With the post-industrialization and flexibilization of European labour markets, research on social and economic correlates of labour market vulnerability and weak labour market attachment is growing. Part of this literature conceptualizes these correlates in terms of dualization and insider-outsider divides in an attempt to explore their political implications: this article is written in order to contribute to this strand of research. In this article, we propose a conceptualization and measurement of labour market insiders and outsiders, based on their respective risk of being atypically employed or unemployed. We propose both a dichotomous measure of insiders/outsiders and a continuous measure of the degree of an individual's 'outsiderness'. We argue that such risk-based measures are particularly suited for research on the policy preferences and political implications of insider-outsider divides. On the basis of EU-SILC and national household panel data, we provide a map of dualization across different countries and welfare regimes. We then explore the correlates of labour market vulnerability -that is, outsiderness -by relating it to indicators of income and upward job mobility, as well as labour market policy preferences. The results consistently confirm an impact of labour market vulnerability, indicating a potential for a politicization of the insider/outsider conflict.

Recent research has established that employment risk shapes social policy preferences. However, risk is often conceptualized as an alternative measure of the socio-economic status. We show that employment risk and socio-economic status are distinct, crosscutting determinants of social policy preferences. More specifically, we analyze the policy preferences of high-skilled labor market outsiders as a cross-pressured group. We first establish that labor market vulnerability has spread well into the more highly educated segments of the population. We then show that the effect of labor market vulnerability on social policy preferences even increases with higher educational attainment. We conclude that that labor market risk and educational status are not interchangeable and that the high skilled are particularly sensitive to the experience of labor market risk. Thereby, our findings point to a potential cross-class alliance between more highly and lower skilled vulnerable individuals in support of a redistributive and activating welfare state. Thus, they have far-reaching implications for our understanding of both the politicization of insider/outsider divides and the politics of welfare support.JEL Classification: 12 P Unemployment benefits, J21 labor force and employment, size and structure, H53 government expenditures and welfare programs

Explaining social policy preferences has become a major topic in comparative politics with labor market risk as a key determinant of these preferences. However, one question continues to loom large: are preference divides blurred by mixed households, that is, secure labor market participants living with vulnerable partners? In this article, we build on the insider-outsider literature and show that while the household does matter, its mitigating effect is limited in scope and strongly conditional on gender. Women's preferences depend on their partner's labor market situation, while men's preferences are unaffected by it. Overall, only a small minority of the population across Western Europe benefits from a "household safety net." Our findings have important implications for understanding the politicization of insider-outsider divides.

In this paper, we investigate whether income inequality negatively affects voter turnout. Despite some progress, the answer to this question is still debated due to methodological disagreements and differences in the selection of countries and time periods. We contribute to this debate by triangulating data and methods. More specifically, we use three kinds of data to resolve the question: first, we use cross-sectional aggregate data of 21 OECD countries in the time period from 1980 to 2014 to study the relationship between inequality and electoral participation. Second, we zoom in on the German case and examine local data from 402 administrative districts between 1998 and 2017. Focusing on within-country variation eliminates differences that are linked to features of the political system. Finally, we combine survey data with macro-data to investigate the impact of inequality on individual voting. This final step also allows us to test whether the effect of income inequality on voter turnout differs across income groups. Taken together, we offer the most comprehensive analysis of the impact of social inequality on political inequality to date. We corroborate accounts that argue that economic inequality exacerbates participatory inequality.

Reflecting the importance of inequality for individuals’ lives, the implications of labor market inequality for core elements of democracy are crucial topics in comparative politics and comparative political economy. This article critically reviews the main findings of the emerging literature on insider–outsider divides to highlight its possible contributions to adjacent fields, in particular the research on party politics, the literatures on economic voting, political participation, and democratic representation or the study of social movements. The conflict between labor market insiders and outsiders demonstrates that in today’s societies with their diversified risk structure and sophisticated welfare states, distributive conflicts are about specific social and regulatory policies that have different implications for individuals depending on their situation on the labor market. By drawing our attention to new divides within the social democratic electorate, the insider–outsider literature reveals an additional argument why the social democratic parties find it hard to mobilize their voters and to win elections. Moreover, the insider–outsider literature can help to bring the economic dimension of politics back to the study of social movements and to light on the relationship between contentious and conventional politics.