I Stadelmann-Steffen
Biographic Data
| ID | 245772 |
|---|---|
| NAME | I Stadelmann-Steffen |
| GIVEN NAMES | I |
| FAMILY NAME | Stadelmann-Steffen |
| SIGNATURE | STADELMANN-STEFFEN I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bern |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3441-4757 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 424 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 54 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Policy configurations and the elasticity of gendered patterns of paid and unpaid work—evidence from comparative conjoint analyses
A considerable number of scholars have discussed the role that family policies play in shaping the gendered division of labor within households. The majority of this research has focused on childcare and parental leave policies and their relationship with maternal employment. In this article, we adopt a more holistic approach to study gender-specific pathways toward more equalized work patterns by investigating the role of various family policy c…
Is it information or predispositions? Measuring the long-term effect of information on opinion formation about new energy technologies in Switzerland
In today's societies, new technologies offer many opportunities but also pose challenges and uncertainties. The question of which technologies to use is becoming an increasingly political issue, with the potential to lead to polarisation and affect electoral outcomes. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how citizens form their opinions about new technological solutions in the field of seasonal thermal energy storage (STES). Drawing on public o…
Gendered leadership and political structures: A global analysis of crisis responses across 150 countries
This study explores the role of leaders’ gender and its interaction with political structures in shaping countries’ responses to the recent pandemic crisis, analysing data from over 150 countries. We investigate how leadership – during the early, peak and later stages of the crisis – impacted national strategies across various dimensions, including politics, health and the economy. A key focus is on whether female leaders differed from male leade…
Going solar? The role of knowledge in shaping social acceptance of citizen-financed PV projects in Switzerland
High Sensitivity to Methodological Choices When Integrating Social Acceptance Data in Electricity System Modeling
Solar for tenants: Survey evidence on design and framing of citizen-financed photovoltaic projects in Switzerland
Solar photovoltaics (PV) on rooftops and existing infrastructure is a cost-effective and widely accepted technology that plays a crucial role in the energy transition. However, individual installations of PV systems are limited to property owners, excluding most tenants. This study focuses on a more inclusive type of PV, citizen-financed PV (CiFi PV) projects, and experimentally examines their social acceptance, distinguishing between socio-polit…
No, It Is Not All About Selective Exposure: Information Selection Strategies in Referendums
This article presents an in-depth understanding of information selection strategies in referendums. It builds on the theories of motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, information utility, and social identity to examine selective exposure in the context of referendums, and highlights how individuals select information, opting for either congruent and partisan (selective choice) or balanced and discrepant (enlightened choice) sources of inform…
Can information, compensation and party cues increase mass support for green taxes
Postface: Concluding Remarks on Relevance and Impact of Political Science in Switzerland
We feel honored to contribute the postface to this debate which reflects on the relevance and impact of our discipline for the Swiss Political Science Review. In what follows, we have summarized the “take‐home messages” that we identified when reading the debate. We have therefore synthesized those elements of the relevance and impact of political science that should hold true in a more generalizable or global context. In the second part, we put …
How Does the Provision of Childcare Services Affect Mothers' Employment Intentions? Empirical Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the provision of early childhood education and childcare services (ECEC) is associated with higher women's participation in the labor market. However, many questions about the causal relationship between the supply of childcare and patterns of female employment remain open. In an effort to overcome common endogeneity problems, we conducted a conjoint experiment in Switzerland, which enables us to analyze mo…
Policy sequencing can increase public support for ambitious climate policy
Public support for ambitious climate policies and carbon prices that have direct costs for voters may depend on policy sequencing. Policy sequencing theory suggests that the strategic ordering of policies into sequences that initially create benefits can subsequently increase support for higher carbon prices. However, systematic quantitative evidence about the effects of sequencing on public support is lacking. We provide novel theoretical and em…
The role of vote advice application in direct-democratic opinion formation: An experiment from Switzerland
In an increasingly digitized world, vote advice applications (VAAs) seem to be effective in providing voters with personalized information about their own positions vis-à-vis parties’ positions and specific policies. Even though electoral research has increasingly paid attention to the role VAAs play in voter’s opinion formation, very few studies have examined VAAs in the context of direct-democratic decisions. This article fills this gap by prov…
Kinder, gentler – and crisis-proof? Consensus democracy, inclusive institutions and Covid-19 pandemic performance
Which patterns of democracy perform best? Although a decades-long research tradition has fairly robustly suggested that consensual democracies outperform their Westminster-style majoritarian counterparts, the scope of previous studies has been limited to ‘normal times’. In this article, the endogenous context of the COVID-19 pandemic is leveraged to study whether the alleged superiority of consensualism also holds during crises. It is hypothesise…
Limited evidence that carbon tax rebates have increased public support for carbon pricing
Limited impacts of carbon tax rebate programmes on public support for carbon pricing
The role of rebates in public support for carbon taxes
Economists advocate carbon pricing as the primary tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, very few governments have adopted a carbon tax high enough to meet international emission targets. Political challenges may stem from a number of areas, including political mobilization by policy opponents, consumers’ willingness to pay and the regressivity of many carbon pricing schemes, which might be addressed through rebates. We use a novel car…
Do households live the family model they prefer? Household’s work patterns across European policy regimes
Studies have investigated the equalizing effect of childcare provision and parental leave schemes on gendered work patterns. However, as the relationship between policies and individual time allocations to paid work is complex and challenging to empirically assess, previous research has clarified single aspects of this complexity. The present study theoretically and empirically combines a household perspective by considering the work behaviours o…
Satisfaction With Democracy: When Government by the People Brings Electoral Losers and Winners Together
The last decade has witnessed the rise of populist parties and a number of actors that question liberal democracy. Many explanations of this rely on dissatisfied citizens. We ask in this article whether and how institutions allowing citizens to participate in policy-making affect differences in democratic satisfaction within varying representative contexts as well as between electoral winners and losers. To do so, we first develop a measure of su…
Voting in the Echo Chamber? Patterns of Political Online Activities and Voting Behavior in Switzerland
Understanding the political consequences of digitalization is among the key challenges for modern societies. A pressing issue is the question whether political online activities make individuals more close‐minded and less willing to consider alternative arguments. We examine this question using a peculiarity of the Swiss electoral system – the possibility to split votes – as a behavioral outcome measure. We argue that political online activities …
A framework for social tipping in climate change mitigation: What we can learn about social tipping dynamics from the chlorofluorocarbons phase-out
In the natural sciences, the concept of “(natural) tipping points” has become a hot topic in climate change research. To better understand and evaluate the possibilities for and the barriers to the fundamental societal transformations necessary for climate change mitigation, we suggest a social tipping dynamics framework. We contrast this framework with previous accounts of stability and change and show that integrating these approaches under the…
Do governments delay the implementation of parliamentary requests? Examining time variation in implementing legislative requests in Switzerland
This paper investigates time variations in the implementation of legislative requests by the Swiss government. Combining the literature on executive–legislative relations with findings from implementation research, we focus on the procedural level and argue that implementation delays can occur because the government does not want to, cannot or should not implement faster. We test these mechanisms using a unique database, which enables us to analy…
Public opinion in policy contexts. A comparative analysis of domestic energy policies and individual policy preferences in Europe
Recent research and real-world processes suggest that effective climate change mitigation policies are not feasible without at least a certain degree of public support. Hence, we investigate the link between existing domestic energy policies and individual policy instrument preferences in 21 European countries. We assume a policy feedback perspective and, thus, start from the idea that the current domestic energy context influences what future po…
Acceptance through inclusion? Political and economic participation and the acceptance of local renewable energy projects in Switzerland
Voting in the rain: The Impact of Rain on Participation in Open-Air Assemblies
The analysis of how weather conditions influence participation at the ballot and whether bad weather influences ballot decisions has recently gained momentum. This paper analyses the influence of rain on participation in the Landsgemeinde – the main decision-making body of two Swiss cantons, wherein citizens meet on the main square in order to debate and decide bindingly on political matters of all sorts. We rely on a survey with an in-built conj…
Citizens' Opinions About Basic Income Proposals Compared - A Conjoint Analysis of Finland and Switzerland
The basic income (BI) scheme is a fundamental reform of the welfare state that has recently gained widespread attention. Proposals for different variants of BI schemes have emerged to account for varying political and societal goals. This study investigates what citizens think about the idea of a BI, and to what extent citizens' perceptions depend on the exact design of such a scheme and the context in which this policy is embedded. Empirically, …
Stumbling block or stepping stone? The influence of direct democracy on individual participation in parliamentary elections
Does Satisfaction with Democracy Really Increase Happiness? Direct Democracy and Individual Satisfaction in Switzerland
Educational Inequality in the EU: The Effectiveness of the National Education Policy
Since the publication of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scholarly interest in analysing the effectiveness and performance of education policy has risen again. The present article follows this path and presents the first empirical evaluation of the influence of national education policies on educational inequality in the European Union member states. We examine whether the availability of preschool education, an …
Acceptance through inclusion? Political and economic participation and the acceptance of local renewable energy projects in Switzerland
Public opinion in policy contexts. A comparative analysis of domestic energy policies and individual policy preferences in Europe
Recent research and real-world processes suggest that effective climate change mitigation policies are not feasible without at least a certain degree of public support. Hence, we investigate the link between existing domestic energy policies and individual policy instrument preferences in 21 European countries. We assume a policy feedback perspective and, thus, start from the idea that the current domestic energy context influences what future po…
Social Volunteering in Welfare States: Where Crowding Out Should Occur
This article evaluates the influence of welfare state policy on individual social volunteering. Unlike previous studies that have investigated the relationship between the welfare state and civic engagement, this contribution focuses on those areas of civil society that are most directly related to public welfare state activities. Moreover, it is assumed that welfare state policy does not uniformly affect the civic engagement of various social gr…
Satisfaction With Democracy: When Government by the People Brings Electoral Losers and Winners Together
The last decade has witnessed the rise of populist parties and a number of actors that question liberal democracy. Many explanations of this rely on dissatisfied citizens. We ask in this article whether and how institutions allowing citizens to participate in policy-making affect differences in democratic satisfaction within varying representative contexts as well as between electoral winners and losers. To do so, we first develop a measure of su…
Citizens' Opinions About Basic Income Proposals Compared - A Conjoint Analysis of Finland and Switzerland
The basic income (BI) scheme is a fundamental reform of the welfare state that has recently gained widespread attention. Proposals for different variants of BI schemes have emerged to account for varying political and societal goals. This study investigates what citizens think about the idea of a BI, and to what extent citizens' perceptions depend on the exact design of such a scheme and the context in which this policy is embedded. Empirically, …
Citizens as veto players: Climate Change Policy and the Constraints of Direct Democracy
The search for and implementation of effective climate change policies is one of the crucial challenges of policy-makers. One strand of literature argues that domestic factors and in particular institutional prerequisites or veto points strongly influence the quality and pace of a country's policy innovation and adaptation. Focusing on a particular institutional veto point – direct democracy – how does direct democracy influence a country's adapt…
Dimensions of Family Policy and Female Labor Market Participation: Analyzing Group-Specific Policy Effects
This article investigates whether and how family policy influences the probability and intensity of mothers' labor market participation. Unlike previous studies, this contribution focuses on group-specific policy effects, thereby accounting for the fact that, theoretically, women with different resources and preferences should respond differently to given policy measures. The analyses show that varying individual characteristics indeed influence …
Subnational Patterns of Democracy in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
This article investigates the main political institutions in the sub-national democracies of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It applies Lijphart’s approach to these German-speaking countries in Western Europe and expands it – following recent advances – by direct democracy. The main finding of the sub-national analysis is that, similar to Lijphart, two dimensions of democracy can be distinguished. While the first can be considered as the ‘conse…
EU referendums in context: What can we learn from the Swiss case
The rising number of referendums on EU matters, such as the Brexit and the Catalonian independence votes, highlight the increasing importance of referendums as a problem‐solving mechanism in the EU. We argue that the Swiss case provides essential insights into understanding the dynamics behind referendums, which are often lacking when referendums are called for in the EU. Referendums in EU member states on EU matters differ substantially from tho…
The Role of Policy and Party Information in Direct-Democratic Campaigns
Existing research has repeatedly discussed how citizens make up their minds when voting on direct-democratic proposals. While previous studies have emphasized the role of policy information and party cues on opinion formation, we explore the mechanisms behind policy and party effects in greater detail. We conceptualize vote decisions as multidimensional choices, and use a three-wave conjoint analysis to observe if and how policy preferences chang…
Education Policy and Educational Inequality--Evidence from the Swiss Laboratory
This article examines how the different education policies in the subnational units of Switzerland-the cantons-affect educational inequality. The article builds on previous research arguing that in order to properly evaluate education policy and its outcomes in decentralized countries, regional disparities must been taken into account. Switzerland has one of the most decentralized education systems in the world and is thus an exemplary case for a…
Cantonal variations of integration policy and their impact on immigrant educational inequality
The unpopularity of incentive-based instruments: What improves the cost–benefit ratio
Who supports minority rights in popular votes? Empirical evidence from Switzerland
Do Integration Policies Affect Immigrants' Voluntary Engagement? An Exploration at Switzerland's Subnational Level
This paper investigates whether integration policies influence immigrants' propensity to volunteer, the latter being an important element of immigrants' integration into the host society. By distinguishing different categories of integration policies at Switzerland's subnational level and applying a Bayesian multilevel approach, our results suggest varying policy effects: while policies fostering socio-structural rights enhance immigrants' propen…
Making or Breaking Informal Volunteering
This article evaluates the relationship between welfare state institutions and informal voluntary activity. In particular, we wish to investigate the extent to which welfare state arrangements influence the individual's decision to volunteer informally. Focusing on informal volunteering – a vital, yet often neglected form of social capital – we reinvestigate the hypotheses on crowding in and crowding out. Our sub-national multilevel analysis of t…
How Exclusive is Assembly Democracy? Citizens' Assembly and Ballot Participation Compared
This paper analyses the difference between two specific forms of citizens’ involvements, namely whether a vote is cast by ballot or in a citizens’ assembly in which people gather in town halls to decide legislative questions in a deliberative manner. We show both theoretically and empirically how citizens’ assemblies and decisions at the ballot box substantially differ not only in terms of their underlying model of democracy, but also in their st…
Women, Labour, and Public Policy: Female Labour Market Integration in OECD Countries. A Comparative Perspective
This article investigates the influence of political measures and instruments on women's employment in OECD countries. The policy dimension builds the central explanatory category filling the 'black box' between political institutions and the decision-making process on the one hand, and policy outcome on the other. Unlike former comparative studies on the relationship between women's employment and public policies, this article analyses a much la…
Just another brick in the wall? The relationship between classroom-based political education and the political interest of young adults in Switzerland
This article asks whether political education at upper secondary school – i.e. shortly before or at the age when young people receive the right to vote – affects individual political interest as well as differences in political interest between social groups. Empirically, we use a novel data set combining individual student data with information on classroom-based political education as well as teacher characteristics. We do not find support for …
What Type of Resources? Household Effects and Female Electoral Participation
This paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic resources and women's political participation, more precisely whether the distinction between individual and household resources helps to identify different mechanisms behind a possible “resource effect”. Based on a Bayesian multilevel analysis using the Swiss Election Study 2011, we show that both individual and household resources matter for explaining female electoral participation…
Policy sequencing can increase public support for ambitious climate policy
Public support for ambitious climate policies and carbon prices that have direct costs for voters may depend on policy sequencing. Policy sequencing theory suggests that the strategic ordering of policies into sequences that initially create benefits can subsequently increase support for higher carbon prices. However, systematic quantitative evidence about the effects of sequencing on public support is lacking. We provide novel theoretical and em…
The role of vote advice application in direct-democratic opinion formation: An experiment from Switzerland
In an increasingly digitized world, vote advice applications (VAAs) seem to be effective in providing voters with personalized information about their own positions vis-à-vis parties’ positions and specific policies. Even though electoral research has increasingly paid attention to the role VAAs play in voter’s opinion formation, very few studies have examined VAAs in the context of direct-democratic decisions. This article fills this gap by prov…
Der Einfluss der sozialpolitischen Kontexte auf die Frauenerwerbstätigkeit in der Schweiz
Women, Labour, and Public Policy: Female Labour Market Integration in OECD Countries. A Comparative Perspective
This article investigates the influence of political measures and instruments on women's employment in OECD countries. The policy dimension builds the central explanatory category filling the 'black box' between political institutions and the decision-making process on the one hand, and policy outcome on the other. Unlike former comparative studies on the relationship between women's employment and public policies, this article analyses a much la…
Making or Breaking Informal Volunteering
This article evaluates the relationship between welfare state institutions and informal voluntary activity. In particular, we wish to investigate the extent to which welfare state arrangements influence the individual's decision to volunteer informally. Focusing on informal volunteering – a vital, yet often neglected form of social capital – we reinvestigate the hypotheses on crowding in and crowding out. Our sub-national multilevel analysis of t…
Educational Inequality in the EU: The Effectiveness of the National Education Policy
Since the publication of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scholarly interest in analysing the effectiveness and performance of education policy has risen again. The present article follows this path and presents the first empirical evaluation of the influence of national education policies on educational inequality in the European Union member states. We examine whether the availability of preschool education, an …
Stumbling block or stepping stone? The influence of direct democracy on individual participation in parliamentary elections
Social Volunteering in Welfare States: Where Crowding Out Should Occur
This article evaluates the influence of welfare state policy on individual social volunteering. Unlike previous studies that have investigated the relationship between the welfare state and civic engagement, this contribution focuses on those areas of civil society that are most directly related to public welfare state activities. Moreover, it is assumed that welfare state policy does not uniformly affect the civic engagement of various social gr…
Dimensions of Family Policy and Female Labor Market Participation: Analyzing Group-Specific Policy Effects
This article investigates whether and how family policy influences the probability and intensity of mothers' labor market participation. Unlike previous studies, this contribution focuses on group-specific policy effects, thereby accounting for the fact that, theoretically, women with different resources and preferences should respond differently to given policy measures. The analyses show that varying individual characteristics indeed influence …
Citizens as veto players: Climate Change Policy and the Constraints of Direct Democracy
The search for and implementation of effective climate change policies is one of the crucial challenges of policy-makers. One strand of literature argues that domestic factors and in particular institutional prerequisites or veto points strongly influence the quality and pace of a country's policy innovation and adaptation. Focusing on a particular institutional veto point – direct democracy – how does direct democracy influence a country's adapt…
Does Satisfaction with Democracy Really Increase Happiness? Direct Democracy and Individual Satisfaction in Switzerland
Education Policy and Educational Inequality--Evidence from the Swiss Laboratory
This article examines how the different education policies in the subnational units of Switzerland-the cantons-affect educational inequality. The article builds on previous research arguing that in order to properly evaluate education policy and its outcomes in decentralized countries, regional disparities must been taken into account. Switzerland has one of the most decentralized education systems in the world and is thus an exemplary case for a…
Cantonal variations of integration policy and their impact on immigrant educational inequality
Subnational Patterns of Democracy in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
This article investigates the main political institutions in the sub-national democracies of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It applies Lijphart’s approach to these German-speaking countries in Western Europe and expands it – following recent advances – by direct democracy. The main finding of the sub-national analysis is that, similar to Lijphart, two dimensions of democracy can be distinguished. While the first can be considered as the ‘conse…
Citizens, policy feedback, and European welfare states
Staffan Kumlin and Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen bring together political scientists and sociologists from different and frequently separated research communities to examine policy feedback in European welfare states. In doing so, they offer a rich menu of different methodological approaches. The book demonstrates how long-term policy legacies and short-term policy change affect the public, but also shows that such processes are contingent on indiv…
The 2011 Swiss Elections: Introduction
The 2011 Swiss federal elections represent a turning point in recent Swiss politics. The Swiss People's Party did not manage to increase further its vote share, after more than two decades of electoral successes. Also, the 2011 elections were characterized by the strong gains of two relatively new centrist parties, the Green Liberal Party and the Conservative Democratic Party. This election thus marks an end of the trend towards a growing level o…
What Type of Resources? Household Effects and Female Electoral Participation
This paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic resources and women's political participation, more precisely whether the distinction between individual and household resources helps to identify different mechanisms behind a possible “resource effect”. Based on a Bayesian multilevel analysis using the Swiss Election Study 2011, we show that both individual and household resources matter for explaining female electoral participation…
Who supports minority rights in popular votes? Empirical evidence from Switzerland
Do Integration Policies Affect Immigrants' Voluntary Engagement? An Exploration at Switzerland's Subnational Level
This paper investigates whether integration policies influence immigrants' propensity to volunteer, the latter being an important element of immigrants' integration into the host society. By distinguishing different categories of integration policies at Switzerland's subnational level and applying a Bayesian multilevel approach, our results suggest varying policy effects: while policies fostering socio-structural rights enhance immigrants' propen…
Individual socialization or polito-cultural context? The cultural roots of volunteering in Switzerland
How Exclusive is Assembly Democracy? Citizens' Assembly and Ballot Participation Compared
This paper analyses the difference between two specific forms of citizens’ involvements, namely whether a vote is cast by ballot or in a citizens’ assembly in which people gather in town halls to decide legislative questions in a deliberative manner. We show both theoretically and empirically how citizens’ assemblies and decisions at the ballot box substantially differ not only in terms of their underlying model of democracy, but also in their st…
Bringing the policy making perspective in: A political science approach to social acceptance
Trust and the Welfare State
This chapter considers if and how social and political trust are affected by policy outputs and outcomes related to the welfare state. We survey how (dis)similar explanatory variables, causal mechanisms, and methodology are across four accumulations of studies. Specifically, we discuss contextual factors in “normal times” as well as effects of economic crises. We also assess individual-level factors focusing on “performance evaluations” and “pers…
Just another brick in the wall? The relationship between classroom-based political education and the political interest of young adults in Switzerland
This article asks whether political education at upper secondary school – i.e. shortly before or at the age when young people receive the right to vote – affects individual political interest as well as differences in political interest between social groups. Empirically, we use a novel data set combining individual student data with information on classroom-based political education as well as teacher characteristics. We do not find support for …
How federalism influences welfare spending: Belgium federalism reform through the perspective of the synthetic control method
The question of whether and how federalism influences a country's welfare state has been a longstanding concern of political scientists. However, no agreement exists on exactly how, and under what conditions, federal structures impact the welfare state. This article examines this controversy. It concludes theoretically that the specific constellation of federal structures and distribution of powers need to be considered when theorising the effect…
Perceiving Reconciliation: Child Care Policies and Gendered Time Conflicts
In recent decades, many studies have examined gender-related differences in paid employment and the reconciliation of family and employment. Considering perceptions of time conflicts with regards to work at home and leisure activities, this article contributes to a more encompassing understanding of attitudes toward reconciliation problems. Special attention is given to the role of external child care services. The use of an original data set fro…
The unpopularity of incentive-based instruments: What improves the cost–benefit ratio
Political science (45 works) · Economics (38 works) · Politics (38 works) · Law (30 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (20 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (18 works) · Public economics (18 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Democracy (13 works)