Replication Data for: Global Economic Integration and Nativist Politics in Emerging Economies

Nativist political movements are globally ascendant. In advanced democracies, rising anti-immigrant politics is in part a backlash against economic globalization. In emerging economies, where nativists primarily target internal migrants, there is little investigation of whether trade liberalization fuels anti-migrant sentiment, perhaps because trade benefits workers in these contexts. I argue that global economic integration causes nativist backlash in emerging economies even though it does not dislocate workers. I highlight an alternative mechanism: geographic labor mobility. Workers strategically migrate to access geographically uneven global economic opportunity. This liberalization-induced mobility interacts with native-migrant cleavages to generate nativist backlash. I explore these dynamics in the Indian textile sector, which experienced a positive shock following global trade liberalization in 2005. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, I find that exposed localities experienced increased internal migration and nativism, manifesting in anti-migrant rioting and nativist party support. Liberalization can fuel nativism even when its economic impacts are positive.