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The Risk of€Social Policy uses a comparative perspective to systematically analyse the effects of social policy reforms and welfare state retrenchment on voting choice. It re-examines twenty elections in OECD countries to show if and how social policy issues drive elections.

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Konsequenzen von Sozialstaatsabbau auf die Popularität der Regierung und deren Wiederwahlchancen. Während die Literatur gemeinhin von einer direkten Beziehung zwischen dem Abbau des Sozialstaats und elektoralen Verlusten ausgeht, zeigt dieser Aufsatz, dass ein solcher empirisch nur zu erwarten ist, wenn man eine Reihe von zusätzlichen Annahmen trifft. Diese Annahmen werden im Folgenden kritisch diskutiert. Insgesamt weist dieser Beitrag nach, dass Wähler auf Sparpolitik reagieren, die Mechanismen jedoch komplexer sind als bisher angenommen. So wird die Unzufriedenheit der Bürger nicht immer direkt im Wahlresultat sichtbar und Sozial- und Wirtschaftspolitik ist nicht per se mit besonderen elektoralen Konsequenzen verbunden.

Economic inequality is one of the most debated issues in contemporary times, yet little political action has been taken to tackle increasing levels of economic disparities. Some scholars have argued that one explanation might be people's distorted perception of their economic situation and of income inequality. The origins of this mis-perception are still unclear. In particular, the role of ideology and partisan identification remains under-explored and the little research focuses almost exclusively on the United States. However, if distortions in perceptions of inequality have an ideological leaning, this could have severe consequences for how these views get translated in the political system. Taking advantage of a new survey on inequality perceptions, we are able to evaluate how partisanship affects citizens' inequality evaluations across 13 Western countries. We test how party identification influences people's perception of their economic situations and their ability to assess the overall level of inequality. We then put this partisan bias in relation with demands for redistribution. The contribution of this study is double-fold: firstly, we shed new light on the phenomenon of inequality by looking at its psychological roots and secondly, we examine one of its potential explanation comparatively.

In this study we examine the representation of income groups in two EU-level institutions, the Council and the European Parliament. We find that the political positions of these institutions, and especially of the Council, are always on the right compared to European citizens, though closer to the wealthy among them. However, a more systematic analysis of congruence between different income groups and the Council reveals that while the poor are systematically underrepresented, the rich are not systematically over-represented. This holds both when we examine the poor and the rich across the EU as a whole and when we cluster them according to their respective member states.

In this study we examine the representation of income groups in two EU-level institutions, the Council and the European Parliament. We find that the political positions of these institutions, and especially of the Council, are always on the right compared to European citizens, though closer to the wealthy among them. However, a more systematic analysis of congruence between different income groups and the Council reveals that while the poor are systematically underrepresented, the rich are not systematically over-represented. This holds both when we examine the poor and the rich across the EU as a whole and when we cluster them according to their respective member states. ; (VLID)4800129

In this study we examine the representation of income groups in two EU-level institutions, the Council and the European Parliament. We find that the political positions of these institutions, and especially of the Council, are always on the right compared to European citizens, though closer to the wealthy among them. However, a more systematic analysis of congruence between different income groups and the Council reveals that while the poor are systematically underrepresented, the rich are not systematically over-represented. This holds both when we examine the poor and the rich across the EU as a whole and when we cluster them according to their respective member states.

AbstractIn this study we focus on party organizational characteristics as key determinants of party congruence. We examine how the horizontal and vertical integration of parties is linked to representation in comparative perspective. We further focus on how congruence is achieved by detailing our expectation regarding effects on the uncertainty versus bias in the estimates of party constituents' opinion. Exploiting a comparative database on political parties and data from Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems, we show that having a complex organizational structure and being leadership dominated makes parties less representative of their constituencies. These findings carry important implications for the study of political representation but also for the literature on political parties in crisis.