The challenge of globalisation: A world-wide investigation of public attitudes on individual vs. government responsibility

Abstract

In this article we explore the link between economic globalization and individual attitudes toward government responsibility. Two opposing views on the effect of globalization is presented, along with a third where the argument is that the direction is different for developed and developing countries. We thus investigate whether there is a leftist, rightist, or curvilinear effect. The hypotheses are tested using individual-level data from the World Values Survey, along with a measure of economic globalization taken from the KOF Index. Our sample consists of 79 countries from all continents. The results show that there is a general rightist effect of globalization on welfare attitudes. However, we also discovered that there is a curvilinear effect: the slope changes from leftist to rightist after a certain turning point has been reached. The evidence indicates that economic globalization has an effect on the public’s welfare attitudes. When people realize their country is competitive in the global market, they will shift their attitudes to the right.