When Philipp Manow Book Die Politische Ökonomie Des Populismus Was Published By The Prestigious Suhrkamp House In Its First Edition In 2018, Europe Was Still Under The Shock Of Successive Political Earthquakes That No One Had Expected At Such Speed. In June 2016 The British Voted To Leave The European Union, And In November Of The Same Year Donald Trump Arrived At The White House, And Between The Two Events Right-Wing Populist Parties Were Achieving Historic Breakthroughs In Austria And France And In Germany Itself Where The Alternative For Germany Party Entered The Bundestag For The First Time, While In The South Left-Wing Populism Was Leading The Scene With Syriza In Greece And Podemos In Spain And The Five Star Movement In Italy. The Scene Was So Confused That The Dominant Analysis Quickly Surrendered To A Comfortable And Simple Explanation: It Is A Cultural Revolution, A Revolt Of Values, A Rebellion Of Identities That Felt Threatened.
This Is Exactly The Point From Which Manow, Professor Of Political Science At The University Of Bremen And One Of The Most Prominent Researchers In Comparative Political Economy In Germany, Starts To Dismantle With A Calm And Rigorous Method One Of The Most Popular Narratives Of The Last Decade. The Culturalist Narrative That Was Clearly Formulated By Ronald Inglehart And Pippa Norris, Which Says That Populism Is Nothing But A Counter-Cultural Reaction, A Cultural Backlash Against The Transformation Of Western Societies Towards Post-Materialist Values, Towards Tolerance And Openness And Gender Equality, And That The Losers In This Transformation, Who Are Mostly Older And White Less-Educated Males In Rural Areas, Resort To Populism To Restore A Collapsing World. This Interpretation Is Tempting Because It Exonerates The Economy, And Exonerates The Policies Pursued By Elites During Three Decades Of Globalization, And Puts All The Blame On The Culture Of Backward Voters.
Manow Does Not Deny That The Cultural Dimension Has Its Presence, But He Considers Reducing Everything To It A Kind Of Analytical Laziness, And Sometimes A Kind Of Class Arrogance That Sees In The Populist Voter Just An Ignorant Person Who Needs To Be Educated. Therefore He Begins His Book With A Necessary Theoretical Introduction In Which He Raises A Question That Seems Simple But Thorny: What Is Populism In The First Place? He Borrows Here The Most Accepted Definition In The Literature, Which Is The Definition Of Cas Mudde Who Sees Populism As A Thin-Centered Ideology That Divides Society Into Two Homogeneous And Morally Antagonistic Camps: The Pure Pure People Versus The Corrupt Elite, And Claims That Politics Should Be An Expression Of The General Will Of The People. This Definition Is Important Because It Allows Manow To Show That Populism Is Not A Single Economic Program, For It Can Be Right-Wing Demanding The Closure Of Borders And Tax Cuts, And It Can Be Left-Wing Demanding The Nationalization Of Banks And The Abolition Of Austerity. So If Populism Is Able To Adopt Completely Contradictory Economic Programs, How Can It Have A Single Unified Cultural Cause?
From Here Manow Enters The Heart Of His Thesis Which Will Form The Backbone Of The Whole Book: The Huge Variation In Forms Of European Populism Cannot Be Understood Unless We Return To The Infrastructure On Which These Democracies Were Built After The War, That Is, To The Different Patterns Of Political Economy. He Here Invokes The Literature Of Varieties Of Capitalism By Hall And Soskice, But He Does Not Use It As An Academic Decoration, But Turns It Into A Living Explanatory Tool. Europe Is Not One Bloc, But It Is At Least Four Models: The Scandinavian Social-Democratic Nordic Model, And The Conservative Continental Model In Germany And France And Austria, And The Southern Model Torn Between An Inflated Public Sector And A Wide Informal Economy, And The Liberal Anglo-Saxon Model In Britain, Then The Transitional Model In Eastern Europe.
Each Model Of These Models Produced A Different Social Contract Around The Labor Market And The Welfare State, And Each Contract In Turn Produced A Different Type Of Losers When Globalization And Europeanization Hit Hard. And At The Moment When Traditional Politics Failed To Provide Compensation For These Losers, Populism Emerged To Fill The Vacuum, But It Filled It With A Different Language In Each Place Because The Economic Wound Was Different In Each Place. This Is The Central Idea On Which Manow Builds His Small In Size Large In Ambition Book, And He Does Not Present It As A Slogan But Goes To Test It With Data From The European Social Survey Over Eight Waves, And With Eurobarometer Data, And With Accurate Maps Of Voting Distribution.
Therefore Reading Manow Is Not Just A Review Of Populism Literature, But It Is A Call To Return Economy To The Heart Of Political Analysis After Years Of Expelling It In The Name Of Culture And Identity. He Does Not Say That Economy Explains Everything, But Says That Ignoring Economy Makes Us Explain Nothing. For When We See That The Voter Of The Alternative For Germany Party Differs Completely In Its Professional Structure From The Voter Of The Italian Five Star Movement, And That The First Comes From Small Factory Workshops And The Independent Middle Class That Fears For Its Savings From Inflation And Transfers, While The Second Comes From State Employees In The South And From The Unemployed Who Were Crushed By Austerity, Then We Realize That We Are Facing Two Different Phenomena Bearing The Same Name By Mistake.
The Book Then Begins By Dismantling The Puzzle, And Ends By Reassembling It Anew, But This Time On A Solid Political-Economic Basis. It Does Not Promise The Reader A Magic Solution To Populism, Nor Does It Provide An Easy Recipe To Eliminate It, But Provides Something More Precious: A Roadmap To Understand Why Populism In The North Appears Right-Wing Anti-Immigration, And In The South Left-Wing Anti-Austerity, And In The East Agrarian Right-Wing Anti-Cities, And In Britain A Liberal Mix Anti-Globalization Without Compensation.
If We Wanted To Summarize Philipp Manow Thesis In One Sentence, We Would Say That He Shifted The Debate About Populism From The Question Of Identity To The Question Of Social Contract. And This Transition Is Not Just A Change In Viewpoint, But A Complete Overturning Of The Table. Instead Of The Traditional Culturalist Question: Why Do People Hate Foreigners? The Political-Economic Question Becomes: What Type Of Protection Did People Lose, And Who Was Protecting Them Before, And How Were Risks Distributed In Their Societies?
Here Manow Invokes One Of The Most Influential Schools In Comparative Political Economy, Which Is The School Of Varieties Of Capitalism Founded By Peter Hall And David Soskice At The Turn Of The Millennium. The Core Idea Of This School Is Simple But Powerful: Capitalism Is Not A Single System Applied Everywhere In The Same Way, But It Is A Family Of Systems Each With Its Institutional Logic In Coordinating The Relationship Between Companies And Workers And The State. There Is Coordinated Capitalism Based On Long-Term Cooperation, And There Is Liberal Capitalism Based On Competition And Flexibility, And There Are Hybrid Forms Between Them. And Each Form Creates A Different Class Alliance That Supports It, And Also Creates A Different Distribution Of Winners And Losers When These Systems Are Exposed To External Shocks Like Globalization.
Manow Develops This Idea To Divide Europe Into Four Economic Worlds, Each World Produced A Different Form Of Populism. The First World Is Scandinavia And To A Large Extent The Coordinated Continental Model In Germany And Austria And The Netherlands And Belgium. In These Countries, The Post-War Economic Model Was Based On A Clever Equation: High-Productivity Industrial Production Oriented Towards Export, And Strong Unions Coordinating Wages At The Sector Level, And A Generous Welfare State Protecting Those Who Lose Their Job But In Return Demanding High Flexibility In Moving Between Jobs. This Is What Manow Calls Status-Securing Protection System. The Skilled Worker In A Volvo Or Siemens Factory Knew That His Wage Would Be High, And That His Job Was Protected By Collective Agreements, And That If He Lost It The State Would Support Him Generously But Would Quickly Return Him To The Labor Market. The Contract Here Was Between Insiders, That Is, Stable Skilled Workers, And Big Employers.
The Second World Is Southern Europe, Italy And Spain And Greece And Portugal. Here The Picture Is Completely Reversed. Industrialization Was Weaker And Less Export-Oriented, And The Labor Market Was Deeply Dual Between A Very Protected Formal Sector And A Wide Informal Sector Without Any Protection. The Welfare State Was Not Inclusive But Was Linked To The Formal Job And To The Family And To The Party. It Protected The Government Employee And The Teacher And The Municipality Employee, But Left The Temporary Worker And The Youth And The Unemployed Without A Net. Manow Calls This Model Fragmented Dual Protection. Here There Was Not One Labor Market, But Two Parallel Markets, One Owns Everything And The Other Owns Nothing, And The State Itself Was A Tool For Distributing Partisan Spoils More Than A Tool For Comprehensive Redistribution.
The Third World Is The Liberal Model Represented By Britain Par Excellence. Here All Forms Of Coordination Were Dismantled Since The Thatcher Era. A Very Flexible Labor Market, Weak Unions, A Residual Minimum Welfare State Targeting Only The Poor, And An Economy Dependent On Financial And Real Estate Services More Than Industry. Protection Here Was Individual And Market-Based, Whoever Buys A House And Gets A Loan Survives, And Whoever Does Not Falls. There Are No Insiders In The Continental Sense, But There Are Individuals Competing.
As For The Fourth World It Is Eastern Europe, Poland And Hungary And Romania And Bulgaria. Here Capitalism Entered Late And In A Shocking Manner After 1989, And Destroyed Small Agricultural Sector And Old State Industries, And Created A Sharp Division Between Large Cities That Integrated Quickly Into European Value Chains And Wide Rural Areas That Remained Without Jobs And Without Infrastructure.
Now, What Happens When Two Big Shocks, Commercial Globalization And Immigration, Hit These Four Worlds? Manow Answers That The Shock Is One But The Pain Differs According To The Location Of The Old Wound. In The North And The Continent, Globalization Did Not Destroy Factories But Made Them More Productive, But It Pressured The Low-Productivity Private Services Sector. And Because The Welfare State There Is Generous But Conditional On Work, The Arrival Of New Immigrants Competing For The Same Services And For The Same Social Housing Creates Direct Competition Between Old Insiders And Newcomers Over State Resources. Here It Becomes Logical That Protest Comes From The Insiders Themselves Who Feel That Their Historical Contract Is Being Eroded From Below, Therefore They Vote For Right-Wing Populist Parties Promising To Protect The Welfare State For Natives Only, What Literature Calls Welfare Chauvinism. This Is The Secret Of The Rise Of The Danish People’s Party, And The True Finns Party, And The Austrian Freedom Party, And Later The Alternative For Germany.
In The South, The Logic Is Reversed. Globalization Did Not Threaten Skilled Workers As Much As It Destroyed The Protected Formal Sector, And When The Euro Crisis Came And Imposed Harsh Austerity Policies, There Was Nothing To Protect The Insiders Themselves. Suddenly The State Employee Who Thought Himself Safe Found His Salary Cut And His Pension Delayed, And The Educated Youth Found That There Is No Way For Him To The Formal Sector Except Through Years Of Temporary Work Without Insurance. And At The Same Time, The Irregular Immigrant Was Working In The Informal Sector With Miserable Wages Without Any Demands, So For Insiders He Becomes A Different Threat, Not A Competitor On The Welfare State But A Competitor Lowering Wages In The Parallel Market And Undermining Their Ability To Negotiate. Here Protest Becomes Double Protest: Against The Elite That Imposed Austerity, And Against A System That Protects A Few And Leaves The Majority, Therefore It Takes A Left-Wing Populist Form Demanding Expansion Of Protection Not Restriction, Nationalization And Spending Not Tax Cuts. From Here We Understand Why Syriza And Podemos And The Five Star Movement In Its Beginnings Were Movements Demanding Basic Income And Rejection Of Privatization, Not Expulsion Of Immigrants.
As For Britain, The Story Is Completely Different. Because Protection Was Individual And Market-Based, The Loser From Globalization Was Not An Organized Worker But An Individual Unable To Move, Living In An Old Industrial Town That Lost Its Factory And There Is No Longer Anything To Compensate Him. The State Did Not Provide Him Real Retraining Nor Social Housing Nor A Generous Safety Net. So His Anger Was Directed Against Globalization Itself And Against The Financial Elite In London That Benefited From It, Therefore He Voted For Brexit As A Protest Vote Against The Liberal Model Itself, Not As A Vote Against The Welfare State.
With This Quadruple Division, Manow Succeeds In Breaking The Naive Idea That There Is One Populism With One Cause. He Shows That The Word Itself Hides Four Different Diseases Sharing Only The Symptom Which Is Anger Against The Elite, But Differing In Diagnosis And Treatment. And This Is What Makes His Book, Despite Its Small Size, A Foundational Work Because It Reconnects Politics With Political Economy Instead Of Separating It In The Culture Box, And Reminds Us That Diverse Capitalisms Produce Not Only Different Growth Rates, But Also Different Types Of Democratic Anger.
If What Preceded Has Put The Theoretical Framework That Explains How Different Capitalism Models Produce Different Social Contracts, Then What Follows Is Going Down To Earth, To The Numbers Of The European Social Survey And Maps Of Professions And Sectors That Philipp Manow Inspects With Surgical Precision. Here Lies The Real Beauty Of The Book: It Is Not Satisfied With Theorizing, But Goes To Voter Records To Ask A Simple And Embarrassing Question At Once: Who Are These Populists Professionally? What Do They Do? In Which Sector? Are They Unemployed As Media Likes To Portray Them, Or Are They Working But Afraid?
Manow Begins With The North, The Traditional Stronghold Of Right-Wing Populism, And Reveals A Striking Paradox. The Voter Of The Danish People’s Party Or The Austrian Freedom Party Or The Alternative For Germany In Its First Phase Is Not The Unskilled Industrial Worker Who Was Crushed By Chinese Imports, As In The American Story. This American Interpretation Promoted By Autor And Dorn And Hanson About The Chinese Shock Does Not Apply To Germany And The North. German And Swedish Factories Did Not Die Because Of China, But Flourished And Raised Their Productivity. The Real Loser Was Elsewhere: In The Low-Productivity Private Services Sector, In Bus Drivers And Small Shop Workers And Independent Craftsmen And Small Employees In Service Companies. These Are The Fragile Insiders, That Is, They Are Inside The Formal Labor Market But On Its Edge, They Do Not Enjoy The Same Union Protection That The Car Worker In Wolfsburg Enjoys, And Their Incomes Are Exposed To Direct Competition With Newcomers, Whether They Are Immigrants Or Refugees.
Therefore Manow Finds That Right-Wing Populist Voting In The Continent Is Concentrated Disproportionately Among The Self-Employed, And Craftsmen, And Small Shop Owners, And Small Contractors. These Are The Old Middle Class That Has Long Been The Cornerstone Of Christian Democratic Conservative Parties, But Felt That These Parties Abandoned Them In Favor Of Large Exporting Companies. When The Alternative For Germany Party For Example Demands Return To The German Mark, It Does Not Address An Unemployed Worker, But Addresses A Workshop Owner Who Saves In The Bank And Fears That The European Central Bank Expansionary Policies Will Eat His Savings Through Inflation, And Fears That His Taxes Will Go To Rescue Greece. It Is Populism Of The Small Owner Defending His Property, Not Populism Of The Hungry Seeking A Loaf.
The Picture Turns Completely When We Cross The Alps Towards The South. Here, In Italy And Spain And Greece, Manow Analysis Of The European Social Survey Reveals A Totally Different Voter Structure. Left-Wing Populism, Whether Podemos Or Syriza Or The Five Star Movement In Its Early Years, Does Not Attract Small Shop Owners But Attracts Workers In The Public Sector, And State Employees, And Teachers, And Nurses, And The Unemployed, And Students. Why? Because The Crisis There Was Not A Crisis Of Competition Over The Welfare State But A Crisis Of Undermining The Welfare State Itself. When The Troika Imposed The Austerity Program After 2010, The Loser Was Not The Independent Craftsman, But The Government Employee Whose Salary Was Frozen, And The Retiree Whose Pension Was Cut, And The University Graduate Who Found That The Only Way To Enter The Protected Formal Sector Was Blocked.
And Here Manow Provides One Of The Smartest Detailed Comparisons In The Whole Book: Comparison Between The Northern League Lega And The Five Star Movement In Italy. Both Are Described In World Press As Populist, But Their Social Base Is Opposite. Lega, Which Originated In The Rich Industrial North, Was Historically A Party Of Small Producers In Lombardy And Veneto, Demanding Separation From The Lazy South Living On Northern Taxes. It Is Classic Northern Right-Wing Populism: Welfare Chauvinism, We Pay And They Consume. As For The Five Star Movement It Originated In The Marginalized South And In Suburbs Of Large Cities, Among The Unemployed And Small Public Sector Employees, And Its Discourse Was Against Party Corruption Distributing State Jobs As Spoils. The First Wants To Pay Less Taxes, The Second Wants A State That Spends More. The First Hates Rome Because It Takes Its Money And Gives It To The South, The Second Hates Rome Because It Is Corrupt And Gives Nobody Anything. Same Name, Populism, But Two Completely Contradictory Diagnoses Returning To The Position Of Each Category In The Dual Southern Social Contract.
Then Manow Moves To The British Case Which He Considers A Laboratory Case For The Liberal Model. Brexit, In His Reading, Is Not Just A Vote Against Immigration As Media Portrayed It, But It Is A Class And Geographical Vote Revealing Failure Of The Liberal Model In Providing Compensation For Losers. In The Liberal Model, There Is No Collective Protection, Protection Is Individual Through Owning A House And Its Price Rising. Therefore The Electoral Map Of Brexit Was A Map Of House Prices. London And The South East Where Property Prices Exploded Voted To Remain, While Towns Of The North And Old Industrial Midlands Where Houses Are Worth Nothing And Where There Are No High-Paid Service Jobs Voted To Leave. And The Voter Of The UK Independence Party UKIP Was Not An Independent Craftsman Afraid For His Savings Like The Alternative For Germany Voter, But Was A Former Factory Worker, Early Retired, Living In A Town Without Fast Train Nor University, And Feeling That Globalization Passed Over Him Without Touching Him Except Negatively. It Is Populism Of Those Who Own No Asset To Defend, So Demanding Demolishing The Whole Table.
As For Eastern Europe, Manow Provides A Brief But Penetrating Chapter. Here Populism Does Not Revolve Around Welfare State But Around Land. Agricultural Reform After Communism Destroyed Small Farms, And Integration Into European Market Opened Door For Large Agricultural Companies, So Created Division Between Cities Like Warsaw And Budapest Living On Foreign Investment And Voting For Liberal Parties, And Wide Rural Areas Voting For Parties Like Polish Law And Justice And Hungarian Fidesz Because They Promise To Protect Farms And Family And Church Against Savage Capitalism Coming From The West. Here Returns The Classic Division Between Center And Periphery, Between City And Countryside, Which We Thought Had Ended.
With This Detailed Map, Manow Demolishes Idea That There Is One Populist Voter. There Are At Least Four Populist Voters: Small Owner Defending His Savings In The North, Public Employee Defending His Salary In The South, Former Worker Without Assets Defending His Dignity In Britain, And Small Farmer Defending His Land In The East. All Of Them Vote Against The Elite, But Each One Means A Completely Different Elite, And Demands A Completely Different Protection. And This Is Reason Why European Populist Alliances Are Impossible In Long Term, Because Their Economic Demands Are Fundamentally Contradictory.
At The Heart Of Philipp Manow Book Lies An Idea That Seems Technical At First Glance, But In Truth It Is The Magic Key That Explains Everything: The Idea Of Division Between Insiders And Outsiders In The Labor Market. This Duality Developed By Scholars Like David Rueda And Bruno Palier And Kathleen Thelen Is Not Just An Academic Classification Of Contracts, But It Is An Accurate Description Of How Security And Fear Are Distributed In Modern Capitalist Societies. Insider Is One Who Has A Job With Permanent Contract, Protected By Labor Law And Strong Union, Has Pension And Unemployment Insurance, And Difficult To Fire. Outsider Is One Who Lives On Margin Of This World: With Temporary Contract, Or Involuntary Part-Time Work, Or Unemployed Seeking, Or Works In Informal Economy Without Any Paper Protecting Him. And In All Capitalism Models We Described Previously, The Balance Between Insider And Outsider Was Different, Therefore Meaning Of Being Outside Was Completely Different.
In Continental North, Insiders Were Central Bloc Around Which Everything Was Built. German And Swedish And Austrian Unions Were Unions Of Skilled Workers In Export Industries, Negotiating Not Only On Wages But On Conditions Of Vocational Training And Early Retirement. Welfare State Was Generous But Linked To Regular Work, Whoever Works Gets Excellent Protection, And Whoever Does Not Work Gets Help But Conditional On Rapid Reintegration. The Problem That Manow Highlights Is That This System, When Facing Big Immigration Shock After 2015, Creates Indirect But Real Competition. Immigrant Does Not Compete With Engineer In Siemens, But Competes With Fragile Insider, That Is, Worker In Logistics Services, Cleaning Worker In Hospital, Delivery Driver. And Since These Fragile Insiders Are Those Who Finance Welfare State Through Their Taxes, They See In Newcomer Double Threat: Competitor In Low-Skill Labor Market, And Competitor On Social Housing And Schools And Nurseries That Are Already Scarce. Therefore It Becomes Completely Logical That They Demand Closing Borders Not Out Of Abstract Cultural Hatred, But Out Of Economic Protection For Social Contract They Feel Is Cracking From Below.
Manow Goes Further To Test This Hypothesis With European Social Survey Data Across Eight Waves Since 2002 Until 2016. Result Is Amazing In Its Clarity. In Germany And Austria And Denmark, Probability Of Voting For Right-Wing Populist Party Rises Systematically The More Individual Works For Himself Or In Small Company, And Decreases The More He Works In Public Sector Or In Large Exporting Company. Even Difference Between Public And Private Sectors Is One Of Strongest Predictors. State Employee In Vienna Or Copenhagen Is Much Less Likely To Vote For Freedom Or Danish People’s Party Than Shop Owner In Same City. Why? Because State Employee Is Protected From Competition, His Salary Not Affected By Arrival Of Refugee, While Shop Owner Sees That New Customers Are Not Enough To Compensate Additional Taxes He Pays To Finance Their Integration.
In The South, Mechanism Is Completely Reversed, And Here Manow Analytical Brilliance Appears. In Italy And Spain, Public Sector Itself Was Victim Of Austerity. When We Look At Data Of Who Votes For Podemos Or Syriza Or Five Star Movement, We Find They Are Not Craftsmen But Precisely Workers In Public Sector And Youth With Temporary Contracts And Unemployed. In Spain, Public Sector Had Expanded Much In Years Of Real Estate Boom Before 2008 As Tool To Create Jobs For Graduates, And When Bubble Burst And European Union Imposed Deficit Reduction, These Were First To Pay Price Through Hiring Freeze And Salary Cuts. Suddenly Former Insider Became New Outsider. And From Here We Understand Why Podemos Discourse Focused On Restoring Dignity And Stopping Privatization And Abolishing Labor Market Reforms That Turned Everyone Into Temporary. It Is Populism Of Outsiders Who Thought They Were Insiders, Not Populism Of Insiders Afraid Of Outsiders.
And Manow Adds Second Layer Of Analysis Concerning Skills. In Traditional Literature, It Is Said That Those With Specific Transferable Skills Are More Prone To Populism Because They Fear Losing Their Jobs. But Manow Corrects This Picture. In Coordinated Economies, Those With Specific Skills Are Well Protected Through Dual Training And Union Coordination, Therefore They Are Less Likely For Right-Wing Populism. Most Likely Are Those With Low General Skills In Services, Who Have No Strong Union Nor Training Protecting Them. As For In South, Those With High General Skills, That Is, University Graduates Who Were Supposed To Work In State, Are Those Who Become Left-Wing Populists Because They Are Stuck In Temporary Contracts Without Horizon.
Then Comes Another Crucial Point Manow Addresses Which Is Issue Of Compensation For Globalization. Classic Liberal Hypothesis Says Globalization Creates Winners And Losers, But State Can Compensate Losers Through Redistribution So Everyone Remains Winner. Manow Shows That State Capacity To Compensate Itself Differs According To Model. In North, Compensation Was Possible And Generous Through Active Labor Market Policies, But It Was Conditional On Accepting Flexibility And Immigration. When This Moral Condition Retreated, Acceptance Retreated. In South, Compensation Was Not Possible At All Because State Was Bankrupt And Constrained By Euro Rules, Therefore There Was Nothing To Compensate Losers With Except Anger. And In Liberal Britain, Compensation Was Not Part Of Contract At All, State Does Not Intervene To Retrain Former Miners, But Leaves Market To Do, And When It Does Nothing, Anger Turns Into Vote Against Market Itself, That Is, Against European Union Which Symbolizes Globalization.
With This Dual Mechanism, Insider And Outsider, And Ability To Compensate, Manow Succeeds In Providing Unified But Diverse Explanation For Populism. He Does Not Say Economy Explains 100 Percent Of Variation, But Says 60 Or 70 Percent Of It Can Be Explained By These Structural Variables, And Remaining Cultural Comes Later To Wrap Economic Interest In Language Of Identity. So Fear Of Immigrant Is Not Fear Of His Culture As Much As Fear Of His Competition Over Scarce Resource Protected By Welfare State Linked To Citizenship. And Anger From Brussels Is Not Anger From Enlightenment Values As Much As Anger From Financial Rule Preventing Spending. And Here Lies Political Strength Of Book: It Restores Consideration For Material Interests Without Falling Into Naive Economic Reductionism, And Reminds Left And Right Together That People Do Not Vote With Their Identities Only, But Also Vote With Their Wallets And Their Children Future.
If Philipp Manow Book Stopped At Borders Of Labor Market Map It Would Have Accomplished Big Task, But He Goes In His Last And Most Daring Chapter To A Further Step, To Say That Populism Is Not Only Result Of Cracked National Social Contracts, But Also Direct Result Of Way Europe Itself Is Built. And Here Book Moves From Comparative Political Economy To European Political Economy, And Becomes More Controversial Because It Touches Sensitive Chord That Institutions In Brussels Avoid: That European Union With Its Current Design Tends Structurally In Favor Of Winners From Globalization And Makes Task Of Compensating Losers Difficult, Therefore It Feeds Populism It Claims To Fight.
Manow Starts From Simple Observation Known To Every Scholar Of European Elections: European Parliament Elections Are Second-Order Elections. People Do Not Vote In Them On Europe, But Vote In Them Against Their National Governments. Governments Themselves Know That, So Send To Brussels Second-Rank Ministers, And Deal With European Council As Clearing Chamber For Settlements They Do Not Want To Bear Responsibility For Domestically. And Result Is That Europe Is Run By Invisible Grand Coalitions, Coalitions Of Center-Right And Center-Left Meeting In Brussels To Pass Liberal And Austerity Policies That None Of Them Could Pass Alone In Its National Parliament Fearful Of Electoral Punishment.
This Mechanism Creates What Manow Calls Pro-Integration Bias. Governments That Rule In Berlin And Paris And Rome Are Same That Negotiate In Brussels, And They Have Common Interest In Presenting More Integration As Solution For Every Crisis, Even If This Integration Is Cause Of Crisis. When Euro Crisis Erupted, Solution Agreed By Chancellor Merkel And President Sarkozy Was More Rules, More Austerity, More Control Over Budgets, That Is, More Europe With Same Logic That Created Problem. And When Refugee Crisis Erupted In 2015, Solution Was Quota System For Distribution That Nobody Complied With, But It Gave Impression That Brussels Imposes Its Will On Capitals.
And Here Anger Of Populist Voter Becomes Completely Understandable. Voter Who Lost His Protection In National Labor Market Finds That Promised European Protection Does Not Exist, But Europe Itself Prevents His Government From Protecting Him. In South, Euro Rules Prevent Him From Spending And From Devaluing Currency To Restore Competitiveness, And Impose On Him Wage Cuts As Only Way To Adjust. In North, Internal Market Rules Prevent Him From Preferring His Citizens In Obtaining Social Housing And Assistance. And In Britain, He Sees That Single Market Allows Free Movement Of Labor Pressuring Service Wages, While Free Movement Of Capital Allows Companies To Transfer Their Profits To Luxembourg. In All Cases, Europe Appears As Mechanism For Transferring Risks From Large Companies And Creditors To Small Workers And Debtors.
Manow Supports This Argument With Accurate Analysis Of National Parliaments Voting On Rescue Packages. He Shows That Centrist Parties That Were In Government In Brussels Are Same That Voted For Rescue Domestically, While Populist Opposition Left And Right Voted Against Them, But When They Reached Government Found Themselves Forced To Implement Same Policies Because They Are Constrained By Same Rules. This Is Paradox Described By Peter Mair With Famous Phrase: Politics Without Democracy In Brussels, And Democracy Without Politics In Capitals. Voter Votes And Votes But Policies Do Not Change, Because They Are Protected By European Treaties That Cannot Be Changed Except By Unanimity. And When Policies Do Not Change Through Voting, Voter Turns To Voting Against System Itself.
And In This Context Manow Rereads Brexit Not As Strange British Incident, But As Typical Case Of Compensation Failure In Liberal Model Added To Failure Of Europe To Provide Alternative Compensation. Britain Was Only Country Where Voter Was Able To Vote Directly Against Europe, So Did. As For Rest Of Continent, Lack Of Referendum On Euro Or On Austerity Turned Anger Into Internal Populist Parties Demanding Implicit Exit Through Disobeying Rules.
*Published Opinions Do Not Necessarily Represent Nile Post Opinion.
