Class Versus Industry Cleavages: Inter-Industry Factor Mobility and the Politics of Trade

Abstract

Domestic political conflict has been a constant companion to international trade, but the nature of that conflict has varied greatly in Western democracies over the last two centuries. Political battles over trade policy appear to have sometimes divided societies along broad class lines and at other times split them into narrow industry-based coalitions. I argue that this diversity stems from historical and cross-national variation in inter-industry factor mobility. Class coalitions are more likely where factor mobility is high, whereas narrow, industry-based coalitions are more likely where mobility is low. Evidence from six Western economies for the last two centuries indicates that levels of factor mobility have varied historically and cross-nationally in accord with industrialization and regulation. This variation corresponds broadly with observable differences in the formation of trade policy coalitions.