Nationalism and Its Effects on Attitudes About Trade, Cooperation, and Immigration

With the rise of populist leaders over the last 20 years, this paper examines whether we have seen a corresponding increase in the distribution of nationalist sentiments in a country, a strengthening of the effect of those sentiments on attitudes toward free trade, cooperation, and immigration, and nationalism conditioning the effect of education on those three attitudes. Using data from the ISSP, we show that while the distribution of nationalist attitudes in countries has not changed much and the effect of nationalism on those three attitudes has not changed, nationalism conditions the effect of education on trade and immigration and that effect is increasing over time.