Party governments, clientelistic reforms, and varying levels of political constraints

Hübscher, Evelyne

doi:10.1057/s41295-016-0007-4

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A large empirical literature has assessed these partisan explanations of welfare spending. Allan and Scruggs () find that left‐wing governments are associated with more generous welfare entitlements while more recent work by Hübscher () has reached similar conclusions with respect to both welfare generosity and social expenditure. In a similar vein, Korpi and Palme () have shown that cuts to benefit replacement rates are lower when Left parties are in office.…”

Section: Partisan Politics and The Welfare Statementioning

confidence: 86%

The politics of social spending after the Great Recession: The return of partisan policy making

Savage

2018

Governance

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Prior research shows that the effect of partisanship on social expenditure declined over time in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries. In this article, the author argues that the 2007/2008 recession resulted in the reemergence of partisan policy making in social spending. This was a result of mainstream parties needing to respond to the growing challenge from nonmainstream parties as well as demonstrating that they responded to the economic crisis by offering different policy solutions. Using a panel of 23 OECD countries, the author shows that since the Great Recession, partisan effects on social spending are once again significant. These effects are more likely to be observed where the salience of the Left–Right dimension is higher. In accordance with classic theories of economic policy making, left‐wing governments are more likely to increase social spending when unemployment is higher and right‐wing governments restrain social expenditure when the budget deficit is greater.

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Section: Partisan Politics and The Welfare Statementioning

confidence: 86%

The politics of social spending after the Great Recession: The return of partisan policy making

Savage

2018

Governance

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“…In most research, electoral risk arises from special interest politics when electorally important societal subgroups who are negatively affected by retrenchment policies withdraw their support for the government (e.g., Immergut ; Pierson ; Wenzelburger ; Afonso et al. , Hübscher , forthcoming). Left governments, therefore, may be more sensitive to the electoral costs of retrenchment than right governments because their constituencies rely more on the state (Giger & Nelson ).…”

Section: Electoral Risk and Fiscal Consolidationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal consolidation under electoral risk

Hübscher

Sattler

2016

European J Political Res

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The European debt crisis has uncovered serious tension between democratic politics and market pressure in contemporary democracies. This tension arises when governments implement unpopular fiscal consolidation packages in order to raise their macroeconomic credibility among financial investors. Nonetheless, the dominant view in current research is that governments should not find it difficult to balance demands from voters and investors because the economic and political costs of fiscal consolidations are low. This would leave governments with sufficient room to promote fiscal consolidation according to their ideological agenda. This article re‐examines this proposition by studying how the risk of governments to be replaced in office affects the probability and timing of fiscal consolidation policies. The results show that governments associate significant electoral risk with consolidations because electorally vulnerable governments strategically avoid consolidations towards the end of the legislative term in order to minimise electoral punishment. Specifically, the predicted probability of consolidation decreases from 40 per cent after an election to 13 per cent towards the end of the term when the government's margin of victory is small. When the electoral margin is large, the probability of consolidation is roughly stable at around 35 per cent. Electoral concerns are the most important political determinant of consolidations, leaving only a minor role for ideological concerns. Governments, hence, find it more difficult to reconcile political and economic pressures on fiscal policy than previous, influential research implies. The results suggest that existing studies under‐estimate the electoral risk associated with consolidations because they ignore the strategic behaviour that is established in this analysis.

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“…In his work, David Rueda (2005, 2006, 2007) argues that social democratic parties side with insiders when confronted with distributive conflicts within their electorate whereas outsiders’ concerns are ignored. This claim has sparked a debate whether and under what circumstances social democratic parties can claim to represent the entire workforce (see Hübscher, 2017; Iversen and Soskice, 2015; Tepe and Vanhuysse, 2013; Vlandas, 2013). The conflict between insiders and outsiders also shows that the meaning of the socio-economic dimension of political competition has changed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labor Market Dualization and Insider–Outsider Divides: Why This New Conflict Matters

Schwander

2018

Political Studies Review

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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.

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Party governments, clientelistic reforms, and varying levels of political constraints

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

The politics of social spending after the Great Recession: The return of partisan policy making

The politics of social spending after the Great Recession: The return of partisan policy making

Fiscal consolidation under electoral risk

Labor Market Dualization and Insider–Outsider Divides: Why This New Conflict Matters

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