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

Savage, Lee

doi:10.1111/gove.12354

Cited by 39 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…The critical dispute which could have resulted in reform deadlock took place within the executive over the re-indexation of the BSP to average earnings. Contrary to what we would expect from research which focuses on partisan and party effects on public spending and benefits increases (see Savage, 2019 for a literature review) rather than intraparty conflict, in this case, the divide emerged between the Prime Minister and ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions on one hand, and the Treasury, on the other hand. Until the creation of the Pensions Commission, the Treasury had de facto control of pensions policy, at least insofar as fiscal policy was involved.…”

Section: Temporality and Political Agencycontrasting

confidence: 69%

Statecraft and incremental change: Explaining the success of pension reforms in the United Kingdom

Massala

Pearce

2021

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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How were comprehensive pension reforms in the UK successfully developed, enacted and implemented from 2002 to 2015, despite changes in government composition and the financial crisis? Why were they not subject to policy conflict, electoral competition and policy reversal? Drawing on actor-centred historical institutionalism and thirty interviews with key actors, we demonstrate the critical role played by a limited number of politicians and policy entrepreneurs and their ideas and agency. Institutional continuity with the Beveridgean policy legacies of the pension system and the United Kingdom’s `growth regime’ enabled a coalition space to open up for policy agreement. between the government and Opposition parties, and for partisan electoral competition over the reforms to be `bracketed’. The incremental and interlocking nature of the reform package reduced interest group opposition and enabled a centralisation of decision-making power. A long-term timeframe for reform cemented the formation of an elite coalition and buttressed political control. Cross-party support for the reform package, coupled with judicious phasing of the implementation of auto-enrolment and fiscal reforms, enabled it to withstand the impact of the financial crisis and the austerity that followed it, and to minimise opposition among the critical electoral constituency of older voters. The dominance of the reform process by political actors and policy entrepreneurs in the UK nonetheless came at a price, as institutional continuity and incrementalism foreclosed alternative reforms. We demonstrate the importance of political statecraft and policy entrepreneurship in the UK pensions’ reform process, but within boundaries set by its institutional context.

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Section: Temporality and Political Agencycontrasting

confidence: 69%

Statecraft and incremental change: Explaining the success of pension reforms in the United Kingdom

Massala

Pearce

2021

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…The partisan theories suggest that leftwing governments spend more on social welfare than rightwing governments (for new studies see, e.g., Bove, Efthyvoulou, & Navas, ; Herwartz & Theilen, ; Potrafke, ; Savage, ; Schuknecht & Zemanek, ). One may therefore like to include government ideology as an explanatory variable.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The globalisation–welfare state nexus: Evidence from Asia

Potrafke

2018

World Economy

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How globalisation influences social expenditure has been examined for industrialised countries. Globalisation has often been shown to be positively associated with social expenditure in established industrialised countries, a finding that corroborates the compensation hypothesis. Scholars have focused on industrialised countries, because social expenditure is difficult to measure in developing countries. I use new data on social expenditure for Asian non‐OECD countries. Globalisation is measured by the new KOF Globalisation Index. My results do not suggest that globalisation influenced social expenditures in Asia. Neither do the results suggest that the nexus between globalisation and social expenditures varied across high‐income countries, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and lower‐income Asian countries or across Asian regions. It is conceivable that Asian citizens did not demand increasing social support when globalisation proceeded rapidly because they enjoyed family and other private assistance. Asian countries also have weaker tax and labour market institutions than OECD countries and have therefore more difficulties in increasing social expenditure.

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“…The PAF terms this the Program Responsiveness Hypothesis , which sees the program's capacity to address existent and emerging challenges and use them for its own sake as a factor of programmatic success. Other research strands designate such explanations of policy changes differently, for example with reference to policy‐making in times of crisis (Savage, 2019; Steinebach et al., 2019; Wenzelburger et al., 2019) or as a reaction to problem pressure, for example rising health care expenditures and the lack of efficiency (Schmid et al., 2010; Weinstein & Skinner, 2010).…”

Section: Programmatic Action and The Success Factors Of Policy Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

Hornung

2021

European Policy Analysis

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The Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) is a relatively new theoretical perspective that adds a complementary lens to the explanation of policy processes and policy change. Yet, a key requirement of a valid policy process framework is its capacity to be proven wrong. Besides the empirical cases that provide evidence for the occurrence of programmatic action, it is necessary to present examples in which programmatic action did not occur, and to explain why this is the case. Proceeding from the observation that programmatic groups and policy programs existed in French and German health policy throughout the 1990s, this contribution answers the question why in 2020, programmatic action is still present in France but not in Germany and why the German policy program did not survive the financial crisis of 2008. It argues that misfit to pre‐existing institutional logics and changing institutional logics in the course of programmatic action hinder program success.

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

Cited by 39 publications

References 58 publications

Statecraft and incremental change: Explaining the success of pension reforms in the United Kingdom

Statecraft and incremental change: Explaining the success of pension reforms in the United Kingdom

The globalisation–welfare state nexus: Evidence from Asia

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

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