Through a Glass and Darkly: Framing Effects and Individuals’ Attitudes Toward International Trade.

Are most voters opposed to globalization? Are blue-collar workers, in particular, ready to revolt against policies favoring trade liberalization? In the wake of recent political debates about ?outsourcing? of jobs and trade agreements like NAFTA, and after a string of protests that have disrupted meetings of the World Trade Organization, these questions have become increasingly salient. A growing body of empirical research, using data from available surveys of public opinion, suggests that anti-globalization sentiments are very strong, especially among blue-collar workers. This paper reports the findings from a new survey experiment aimed at measuring the impact of issue framing on individuals? stated attitudes toward international trade. Respondents given an anti-trade introduction to the survey question, linking trade to the possibility of job losses, were 17% less likely to favor increasing trade with other countries than were those asked the same question without any introduction at all. Curiously, respondents who were given a pro-trade introduction to the question, suggesting that trade can lead to lower prices for consumers, were not more likely to express support for trade than those who received no introduction. The experiment also reveals that not all types of respondents are equally susceptible to issue framing. In particular, the responses of less-educated individuals are far more sensitive to issue framing than are those of highly educated individuals. Research that relies upon available survey data to examine the level and determinants of opposition to trade liberalization thus appears to rest on a very unstable foundation. Specifically, any anti-trade framing in the survey questions generating data will lead to a substantial overestimation of the level of opposition to trade, particularly among less-educated voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]