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Partisan influence on social and labor market policies in the Silver Age of welfare state retrenchment: evidences from 19 OECD countries

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Abstract

Are governing parties able to shape social and labor market policies according to their ideological positions or are they overwhelmed by socio-economic and institutional constraints? The paper answers this crucial question by developing a comparative study on 19 OECD countries from 1985 to 2011. It investigates whether the location of governments on a continuous left–right scale affects four measures of welfare state generosity: namely, public spending in social policies, in active and passive labor market policies and the level of unemployment insurance replacement rate. The results obtained through an error correction model show that governing parties are unable to affect social and labor market policies in the short-run, when economic dynamics prevail. However, in the long-run, partisanship gains relevance: when the government coalition moves to the right, there is a negative impact on all the measures of welfare state generosity.

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Notes

  1. The analysis is replicated by operationalizing partisanship also as the weighted mean of the governing parties’ positions on the RILE and welfare dimensions (Comparative Manifesto Project). Results are consistent with those obtained using expert surveys and are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper has been discussed by Fabio Franchino, Robert Franzese and Vincenzo Galasso. I am grateful for their detailed and helpful suggestions. Moreover, Andrea Ceron stood by my side while I was working on this paper. His help has been invaluable. The usual disclaimer applies.

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The research received no grants from public, commercial or non-profit funding agency.

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  1. Department of Social and Political Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio 7, 20122, Milan, Italy

    Fedra Negri

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Negri, F. Partisan influence on social and labor market policies in the Silver Age of welfare state retrenchment: evidences from 19 OECD countries. Acta Polit 56, 89–107 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-020-00147-7

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