Politics and economics

Around the world, populism has weaponised anxieties over globalisation and other forms of social change. This column argues that populist trade policies have damaged the global trading system through protectionist policies themselves and by undermining the rules and norms of the WTO. The author suggests that the Trump administration’s national security tariffs and Brexit have inflicted the greatest populist damage on trade rules and trade integration so far and that economic and institutional reforms will be necessary to break the populist influence on trade policy.

Progress in rights for homosexual and bisexual individuals has varied substantially across the world. This column uses an information treatment experiment to examine the determinants of support for sexual minorities in three countries with some of the lowest rates of social acceptance in Europe – Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It finds that when informed about the economic costs of discrimination, individuals in countries with strong views about the immorality of homosexuality can still voice support for non-discrimination policies. In addition, views about the acceptability of homosexuality itself can be modestly affected by the provision of basic information, particularly when framed in the context of institutions that people trust.