Automation and Political Realignment: The Impact of ‘Losers’ Occupational Trajectories on Core Political Values

The exposure to the automation risk on the labour market is strongly correlated with support for the radical right. In this article, we investigate whether this political realignment is mirrored by a change in individuals’ core political values. We test the impact of different occupational trajectories of the automation ‘losers’ on their socialist-laissez faire and libertarian-authoritarian values using long-run panel data (BHPS 1991–2008). Furthermore, we test the mediating role of status anxiety in the relation between the threat of technological replaceability and political values using structural equation models in a cross-sectional setup (ISSP). Against our main expectations, we do not observe a significant authoritarian turn among routine workers, whereas job loss leads to stronger pro-redistribution stances, and career ‘upgrading’ prompts a libertarian and laissez-faire turn. Status anxiety is found to poorly mediate the correlation between automation risk and authoritarian values, while primarily driving routine workers’ socialist stances on economic issues.