Macroeconomic Crises, Nationalism and Populism
Politics shape economics and economics shape politics, both at the national and the global level. One example is the global financial crisis of 2008/09 which had disruptive effects on domestic politics in Europe, the US and beyond. Parties favoring nationalism and protectionism gained considerable support. In this research group we study the economic determinants and consequences of nationalism and populism. Specifically, we ask:
- How do global crises and macroeconomic instability affect voting and domestic policymaking? Do crises foster nationalism and populism?
- What are the macroeconomic consequences of populists and nationalists policies and of “populists in power”?
On the economics side, the emphasis is on growth, macroeconomic shocks and inequality. On the politics side, we focus on the phenomenon of populism at the party and executive level. One distinguishing feature of our research agenda is that we take a long-run perspective, collecting data on nationalist and populist voting back to 1870.
