CMP) or ‘Radical Right’ (CHES). In the few cases in which both datasets
disagree on categorizations, the category chosen was based on the party’s membership in a political international
and/or European party group.
7 See questionnaire items in Appendix D.

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Second, I control for economic self-interest factors linked to protectionist sentiment:
Education, as a proxy for skill level (Hays et al. 2005; Mayda and Rodrik 2005; Scheve and
Slaughter 2001); a dummy indicating whether the respondent works in the manufacturing sector
as a proxy for industry exposure to trade8 (Owen and Johnston 2017), and an interaction between
the level of routineness of an occupation as measured by a routine task intensity index (RTI) and
a dummy indicating whether the job is offshorable9 (Owen and Johnston 2017). Finally,
following previous studies, I include controls for unemployment status, union membership, sex
and age, and country-level controls for the log of GDP per capita, trade/GDP ratio, and social
protection expenditure as a percentage of GDP.
Due to the hierarchical structure of my data (individuals nested within country-years) and
the presence of both individual and contextual variables, I use mixed multilevel models with
random effects for country-years and robust standard errors clustered at the country-year level.
For ease of interpretation, I rescale all variables from 0-1.10 Below is the mixed multilevel
regression model used to test H1 in equation form:
 ,,= + X, + X + X + ,+ 
where the dependent variable is a continuous index of support for economic or political
globalization (0-1) for individual i in country j at time t; where 1 is the position of the party
individual i identifies with on free trade/single market/EU/internationalism at time t-1; where 2
is a vector of individual-level independent variables including levels of nationalism, xenophobia,
isolationism, education, and occupational routineness, employment in manufacturing,
8 Obtained from ILO’s ISCO occupation codes as in Owen and Johnston (2017).
9 These measures are obtained from Owen and Johnston (2017).
10 See all descriptive statistics in Appendix A.

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employment in an offshorable occupation, union membership, unemployment status, sex, and
age; where 3 is a vector of country-level variables including the log of GDP per capita,
trade/GDP ratio, and social protection expenditure as a share of GDP. The level 1 residual is
indicated by  and a random effect is added for country-years (Ϛ,t). To test H2 and H3, 1 is
replaced by a categorical variable indicating the party family individual i voted for in the previous
national election.
5. Results
Figure 2 shows the effect of party positions on economic globalization at t-1 on voters’ support for
economic globalization at t. As we can see, a party’s position on free trade at time t-1 affects voters’
attitudes at time t. The more pro-trade a party’s position, the more pro-economic globalization a
voter becomes. This effect is slightly smaller than that of education. Similarly, the more supportive
of the EU single market a party is, the more supportive of economic globalization a voter is. In
this case, the effect is larger than that of education, one of the most consistent predictors of support
for globalization along with xenophobia. As previous studies have found (Mansfield and Mutz
2009; Honeker 2023), xenophobia is the strongest predictor of opposition to economic integration,
a finding in line with the adoption of economic protectionism by populist right parties in the last
two decades (Zaslove 2008; Walter 2021). Similarly, isolationism strongly predicts protectionism.
Finally, being employed in the manufacturing sector and union membership also predict opposition
to economic integration.
Figure 3 shows the effect of party positions on voters’ support for political globalization.
As we can see, the more positive a party’s position on the EU and on internationalism, the more
supportive a voter’s view of political globalization. Once again, this effect is either comparable or
stronger to that of education level, one of the most consistent predictors of support for

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internationalism and political integration (Bearce and Jolliff Scott 2019). Similar to economic
globalization, xenophobic and isolationist predispositions are the strongest predictors of
opposition to global political integration. Economic self-interest factors have less of an effect on
support for political globalization relative to economic globalization. Overall, these findings
provide support for H1, with party positions on globalization influencing voters’ policy attitudes.
Figure 4 shows the effect of party family cues on voters’ support for economic and political
globalization, with Other (respondents who answered ‘other,’ ‘invalid/blank vote,’ ‘refused,’ or
‘no answer’) as the reference category. As H2 expected, the effect of mainstream parties (liberals,
conservatives, social democrats, and Christian democrats) is more positive than that of non-
mainstream populist parties on political globalization, and more positive than populist left parties
on economic globalization. The effect of populist right parties, however, is not statistically
different from that of social democratic and Christian democratic parties, but their cues are more
negative than liberal and conservative parties (see also Figure C10 in the Appendix with “Liberal”
as an alternative baseline category).11 Interestingly, populist parties from left and right seem to
influence voters in a similarly negative way on political globalization. Finally, as H3 expected,
while green party cues are equally negative as those of populist left parties (and more so than
populist right parties) on economic globalization, this is not the case on political globalization,
where they are not statistically different from mainstream parties. This finding illustrates the
diverging messaging of green parties on globalization: on the one hand, a strong support for
11 The significant variation in the effect of this party family likely speaks to the presence of different positionings on
economic globalization. While some populist right parties have decidedly moved in a protectionist direction in the last
decades (such as France’s Rassemblement National), others have embraced protectionism more recently (such as
Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland) or remain pro-globalization overall (such as Norway’s Fremskrittspartiet).

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political integration via international organizations (IOs), on the other hand, a strong opposition to
economic integration via free trade and capital mobility.
Figure 2. The Effect of Party Positions on Voters’ Support for Economic Globalization
Notes: Coefficient plots of mixed multilevel models. All variables rescaled from 0 to 1 for comparison
purposes. All controls included (macro-level variables not shown). See full models in Table C1 in Appendix
C.

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Figure 3. The Effect of Party Positions on Voters’ Support for Political Globalization
Notes: Coefficient plots of mixed multilevel models. All variables rescaled from 0 to 1 for comparison
purposes. All controls included (macro-level variables not shown). See full models in Table C1 in Appendix
C.

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Figure 4. The Effect of Party Cues on Voters’ Support for Economic and Political Globalization
Notes: Coefficient plots of mixed multilevel models. All variables rescaled from 0 to 1 for comparison
purposes. Other is the reference category for party family (respondents who answered ‘other,’ ‘invalid/blank
vote,’ ‘refused,’ or ‘no answer’). All controls included (macro-level variables not shown). See full models
in Table C7 in Appendix C.

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I ran a series of robustness checks to test the consistency of these findings, including
multilevel model specifications without clustered standard errors, OLS models with country and
year fixed effects, separate models for Western and Eastern European countries, models for
economic globalization excluding the factor with the weakest loading, models with alternative
baseline specifications for party family, and models with individual dependent variables for each
of the index components (imports, free trade in principle, MNCs, the EU, and IOs). Results remain
consistent across all these specifications (see Supplementary Materials).
6. Discussion and Conclusion
The results from this study show that parties do matter when it comes to European voters’ attitudes
towards globalization. Whether by looking at individual parties’ positions on different
globalization issues (free trade, the single market, the EU, and participation in international
organizations) or party family cues, and after controlling for the main demand-side factors shaping
voter attitudes towards economic and political integration, there is a consistent effect of parties on
voters’ policy views. This finding goes in line with both canonical accounts of public opinion
formation (Carmines and Stimson 1989; Zaller 1992; Delli Carpini and Keeters 1996) as well
newer studies on the effect of party cues on voters’ foreign policy attitudes (Steenbergen et al.
2007; Coan et al. 2008; Hellström 2008; Maier et al. 2012; Naoi and Urata 2013; Hicks et al. 2014;
Pannico 2020; Dür and Schlipphak 2021).
The effect of party family cues on voters’ attitudes also mimics the patterns identified by
previous studies on the positioning of party families on economic and political globalization, with
populist parties from left and right being overall more anti-globalization on both economic and
political issues than mainstream parties (Hooghe et al. 2002; Marks et al. 2006; Trubowitz and

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Burgoon 2020, Polk and Rosén 2023), as well as findings at the voter level (van Elsas and van der
Brug 2014). Interestingly, however, a left-right pattern can still be identified within mainstream
party families, with liberal and conservative parties having equally pro-globalization effects on
voters, while social democratic and Christian democratic parties being less supportive, especially
on economic globalization. This likely signals conflicting cues from these two party families. First,
social democrats may still campaign against MNCs and global free markets to retain working class
support against challenges from the populist left and the populist right (Arzheimer 2013). This can
blur their overall support for globalization. Second, Christian democrats, while anchored on the
right of the political spectrum, have traditionally supported a more social-market model compared
to liberal and conservative parties, also likely blurring their support for liberal economics at the
global level.
Finally, the effect of green party cues shows a clear divide between economic and political
aspects of globalization. While green party cues have a positive effect on support for political
globalization (that is, the EU and ceding sovereignty to IOs), the effect on economic globalization
(free trade and the activity of MNCs) is highly negative, mirroring the effect of the populist radical
left. This likely reflects green parties’ conflicting messages on globalization. While green elites
tend to espouse an internationalist and cosmopolitan rhetoric, they oppose most trade agreements
negotiated by the EU – for instance, TTIP and EU-Mercosur (European Green Party 2014, 2019)
– and speak negatively about the effects of consumerism and MNCs on the environment.
There are still limitations to this study. First, while the analysis controls for the most
important demand-side factors previously shown to determine voters’ attitudes towards
globalization-related issues such as free trade, the EU, and IOs, the correlational nature of the study
can still not demonstrate a causal link between party positions/cues and voters’ attitudes. The effect

21
of party positions and party family cues could either reflect supply-side party cues or demand-side
voter ideology. However, the literature on public opinion formation on foreign policy issues (Coan
et al. 2008; Delli Carpini and Keeters 1996) and voters’ sources of economic ideology (Arikan and
Sekercioglu 2019; Johnston and Ollerenshaw 2020) would lead to us to expect the effect of party
to mostly capture supply-side cues. Second, party elites could adjust their positions on
globalization issues in anticipation of the expected development of public opinion on these issues.
While theoretically possible, this is unlikely to be the case in practice for most globalization issues.
The complex nature of globalization – and foreign policy issues in general – makes it a hard issue
for voters to grasp (Carmines and Stimson 1989) without informational shortcuts supplied by
political elites – parties being the most important source of those shortcuts (Downs 1957; Slothuus
and de Vreese 2010). Thus, unless voters have been personally affected by an issue related to
globalization such as trade or the activities of MNCs, it is unlikely they will form strong opinions
towards these issues without the help of elite and party cues (Carsey and Layman 2006). One
exception could be attitudes towards the European Union which, among the globalization issues
analyzed in this study, is the one most likely to activate an emotional response rooted in feelings
of national identity. Yet, even on this issue, previous studies find an important role of party cues in
shaping public opinion (see, for instance, Steenbergen et al. 2007).12
This study builds on previous work that looks at the role of party cues on voters’ attitudes
on the issue of EU integration and expands it to include broader measures of support for political
and economic globalization. Moreover, by looking at the effect of different party families on both
dimensions of globalization, I am able to identify the role parties play in the politicization of one
12 The issue of projection, that is, voters' own issue stances influencing their perceptions of parties' stances or the
difference between actual and perceived proximity to a party (Hobolt 2007), is not an issue in this study since party
positions are not measured based on voters’ perceptions of parties (perceived positions) but on parties’ own manifestos
and expert surveys (actual positions).

22
or both dimensions. In this sense, while populist radical parties tend to politicize both dimensions
in a negative way, green parties appear to transmit negative cues on economic globalization and
positive cues on political globalization. While the role populist parties have played in the backlash
against globalization has been studied to a great extent, the role green parties play in the negative
politicization of trade and economic integration remains less explored.
The findings in this study call for a deeper exploration of the role partisan discourse on
globalization – particularly, from populist and green parties – plays in shaping voters’ attitudes
(Walter 2021). Furthermore, while most European social democratic parties have moved in a more
economically liberal direction since the 1990s, the less pro-globalization effect of social
democratic parties on voters’ attitudes relative to other mainstream party families may reflect the
enduring role of party-interest group linkages within this party family, specifically the role of labor
unions in constraining social democratic parties (Adams et al. 2009). Finally, while most studies
on the backlash against globalization have tended to focus on the rise of the populist right and, to
a lesser extent, the populist left, the strong negative effect of green party cues on support for
economic globalization as well as the opposition of green parties to free trade agreements with
developing countries such as EU-Mercosur calls for a deeper exploration on the role green parties
and movements play in the activation of anti-globalization attitudes.
Future studies should experimentally test the causal effect of elite campaign rhetoric on
voters’ globalization attitudes. A look into the interplay of supply- and demand-side factors is also
needed. Future experimental work could explore whether messages from left- and right-populist
parties as well as ‘green protectionist’ messages activate certain predispositions such as
isolationism and ethnocentrism or self-interested considerations in voters’ minds, which may then
be used to shape their views towards globalization issues. In other words, supply-side party cues

23
may be the antecedent factor activating either self-interest or symbolic demand-side considerations
shaping opinions on globalization issues. Finally, researchers should also explore the extent to
which pro-globalization elites can counteract protectionist messages from populist and green
parties by employing positive cues and counter-frames.
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