Doctoral Disseration Research in Political Science: Foreign Investment and Political Attitudes toward Social Policy

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The relationship between globalization and social policy has become an increasing focus of scholarly research. Does globalization increase insecurity? If so, who is most affected? Are governments able to respond by providing adequate social protections? Or does globalization itself limit their capacity to do so? To date, much of this research has focused on government spending and provision; it has not investigated how globalization affects the policy preferences of individuals. This project explores whether and how individuals? exposure to foreign-owned firms causes them to favor more social spending. The research is located in post-socialist Ukraine; it therefore focuses on the attitudes of citizens in a new democracy that is also in transition to a market economy; the research will therefore speak to important political as well as economic issues in this important set of cases. In order to study individual attitudes, this project generates original data, using a survey design that minimizes many of the problems inherent in existing surveys. The survey sites are four smaller cities, two in western Ukraine and two in Eastern Ukraine. In each region, the selected pairs of cities are matched along population and economic variables, but differ drastically in their levels of FDI. This design is particularly strong at approximating the effect of FDI on political attitudes. By comparing individuals within a single country, this research avoids questions about whether country-specific cultural, social or political institutions, rather than FDI, explain observed differences in political attitudes. Furthermore, this design controls for political or geographic variables that influence foreign investors' choice of destination. Thus, this research design allows us to draw more precise causal inferences about the relationship between individuals? exposure to foreign investment and their political preferences over government social policy. This project has broader impacts on long-standing debates in international political economy about the effects of globalization on domestic politics. It makes a unique contribution in assessing the direct effects of foreign investment on citizens, rather than on elites and institutions. In addition, this project measures political attitudes in "regional" populations, which are a significant portion of the population in all post-communist countries, yet tend to be underrepresented in national politics and understudied even in area studies. The original data produced by this research will be of use to other scholars interested in the formation of political attitudes in new democracies, "economic voting" in transition economies, social policy preferences or globalization.