Thread by @ProfPaulPoast

Did the USSR's collapse lead to dysfunction in US politics?

Lots of debate over this question the past few days (perhaps out of frustration over US #COVID19 response).

My answer: *probably* not

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On the one hand, @SevaUT puts forward three reasons why the answer is "yes"

https://twitter.com/SevaUT/status/1244465405252550656

On the other hand, @ALanoszka said no, largely based on the idea that US domestic politics has always been polarized.

https://twitter.com/ALanoszka/status/1244699150689669126

I'll admit that I'm sympathetic to the view that US politics has always been highly polarized.

See American Civil War...

...or the political divisions unveiled by the Vietnam War

As Martin Luther King Jr remarked in his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech:

"If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read `Vietnam.'"

Source: kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/do…

But what does international relations scholarship have to say about this question?

Note: Asking "Did the end of the Cold War divide domestic politics?" is =/= "Did the end of the Cold War lead to a divide over the best US foreign policy?"

After all, the public can be highly divided on domestic issues, but have similar views/not care about foreign policy issues

For the latter question, see @hvm1, @StephenChaudoin, & @dustintingley in @Journal_IS...
mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.116…

...& @profmusgrave in @SecStudies_Jrnl

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

As to the former question -- Did the end of the Cold War make domestic politics more divided? -- there is quite a bit of International Relations scholarship.

Bafumi and Parent explore the relationship between system-level polarity and US domestic polarization in International Politics.

link.springer.com/article/10.105…

Their main finding is illustrated here: As the relative capabilities (using USSR-to USA CINC scores) of the USSR⬇️, polarization (using Rep-Dem DW-Nominate scores) and inequality in USA ⬆️

But why?

The literature puts forward two arguments:

- Rally Around the Flag

- Globalization induced inequality

The "Rally Around the Flag" argument holds that domestic divisions will be tempered by fear of a common threat: During the Cold War, that threat was communism.

But it's not really clear that such an effect ever really existed during the Cold War. Adam Berinsky's @UChicagoPress book shows that foreign policy didn't do much to unite America (as suggested by the above MLK quote)

google.com/books/edition/…

And Baum in @ISQ_Jrnl has shown that the rally-round-the-flag effect is highly conditional

academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…

One could claim that the 9/11 terrorist attacks created the possibility of restoring a common threat, thereby tempering the salience of domestic issues for creating divisions

But as Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, Jack Snyder, and Robert Shapiro argued in @World_Pol, the opposite happened

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

There is, however, more evidence to suggest that the end of the Cold War induced increased inequality

But Communism did appear to make policy makers, in the US and throughout OECD countries, enact policies that kept high income inequality in-check

ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny/c…

Moreover, the end of the Cold War coincided with the explosion of "Economic Globalization", meaning growing interconnectedness between economies via trade and finance.

Scholars have long held that this could create divisions within society

Source: jstor.org/stable/2706527…

And the post-Cold War consequences of increased globalization for threatening workers has been explored by @garrett_geoff...

google.com/books/edition/…

...& @stefwalter__ in @PSRMJournal...

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

... & @hvm1 in @ISQ_Jrnl...

academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…

...& @JeffDColgan & Robert Keohane in @ForeignAffairs

foreignaffairs.com/articles/world…

...& Ethan Kapstein in @ForeignAffairs

foreignaffairs.com/articles/1996-…

...etc. You get the idea. Lots of work looking at how increased globalization created a heightened "worker-v-capital" divide. Something that politicians today use to gain support, most notably 👇

But is increasing globalization really due to the end of the Cold War?

I think most IPE and International Economics scholars would point instead to the emergence of China in the global economy, something that started well before the Berlin Wall's collapse.

Typically, the integration of China into the global economy is dated as beginning in 1978

imf.org/external/pubs/…

This is usually referred to as the "China Shock" and there is a ton of literature on it (which can be it's own thread).

To give you a sense, see 👇
scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&…

In sum, it seems that the main international force impacting US domestic politics over the past few decades is economic globalization. This is only partially, and maybe not even wholly, due to the end of the Cold War.

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