Labour Mobility, Trade, and Left-Right Self-Placement

This paper argues that the level of labour mobility (defined as the easiness of changing jobs and sectors) influence individual ideological inclinations. Electoral preferences in favour of right-wing governments are often noted as puzzling especially for the countries where low-skilled labour constitutes the majority, and temporary and precarious employment is pervasive. Turkey is, for instance, one such country, where scholars attributed the puzzling preference in favour of right-wing governments to political culture or to the impact of political Islam. Those explanations imply that there are not objective economic reasons behind the preferences of the electorate or they are not as effective as cultural/religious symbolism. This paper argues that we can in fact explain the electoral and ideological inclinations towards the right-wing governments in Turkey and in other countries with objective economic interests. It argues that the level of mobility in the labour market determines one’s preferences towards trade. Where labour is extensively mobile, such as in Turkey, it prefers greater trade liberalisation and openness, which facilitates the capital inflow into the country and diversify the employment options available to the labour groups. Hence, mobile labour groups are more likely to prefer political parties at the right end of the political spectrum, which promise trade liberalisation and capital inflow. Immobile labour on the other hand faces the threat of being displaced if foreign competition increases with a higher volume of trade (Hiscox, 2002). It therefore prefers left-wing political parties which vow greater employment security and labour protection. In other words, as mobility level increases, support for trade increases and prompts right-wing preferences. The paper tests its hypothesis in a global sample of 117 countries with data on mobility from International Labour Organisation (ILO) labour force statistics and World Values Survey (the question on self-placement in left-right political spectrum). I conduct cross-sectional logistic regression in order to identify the correlation between the level of mobility and self-placement in the right. I repeat the analysis with two different waves of World Values Survey for robustness checks. In the regression analysis, I also control for the variables such as country-level educational attainment, economic development, and the level of industrialisation, which might affect trade preferences and ideological self-placement. The results yield strong evidence in support of the theory.