Global capital, political institutions, and policy change in developed welfare states
In: Cambridge studies in comparative politics
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In: Cambridge studies in comparative politics
In: Review of international political economy, Band 23, Heft 2, S. 185-207
ISSN: 1466-4526
In: Journal of European public policy, Band 23, Heft 4, S. 571-603
ISSN: 1466-4429
Fiscal redistribution by the state provides a powerful counterweight to the growth of market income inequality in post-industrial democracies. Yet, significant questions remain about what explains the substantial variation in redistribution across nations and time in the contemporary era. In addition to recognizing the response of election-minded governments to the growth in insecurities and demands for redistribution associated with post-industrialization, I argue that where social democratic parties rule, and where employers and labor remain highly organized, inequality is blunted through redistribution of income by cash transfers and direct taxes and policies targeted at low income strata. This should be the case because the organizational scope, centralization, and policymaking integration of labor and capital facilitates the creation of post-industrial political coalitions necessary for redistributive policy making and implementation by social democratic governments, and organizationally suppresses insider politics by sectorally fragmented actors and excessive rent seeking by narrow interest groups. Labor organization, in particular, directly promotes demands for redistribution through several channels. I use 1979 to 2011 data from 18 democracies and estimate models of redistribution and policies for "outsiders." The main argument is supported by the evidence: social democratic government has especially significant egalitarian impacts on unemployment benefits and minimum income supports for low income workers as well as active labor market policies at high levels of labor and employer organization. Labor organization, itself, has significant and substantively large effects on fiscal redistribution. I use these results and evidence on recent trends in key determinants of redistribution to reflect on whether an era of "permanent inequality" is inevitable or simply a political possibility.
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In: Perspectives on politics, Band 6, Heft 1
ISSN: 1541-0986
In: Perspectives on politics: a political science public sphere, Band 6, Heft 1, S. 184-186
ISSN: 1537-5927
In: Perspectives on politics: a political science public sphere, Band 6, Heft 1, S. 184-185
ISSN: 1537-5927
In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 122, Heft 3, S. 514-515
ISSN: 1538-165X
In: Journal of public policy, Band 27, Heft 2, S. 249
ISSN: 1469-7815
In: Political science quarterly: PSQ ; the journal public and international affairs, Band 122, Heft 3, S. 514-515
ISSN: 0032-3195
In: International studies review, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 671-673
ISSN: 1468-2486
In: International organization, Band 60, Heft 4
ISSN: 1531-5088
In: International organization, Band 60, Heft 4, S. 847-882
ISSN: 0020-8183
World Affairs Online
In: International studies review, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 671-673
ISSN: 1521-9488
In: Social policy and society: SPS ; a journal of the Social Policy Association, Band 4, Heft 2, S. 183-195
ISSN: 1475-3073
Neoliberal reforms in social welfare policy have been common across the developed capitalist democracies in the latter decades of the twentieth century. A central question for political economists has been whether or not economic globalisation has played a significant role in fostering these reforms in public social welfare provision. In the present paper, I review the best recent work on globalisation and the democratic capitalist welfare state. I also provide a synopsis of recent arguments about the domestic political sources of contemporary trajectories of the welfare state. After brief surveys of welfare state retrenchment and recent scholarship, I utilise newly available data to offer an analysis of the impacts of globalisation and key features of domestic politics on 1981–2000 variations in social welfare entitlements and decommodification.