The clock is ticking on a global shift to the far-right
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... fd7ed429d0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It refers to this study. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2116300587" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The bad news.
And the good newsAccording to the study I mentioned earlier — based on an analysis of 800 elections across 20 countries over 140 years — systemic financial crises have usually produced similar results. Indeed, the researchers find that several trends recur.One, political polarization and fractionalization rise. The middle hollows out, and parties on the far right benefit more than those on the far left. In fact, on average, the far right sees an increase in vote share of about 30 percent in the five years following a financial crisis. .............These patterns generally do not occur in the wake of normal recessions or major macroeconomic shocks that are not financial in nature.
“People see financial crises as man-made disasters,” explains Moritz Schularick, an economics professor at the University of Bonn and study co-author. This means that afterward, there is a popular impulse to punish those thought to be responsible.
The scapegoats are often minorities and elites. As we’ve seen in the recent wave of global anti-elitism, casualties might also include incumbent political parties, central banks, experts, educated cityfolk and the foreigners both at home and abroad viewed as greedily nibbling on natives’ share of the economic pie.
The one silver lining buried in this depressing study? Right-wing populism may already have peaked. The researchers find that the political effects they document diminish over time, generally reverting back to pre-crisis conditions about 10 years after a crisis.
I wouldn’t exactly set your watches yet, but the latest global financial crisis began about nine years ago.
