One of the more alarming trends in recent years has been the growth in support for far-right parties and politicians. Research from Bocconi University suggests that the rise in automation may be a contributing factor.
The study looked at countries across Western Europe between the late 1990s and 2016, and found that exposure to automation was linked with a rise in support for radical right-wing parties. Indeed those in the 75th percentile in terms of their exposure to automation were 3.5% more likely to vote for the far-right than those in the 25th percentile, which is a considerable rise when average support for the far right is just 5%.
Robot adoption
The likelihood of voting for the far-right doubles when the industrial composition and rate of robot adoption produces a larger difference in the possible exposure across people, with the authors citing the North of France as a good example.
What’s more, the authors believe that when people are exposed to automation shock, they also believe that the economy is in a worse state, are less likely to have a permanent contract, and also have lower satisfaction with democracy and government. This exposes them to the simplistic appeal of the far-right, and is as influential as other factors often thought of as a key part of their appeal, such as opposition to immigration, traditionalism, or the perceived threat to one’s social status.
The findings emerged after the researchers assessed data from both the European Social Survey and the EU Labor Force Survey. The measure of one’s exposure to robot adoption consists of various bits of information, including the automatability of each occupation, the skill level of individuals, the occupational composition of regions prior to any increase in robotization, the demographic characteristics of people, and the pace of robot adoption in a region at a given point in time.
The study builds upon previous work done by the researchers that had highlighted the role globalization and import competition had played in the rise of economic nationalism in Europe. With this latest work, they suggest that robot adoption is as influential.
“Increases in economic growth and contribute to the progress of our economy and society, these are facets of structural change that determine distributional consequences: put simply, winners and losers,” they say. “This generates a political backlash. In particular, our studies show that the losers of globalization and automation tend to display similar reactions in terms of voting.”
There are some benefits to automation, however, with the authors arguing that the competition from imports that have resulted in decline across entire industrial districts has often come at a time when automation has helped firms to adapt and compete.
“Firms that are adopting robots are the dynamic firms, they are successful, so at least in principle they are producing resources that can be used to finance redistribution policies and the restructuring of regional economies,” they conclude. “So, we can be optimistic in that sense.”
