Introduction

There are two leading hypotheses that try to offer a comprehensive response to questions concerning the origins of the latest Eurosceptic and populist waves in Europe. One argues it is due to ‘cultural backlash’; the other points to ‘economic insecurity’. In fact, they can both be true, and are not mutually exclusive – economic insecurity affects values and beliefs (Ballard-Rosa et al, 2017). Authoritarian values can be the consequence of economic conflict (Algan et al, 2017).

Exploring the economic insecurity hypothesis means working over globalisation’s impact on country economies and its key actors. De Vries and Hoffmann (2016) deal with various opinion surveys from European countries to prove that fear of globalisation is the decisive factor behind demands for changes away from the political mainstream. Immigration plays an important role in fuelling these fears. Nevertheless, there are more problematic questions generating fears in European societies and resulting in radicalism (Dustmann et al, 2017): the global financial crisis, income disparities, and free trade/import competition.

Intuition suggests that the bigger the magnitude of macroeconomic shock is, the bigger income disparities are, and the higher unemployment is; and then public opinion (social attitude) is more radical and exposed to populism. Another question, important with regards to the persistence of radicalism, is whether public opinion preserves some ability of rational judgement that relies on objectively defined magnitude and nature of problems, or whether instead people are inclined to stick to ‘cliches’, which help them to form these attitudes but that also fuel their fears, no matter how false the judgement behind it. And finally, what are the proportions in attitude formation process? In other words, how much belongs to homo oeconomicus and how much it is fear-driven – launched beyond economic self-interest?

Recently, free trade agreements (FTAs) have drawn public attention through new waves of political populism, alter-globalisation, and tendencies to redefine patterns of world economic ties. From a European perspective, in particular the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) have raised serious public concerns about environmental protection, food quality, job security, and citizen rights. Following this, US President Donald Trump (after he had openly criticised and opposed free trade also with Europe) started a new era of trade wars.