After a period of hyperglobalization, protectionist policies have become more entrenched over the past decade. States have produced a slew of domestic subsidies, tariffs, and labor migration policies–policies that can benefit certain industries, but are likely to curtail growth, employment, and multilateral economic cooperation. Why citizens support protectionism that is costly to them is a central puzzle in International Political Economy public opinion research. Although no consensus has been reached to explain this puzzle, the field remains focused on the individual- and national-level determinants of attitude formation toward protectionism, missing subnational determinants in the process. Insights from economic geography pointing to the attitudinal effects of subnational factors, such as import shocks, have not been integrated.

The overarching objective of PROTECT (”Protectionism in Place: Explaining How Subnational Change Affects Public Support for Protectionism”) is to develop a comprehensive research agenda about the effects of subnational economic––and related, ecological and sociocultural––change on public support for protectionism. First, PROTECT maps support for protectionism based on novel panel survey data drawn from representative samples of citizens in eight western and non-western countries. Second, it compiles and creates measures of subnational ecological, economic, and sociocultural change. Third, it leverages experimental, instrumental variables, and machine learning methods to establish when, how and why subnational change has a causal effect on public support for protectionism.

Overall, given the daunting cost of protectionism still on the rise, we urgently need to understand why some citizens support, while others oppose, protectionism. PROTECT will enable understanding the impact of subnational change on support for protectionism. This will reorient research in International Political Economy and related behavioral research fields to incorporate the subnational context, and provide an evidence base meant to engender better economic policy.