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Analyses of data that include observations of multiple countries over longer periods of time--time-series cross-section data--have become an important tool for researchers in comparative politics, international relations, and many other fields. Such analyses are challenging, however. Researchers using time-series cross-section data may, for instance, experience that their results change radically once they make (seemingly) small changes to their regression models. In this Case Study, we explain how we went about our own analysis of time-series cross-section data related to welfare state reforms, why we chose our strategy, which problems we encountered, and how we dealt with them. We also provide a list of recommendations for researchers wishing to use time-series cross-section data that can help them make robust and valid inferences.

AbstractThis paper describes the changing nature of the English and Swedish states between 1800 and 2020 from the perspective of ordinary citizens. We identify 13 typical life situations and then describe the types of citizens who interacted with the state, the number and types of public officials with whom they interacted, and where those interactions took place. We distinguish among three typical social groups: the poor, the middle, and the rich. We find, among other things, that the poor became objects of government policy much earlier than other groups, but they also remained in a world of parochial poor relief even as the middle and the rich began to interact with a more functionally differentiated, professional bureaucracy. These findings have important implications for scholarly debates on when the state began to interact directly with the civilian masses and the unevenness of state activities and capacities within countries.

This article puts contemporary debates about the relationship between immigration policy and the welfare state in historical perspective. Relying on new historical data, the article examines the relationship between immigration policy and social policy in Western Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the modern welfare state emerged. Germany already had comparably strict immigration policies when the German Empire introduced the world's first national social insurances in the 1880s. Denmark, another early social-policy adopter, also pursued restrictive immigration policies early on. Almost all other countries in Western Europe started out with more liberal immigration policies than Germany's and Denmark's, but then adopted more restrictive immigration policies and more generous social policies concurrently. There are two exceptions, Belgium and Italy, which are discussed in the article.

This article puts contemporary debates about the relationship between immigration policy and the welfare state in historical perspective. Relying on new historical data, the article examines the relationship between immigration policy and social policy in Western Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the modern welfare state emerged. Germany already had comparably strict immigration policies when the German Empire introduced the world's first national social insurances in the 1880s. Denmark, another early social-policy adopter, also pursued restrictive immigration policies early on. Almost all other countries in Western Europe started out with more liberal immigration policies than Germany's and Denmark's, but then adopted more restrictive immigration policies and more generous social policies concurrently. There are two exceptions, Belgium and Italy, which are discussed in the article.

This Note introduces the Heads of Government dataset, which provides summary information about the ideological orientation of heads of government (left, center, or right, with separately provided information about religious orientation) in 33 states in Western Europe, the Americas, and the Asia–Pacific region between 1870 and 2012. The Note also describes some intriguing empirical patterns when it comes to over-time changes in the political prominence of left-wing, centrist, and right-wing parties.

This paper reviews the growing literature on "state capacity" in political science and related disciplines and proposes a new conceptualization of state capacity. The paper argues that most existing definitions and theories of state capacity are too closely tailored to explaining a particular set of outcomes – such as economic growth – which limits the applicability of the concept of state capacity arbitrarily and impedes theory development. The idea behind our own conceptualization is that state capacity can be defined as the strength of the causal relationship between the policies that governments adopt and the outcomes that they intend to achieve. We show that this definition makes the concept of state capacity fit in well in a larger family of concepts. We then proceed to develop a theoretical argument about the resources that states deploy in order to increase state capacity – especially financial resources, human capital, and information – and we examine the relationship between these resources and the three main types of policy instruments that states rely on when they seek to control territories and populations: coercion, economic incentives, and propaganda.

Many political scientists and economists have argued that coalition governments tend to accumulate more debt than single-party governments do, but the evidence for this proposition is mixed. This article argues that only some coalition governments are more likely to increase public debt than single-party governments: those in which parties are unable to make credible promises to their partners about future policy. It introduces the concept of 'commitment potential' within coalitions and proposes a way of measuring it. The study evaluates its theoretical claims using data on 20 advanced democracies observed over a period of almost 50 years. It finds that multiparty governments with high commitment potential do not, on average, accumulate more debt than single-party governments, but that governments with low commitment potential do. Adapted from the source document.