Oddly enough, it’s all about … robots! People who fear their jobs will be automated tend to support far-right parties.
This conclusion was reached by employees of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the Bocconi University (Italy), whose article In the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers drew attention to the fact that in European countries, forced in recent years to compete with actively developing economies (such as China), support for populist right-wing radical parties is growing. For example, this is the «National Front» in France or the «League» in Italy. Similar processes are taking place in the United States, where support for Donald Trump is high.
At the same time, within the framework of economic competition in production, the need for workers who perform functions that can be automated is constantly decreasing. Obviously, these people are in danger of unemployment.
The scientists decided to find out how these two trends are interconnected — the growth in the use of industrial robots and the popularity of right-wing radicals.
The researchers analyzed data from seven large-scale surveys (conducted in 13 countries in Western Europe between 1999 and 2015) as well as data on factory automation in these countries.
As a result, it turned out that people who are afraid that they will be replaced by robots are highly likely to vote for right-wing parties in elections. In general, such voters tend to be poor, unemployed, dissatisfied with the current government and the level of democracy in the country, often profess nationalist views, and are also adherents of various conspiracy theories.