Does Austerity Cause Political Polarization and Fragmentation?

Huebscher, Evelyne; Sattler, Thomas; Wagner, Markus

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3541546

Cited by 12 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Districts are the main meaningful subnational administrative unit in the United Kingdom. Results are robust to computing spatial HAC errors or clustering at a higher level statistical area 17. Online Appendix C.1 shows that patterns presented here are robust to alternative fixed effects, different sample cuts and broader or more refined baseline measures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 69%

“…16 I focus on four main characteristics X i,baseline that stand out due to their prominence in the cross-sectional analysis of the Leave vote and their relevance to the wider literature: the share of the 2001 resident population with no formal qualifications, the share working in routine jobs, and the working-age resident population shares working in the manufacturing and retail sectors. 17…”

Section: A Empirical Specificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Did Austerity Cause Brexit?

Fetzer

2019

American Economic Review

306

206

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This paper documents a significant association between the exposure of an individual or area to the UK government’s austerity-induced welfare reforms begun in 2010, and the following: the subsequent rise in support for the UK Independence Party, an important correlate of Leave support in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership; broader individual-level measures of political dissatisfaction; and direct measures of support for Leave. Leveraging data from all UK electoral contests since 2000, along with detailed, individual-level panel data, the findings suggest that the EU referendum could have resulted in a Remain victory had it not been for austerity. (JEL D72, F15, F60, H53, I38)

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mentioning

confidence: 69%

Section: A Empirical Specificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Did Austerity Cause Brexit?

Fetzer

2019

American Economic Review

306

206

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“…Election outcomes already factor in this government response (Hübscher et al , 2015). Fourthly, whether voters can express their discontent with austerity policies at the ballot box depends on the alternatives that opposition parties offer (Hübscher et al , 2019). If the opposition advocates even harsher austerity measures, voters may have no choice but to stick with the government, even if they disapprove of the policy (Horn and Jensen, 2017).…”

Section: Theory: Austerity and Governments’ Popularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Are governments paying a price for austerity? Fiscal consolidations reduce government approval

Jacques

Haffert

2021

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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What are the political effects of fiscal consolidations? Theoretical considerations suggest that consolidations should reduce the public’s support for their governments, but empirical studies have found surprisingly small effects on government support. However, most of these studies analyze electoral outcomes, which are separated from the consolidation by a multi-link causal chain. We argue that more direct measures of government support, such as executive approval, show much stronger negative effects of consolidation, since they are less affected by the strategic timing of consolidations or the political alternatives on offer. We analyze a time series cross-sectional dataset of executive approval in 14 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1978 to 2014, using the narrative approach to measure fiscal consolidations. We find that spending cuts decrease government approval, especially during economic downturns, but tax increases’ impact on approval remains minimal. Finally, left- and right-wing governments are equally likely to lose approval after implementing austerity.

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“…For example, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has fragmented the right political spectrum in Germany, Podemos has emerged as a new party on the political left in Spain, and the Movimento Cinque Stelle has transformed Italian politics. In combination, the decline of many mainstream parties and the subsequent rise of challenger parties on the right and left side of the political spectrum has translated into a rising effective number of parties represented in parliaments across many Western democracies (Huebscher et al, 2020). Therefore, government formation today often requires negotiations between a higher number of parties able to form only very slim majorities, or even just minority governments.…”

Section: Party System Change and Political Fragmentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On democratic intelligence and failure: The vice and virtue of incrementalism under political fragmentation and policy accumulation

Adam

Hurka²,

Knill³

et al. 2021

Governance

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The vice and virtue of incrementalism have been the subject of a long‐standing academic debate. This debate, however, lacks a dynamic perspective that analyzes how the transformation of politics—mainly in the form of increasing levels of political fragmentation within decision‐making arenas and increasing complexity of policy‐mixes—affects the role of incrementalism. We argue that both of these trends make the virtues of incrementalism politically even more valuable than they have always been. At the same time, this proliferation of incrementalism comes at the costs of overlooked second‐order effects. Since the empirical reality of incrementalism is primarily one that results in incremental policy accumulation, it continuously adds implementation burdens, enhances the demandingness of substantive policy debate, and makes effective science communication more difficult. Thereby, accumulative incrementalism becomes one source of pressure on three cornerstones of legitimate governance: effective policy implementation, sophisticated policy debate, and evidence‐based policymaking.

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Does Austerity Cause Political Polarization and Fragmentation?

Cited by 12 publications

References 93 publications

Did Austerity Cause Brexit?

Did Austerity Cause Brexit?

Are governments paying a price for austerity? Fiscal consolidations reduce government approval

On democratic intelligence and failure: The vice and virtue of incrementalism under political fragmentation and policy accumulation

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