Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

For decades, national surveys have consistently reported an opinion divide between American leaders/elite and the mass public on the topic of trade liberalization and related agreements. In the 2016 presidential elections, these divisions came to an electoral head with the upstart Democratic Sanders and Republican Trump campaigns. Several studies have concluded higher educated and skilled US “elite” to be more likely to favor policies of trade liberalization than the average American based on economic self-interest, and at times of more salient trade debate, influenced by predispositions such as ideology and partisanship. Fewer studies have examined the heuristic impact of affective attitudes and symbolic predispositions, such as enemy images and national identity, particularly in a comparison of American leaders and the mass public when it comes to views on trade. In this paper, I examine and compare how American leaders/elite and citizens differ in their policy judgment on trade liberalization and agreements, including NAFTA and the TPP. I analyze the relative impact of occupational skills, education, geographic location, partisanship, and ideology, while exploring how symbolic predispositions, namely conceptions of national identity, significantly impact trade policy judgment across the American public. The analysis focuses on the time period, 1990-2016, utilizing national survey data drawn from the National Identity modules of the International Social Survey Programme, and the quadrennial surveys of US leaders/elite and the general public conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations/Global Affairs and the Pew Research Center.