There have been many efforts to explain the rise of global populism, most of which posit it as a blowback against globalisation and the unequal economic effects that it has had on developed-country populations. The liberal international order has exacerbated income inequality, with middle classes rising in places like China and India at the expense of working classes in North America and Western Europe.
But there has been a competing explanation for the shift that is rooted in cultural identity rather than economics. Or rather, identity becomes the way that voters interpret economic decline. Many core supporters of populist politicians, from Brexit voters to supporters of Donald Trump, are former middle- or working-class citizens who believe their social status has been threatened by larger social forces: the massive entry of women into the labour force, the large numbers of immigrants and refugees entering their country, and elites who seems largely indifferent to these outcomes. But they are joined by many other voters whose jobs are secure and whose incomes are rising, but who worry about the loss of cultural identity. According to political scientists Marisa Abravanel and Zoltan Hajnal, immigration has displaced race in the United States as the single most important factor explaining white voter shifts into the Republican Party.
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