Globalization and Support for Unemployment Spending in Asia

Scholars of international political economy have long debated whether economic globalization increases citizen support for welfare policies to compensate for or insure against the economic risks posed by globalization. The vast majority of what we know about such issues, however, is gleaned from study of Western and industrialized polities; we know very little of such dynamics in Asia, the continent harboring much of the world's population and having experienced the most extensive development in economic globalization. The present paper tries to remedy this silence by focusing on public opinion in Asian countries to identify whether and under what conditions exposure to globalization generates support for welfare spending. We argue that globalization's effects are moderated by two conditions widely seen to distinguish Asian experiences from those in Western polities: 1) levels of economic development that influence who wins and loses from globalization and 2) existing social policy institutions that influence whether globalization's losers look to public as opposed to more private forms of compensation. We find support for our expectations using five rounds of the Asiabarometer survey covering twenty-eight Asian countries.