(Dallek 1991, 168-9) A fundamental issue of American politics, as well as democratic theory, is whether the public holds elected officials accountable for their policy decisions. The founders of the United States clearly desired such accountability, and for no institution more so than the House of Representatives. As Madison ([1788] 1987, 323-4) argued in Federalist 52, "As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration [the House of Representatives] should have an immediate dependence on, and intimate sympathy with, the people." He continued by surmising, "Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence sympathy can be effectively secured."

Prior scholarship is sharply divided on how or if globalization influences welfare states. Globalization's effects may be positive causing expansion, negative triggering crisis and reduction, curvilinear contributing to convergence, or insignificant. We bring new evidence to bear on this crucial debate with a pooled time series analysis of two measures of the welfare state and 16 indicators of economic globalization for 17 affluent democracies from 1975 to 1998. The analysis suggests that: (1) state-of-the-art welfare state models warrant revision in the globalization era; (2) most indicators of economic globalization do not have significant effects; (3) the few significant globalization effects are in different directions and often inconsistent with extant theories; (4) the globalization effects are far smaller than the effects of domestic political and economic factors; and (5) these effects are not systematically different for liberal vs. nonliberal welfare state regimes, European vs. non-European countries, or with four alternative dependent variables. Increased globalization and a modest convergence of the welfare state have occurred, but globalization does not unambiguously cause welfare state expansion, crisis and reduction or convergence. Zusammenfassung Bisherige Befunde der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zum kausalen Verhältnis von ‚Globalisierung' und Wohlfahrtsstaat sind nicht eindeutig. Danach kann Globalisierung positive Effekte haben und zu einem Ausbau an Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit führen, eine Krise des Wohlfahrtsstaates oder Leistungsreduktionen herbeiführen, kurvilineare Wirkungen aufweisen und zu Konvergenz beitragen, als auch vollkommen insignifikant sein. Unsere gepoolte Zeitreihenanalyse von Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit und ‚Globalisierung' in 17 reichen Demokratien (1975-1998) hat folgende Befunde zu Tage gefördert: (1) im Zeitalter der Globalisierung erscheinen bestehende Wohlfahrtsstaatsmodelle revisionsbedürftig; (2) die Mehrzahl der ökonomischen Globalisierungsindikatoren weist keine signifikanten Effekte auf; (3) die wenigen signifikanten Effekte zeigen in unterschiedliche Richtungen und stimmen häufig nicht mit bestehenden theoretischen Annahmen überein; (4) die Globalisierungseffekte sind deutlich kleiner als die Effekte binnenpolitischer Variablen und ökonomischer Faktoren; (5) diese Effekte unterscheiden sich in ‚liberalen' und ‚nicht-liberalen' Wohlfahrtsregimen bzw. europäischen und nicht-europäischen Ländern nicht systematisch von einander. Im Analysezeitraum können wir sowohl einen Anstieg der verschiedenen Globalisierungsindikatoren sowie eine moderate Konvergenz der verschiedenen Wohlfahrtsstaaten konstatieren. Jedoch kann der Prozess der ‚Globalisierung' nicht eindeutig als kausale Ursache für die unterschiedlichen Entwicklungsrichtungen in den verschiedenen Wohlfahrtsstaaten identifiziert werden.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may RETHINKING THE RISKS OF POVERTY: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING PREVALENCES AND PENALTIES ABSTRACTConsiderable attention focuses on the risks of poverty, defined as individual-level labor market and family characteristics more common among the poor than the non-poor. This article first develops a framework for analyzing the risks of poverty in terms of prevalences (share of the population with a risk) and penalties (increased probability of poverty associated with a risk).Comparing the four major risks (low education, single motherhood, young headship, and unemployment) across 29 rich democracies, we show there is greater variation in penalties than prevalences. Second, we apply this framework to the U.S. We show that prevalences cannot explain high U.S. poverty as the U.S. has below average prevalences. Rather, the U.S. has high poverty partly because it has the highest penalties. U.S. poverty would decline more with crossnational median penalties than cross-national median prevalences, and U.S. poverty in 2013 would actually be worse with prevalences from 1970 or 1980. Third, we analyze cross-national variation in prevalences and penalties. We find very little evidence that higher penalties discourage prevalences, or that lower penalties encourage prevalences. We also show welfare generosity significantly moderates the penalties for unemployment and low education. We conclude with three broader implications. First, a focus on risks is unlikely to provide a convincing explanation or effective strategy for poverty. Second, despite being the subject of the most research, single motherhood may be the least important of the risks. Third, for general explanations of poverty, studies based solely on the U.S. are constrained by potentially large sample selection biases. 3A prevailing and enduring feature of American poverty research has been a focus on risks. For a long time, scholars have stressed the individual-level family and labor market characteristics that are more common among the poor than the non-poor (O'Connor 2001). Recently, Sawhill (2014: 14) claims, "The ideal would be education, work, marriage, children -in that order. The achievement of these benchmarks will, in almost all cases, ensure that any children a couple decides to have are not born into poverty." Earlier in 2003, Sawhill wrote, "Those who graduate from high school, wait until marriage to have children, limit the size of their families, and work f...

There has been great interest in the relationship between immigration and the welfare state in recent years, and particularly since Alesina and Glaeser’s (2004) influential work. Following literatures on solidarity and fractionalization, race in the U.S. welfare state, and anti-immigrant sentiments, many contend that immigration undermines public support for social policy. This study analyzes three measures of immigration and six welfare attitudes using 1996 and 2006 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data for 17 affluent democracies. Based on multi-level and two-way fixed-effects models, our results mostly fail to support the generic hypothesis that immigration undermines public support for social policy. The percent foreign born, net migration, and the 10-year change in the percent foreign born all fail to have robust significant negative effects on welfare attitudes. There is evidence that the percent foreign born significantly undermines the welfare attitude that government “should provide a job for everyone who wants one.” However, there is more robust evidence that net migration and change in percent foreign born have positive effects on welfare attitudes. We conclude that the compensation and chauvinism hypotheses provide greater potential for future research, and we critically consider other ways immigration could undermine the welfare state. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that factors other than immigration are far more important for public support of social policy.

RETHINKING THE SOCIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT OF POVERTY* ABSTRACTDespite serious methodological problems, quantitative studies of poverty by U.S. sociologists predominantly rely on the official U.S. measure. After reviewing the shortcomings of the U.S. measure, this paper examines several theoretical and methodological advances in poverty measurement. Synthesizing this literature, I argue that ideal measures of poverty should: a) measure comparative historical variation effectively; b) be relative rather than absolute; c) conceptualize poverty as social exclusion; d) assess the impact of taxes, transfers and state benefits; and e) integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor. Next, this paper evaluates sociological studies published since 1990 for their consideration of these criteria.Due to sociology's neglect of these criteria, this paper advocates for three alternative poverty Sociology's revitalization of poverty research has produced significant empirical findings, theoretical contributions and policy applications. At the same time, several conventional methodological practices have become widely accepted. While these conventions demonstrate effective scientific replication, this consensus has simultaneously obscured one very crucial methodological concern. On the whole, the measurement of poverty has not received the scrutiny it deserves. Most sociologists of poverty rely on estimates of the official U.S. measure of poverty -presuming such statistics are both valid and reliable. In a few cases, sociologists modestly augment the U.S. measure with slight alterations or by supplementing it with other indicators. However, most archival quantitative data sets supply researchers with dichotomous variables identifying respondents as below or above the official level. Typically, scholars use these simple dummy variables and hope measurement issues are resolved. In turn, the vast majority of sociological studies of poverty utilize a seriously problematic measure of poverty. Overall, this paper attempts to provide a guide for sociologists, while facilitating a stronger connection between sociology and the theoretical and methodological advances in the measurement of poverty. First, I revisit the shortcomings of the official U.S. poverty measure.Second, I discuss several emerging theoretical and methodological advances in the measurement 4 of poverty, and advocate five criteria for the measurement of poverty: a) measure comparative historical variation effectively; b) be relative rather than absolute; c) conceptualize poverty as Moreover, many analysts fault the U.S. measure's lack of reliability because it obscures differences in the extent of poverty among population groups and across geographic contexts, and provides an inaccurate picture of trends over time (Citro and Michael 1995;Haveman 1987).Because the measure remains unchanged after thirty years, significant demographic, economic, and policy changes are ignored (Blank 1997). Specifically, the NRC noted the increased labor force participation o...