Biting the Hand that Feeds
Reconsidering the Partisan Determinants of Welfare Spending in Times of Austerity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6267553 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Abel Bojar (0000-0002-5117-3441, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 621-652 |
| Publication date | 2018-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Government and Opposition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0017-257X • E-ISSN: 1477-7053 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/gov.2017.3 |
| OpenAlex | W2604926610 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 74 |
The New Politics of the welfare state suggests that periods of welfare retrenchment present policymakers with a qualitatively different set of challenges and electoral incentives compared to periods of welfare expansion. An unresolved puzzle for this literature is the relative electoral success of retrenching governments in recent decades, as evidenced by various studies on fiscal consolidations. This article points to the importance of partisan biases as the main explanatory factor. I argue that partisan biases in the electorate create incentives for incumbent governments to depart from their representative function and push the burden of retrenchment on the very constituencies to which they owe their electoral mandate (‘Nixon-goes-to-China’). After offering a simple model on the logic of partisan biases, the article proceeds by testing the unexpected partisan hypotheses that the model generates. My findings from a cross-section time-series analysis in a set of 23 OECD countries provide corroborative evidence on this Nixon-goes-to-China logic of welfare retrenchment: governments systematically inflict pain on their core constituencies. These effects are especially pronounced in periods of severe budgetary pressure
Austerity · Economics · Incentive · Macroeconomics · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Retrenchment · Welfare · Welfare state · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Public Administration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Party systems and voter alignments
The Economic Vote
Party Competition and Responsible Party Government
Mapping Policy Preferences
Fiscal Governance in Europe
Has Globalization Gone Too Far?
The Political Economy of Fiscal Adjustments
The Politics of Public Debt
How Do Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Affect Reelection Prospects? Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries
Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game
Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization
Veto Players
International Social Survey Programme
The Globalization–Welfare State Nexus Reconsidered
Partisan Competition and Welfare State Retrenchment
Dismantling the Welfare State?
Development and Crisis of the Welfare State
The Disappearing State?
The New Politics of the Welfare State
Political Institutions, Veto Points, and the Process of Welfare State Adaptation
The Democratic Class Struggle
Has Globalization Gone Too Far
Globalisation, Domestic Politics, and Welfare State Retrenchment in Capitalist Democracies
Do voters punish the government for welfare state retrenchment? A comparative study of electoral costs associated with social policy
Mixing apples with oranges? Partisanship and active labour market policies in Europe
Inequality and the political economy of education
The Politics of Welfare State Retrenchment
What makes fiscal consolidations last? A survival analysis of budget cuts in Europe (1960–2004)
The politics of the new social policies
Who’s in Charge? How Voters Attribute Responsibility in the European Union
The Causes of Welfare State Expansion
Equality, Employment, and Budgetary Restraint
Toward a New Theory of Institutional Change
The New Politics of the Welfare State
The Conceptualisation and Measurement of Issue Ownership
The Depoliticization of Inequality and Redistribution
Economic Perceptions and Vote Choice
Are Aging OECD Welfare States on the Path to Gerontocracy
Irresistible forces, immovable objects
The partisan politics of institutional welfare state reform
Political parties, institutions, and the dynamics of social expenditure in times of austerity
Global Markets and National Politics
Globalization as ‘Galton's Problem
Beyond Left and Right
How reliable is pooled analysis in political economy? The globalization‐welfare state nexus revisited
The electoral consequences of welfare state retrenchment
Partisanship in the setting and coordination of fiscal and monetary policies
Globalization, government spending and taxation in the OECD
Government partisanship in Western democracies, 1945–1998
Christian Democracy
Time-Series–cross-Sectiondata
A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting
Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies
The New Political Economy of Taxation in Advanced Capitalist Democracies
The Economy and Policy Mood
How Parties Shape Class Politics
Social Policy by Popular Demand
What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data
Coalitions and Cabinet Government
Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy
New Politics and Class Politics in the Context of Austerity and Globalization
Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State
Insider-Outsider Politics in Industrialized Democracies
Are Social Classes Dying
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |