Professor of economics at the American Harvard University, the Turkish economist Dani Rodrik is renowned for his work on the links between globalization, sovereignty and democracy. For more than twenty years, he has been advocating for another vision of free trade, in a world threatened by geopolitical risks.
Can we summarize the duel that pitted Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen during the presidential election as opposing the winners and losers of globalization?
Two schools of thought clash over the definition of far-right populism. The first insists on the intensification of the cultural war, with the rise of xenophobia and racism. The second leans towards the economic explanation linked to the labor market transformed in particular by globalization.
Personally, I think that the rise of authoritarian populism in many states in Europe and the United States is linked to the disappearance of quality jobs in the middle class of these countries. This is due to multiple factors, including globalization, which has accelerated deindustrialization. The loss of factories has reduced the job offer, for a population that is sometimes very competent but not very mobile, and which did not have the necessary qualifications to benefit from the hyper-globalised economy.
But globalization is not the only force at play. Technological changes, automation, robots have also contributed to this. The very radical approach to economic policy, pushing for more liberalization and deregulation of the labor market, has created anxiety. Whatever the situation, there are always voters who lean towards the far right, but its leaders have been able to capitalize on this anxiety and these shocks that have affected economies like France for thirty years.
What went wrong?
The paradox of globalization over the past three decades is that it has integrated nations into the global economy, while dismantling national economies. We had a very different model of globalization before the 1990s. Politicians used their integration into the world economy above all to support their growth. When the two were incompatible, they negotiated an exception or an escape clause. When, for example, in the 1970s there was the wave of cheap clothing imports from developing countries, the rich countries negotiated with them the multi-fibre agreement to protect their industry, while offering them some concessions. Rich countries knew how to distance themselves from globalization when it threatened them.
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