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Private-heavy welfare systems, in which low or moderate state benefits are topped up by private welfare arrangements, are expected to undermine political support for the extension of social rights and perpetuate benefit fragmentation over time. And where low state benefits are means tested, political support is expected to be particularly prone to erosion. In this article I develop the argument that the combination of private pensions and means-testing does not always perpetuate fragmentation. Rather, it structures the policy preferences of pension industry representatives and right-of-centre parties such that these actors push for reforms to make the state pension more universal. I make my argument by examining the reform history of nine private-heavy pension systems in the three decades since 1980. A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis maps the conditions under which universalizing reforms have occurred, and two case studies link institutional conditions to reform outcomes via the policy preferences of key political actors.

Taxing multinationals is politically difficult because of the structural power of mobile firms within the global economy, and this structural power is expected to increase in the digital age. Recently however there has been a breakdown in the international corporate tax consensus that structured tax competition over the past century. A new norm of international taxation has emerged whereby states claim the right to tax corporate income based on presence in consumer markets. Our paper explains this unexpected reassertion of state power. Building on previous accounts of large-scale change in policy norms, we show how the emergence of digital business models led to a new tax consensus by setting in train a process of policy contestation that allowed countries to levy taxes on multinationals unilaterally, without fear of capital flight.

Highly educated individuals tend to be less supportive of redistribution by most accounts because they have more to lose and less to gain from it. In this article, we use European Social Survey data to develop the argument that university education reduces support for redistribution in large part independently of the improved material circumstances with which it is associated. While university encourages a range of progressive ideas related to cultural inclusivity, it simultaneously encourages conservative redistribution preferences that are reinforced—but only partly explained—by the economic security it tends to provide. In short, European universities foster norms of cultural inclusion, while simultaneously eroding norms of economic solidarity.

Recent research indicates that while higher tax levels are politically unpopular, greater tax progressivity is not. However, there remain unanswered questions regarding public support for more progressive taxation. In particular, little is known about how individual attitudes towards tax progressivity are affected by their institutional context. Building on existing theories of redistribution, this article develops the argument that the structure of the welfare state shapes public attitudes towards progressive taxation-support for progressive taxation among both average and high-income households is undermined by 'pro-poor' welfare spending. We support our argument with a cross-sectional analysis of rich democracies, interacting household income with country-level indicators of welfare state structure. In doing so, we contribute a micro-level explanation for the paradoxical macro-level phenomenon that larger, more redistributive welfare states tend to be financed by less progressive tax systems.

AbstractRecent research indicates that while higher tax levels are politically unpopular, greater tax progressivity is not. However, there remain unanswered questions regarding public support for more progressive taxation. In particular, little is known about how individual attitudes towards tax progressivity are affected by their institutional context. Building on existing theories of redistribution, this article develops the argument that the structure of the welfare state shapes public attitudes towards progressive taxation—support for progressive taxation among both average and high-income households is undermined by 'pro-poor' welfare spending. We support our argument with a cross-sectional analysis of rich democracies, interacting household income with country-level indicators of welfare state structure. In doing so, we contribute a micro-level explanation for the paradoxical macro-level phenomenon that larger, more redistributive welfare states tend to be financed by less progressive tax systems.

AbstractThis article contributes to recent research that seeks to understand the political consequences of 'outsider' labour market status. There is an emerging consensus that labour market outsiders have systematically different policy preferences and display systematically different political behaviour to securely employed 'insiders' in Europe. Yet the political consequences of outsider status in the USA are less clear. They may be expected to differ from those that have been documented in the European context, because: (1) the USA is characterized by low employment protection of insiders; and (2) there is evidence that Americans are more reluctant than Europeans to hold governments responsible for personal economic hardship. We therefore use the General Social Survey to examine how outsider labour market status is related to voting behaviour and to social policy preferences in the USA. We find that the concept of 'labour market outsider' – as conventionally operationalized – holds little explanatory power in the American context. Disaggregating the outsider category, our results suggest that the political consequences of outsider labour market status may be contingent on individual beliefs about government responsibility.