IHS-Seminar: Karim Bekhtiar

The Decline of Manufacturing Employment and the Rise of the Far-Right in Austria

In recent decades, right-wing populist parties have experienced increased electoral success in many western democracies. During the same time most developed economies have experienced a decline in manufacturing employment, which was strongly fueled by increased trade competition and the advent of automation technologies. This paper analyzes the contribution of the manufacturing decline to the rise of the Austrian far-right. Overall the decline in manufacturing employment has strongly contributed to this rightward shift in the political landscape, with the manufacturing decline explaining roughly one third of the observed increase in far-right vote-shares between 1995 and 2017. Separately regarding international trade and automation technologies suggests that both forces contributed in roughly equal parts to this development.


Karim Bekhtiar joined the Institute for Advanced Studies in September 2018. He holds a Master degree in Economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business and is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Economics at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz.

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