The Politics of Welfare State Reforms in Hard Times

Abstract

This panel focuses on the formation of welfare state preferences and on the politics of labor market and health care reforms. In the current age of austerity, post-industrial democracies are characterized by limited financial resources, widespread job insecurity and increasing social demands. This opens up a broad range of questions: Does increased job insecurity enlarge the potential supporters of generous social policy? How do parties react to increasing social demands? More precisely, do social democratic parties cater to the needs of their historically meaningful electorate (the insiders) or to the demands of the most vulnerable workers (the outsiders)? What is the role of right-wing parties and trade unions in recent labor market and health care reforms? Five individual papers try to address these questions and are based either on qualitative case studies or large-N quantitative analyses.

Title	Details
Partisan Influence on Labour Policy: Do Parties Matter?	View Paper Details
The Potential for Cross-Class Coalitions: Assessing Socio-Economic Status, Risk Exposure and Welfare State Support	View Paper Details
Distributional Effects of Labor Market Reforms in Continental and Southern Europe	View Paper Details