Welfare State Reform, Electoral Competition and Public Opinion

Abstract

Since Piersons (1994) landmark study about the New Politics of the welfare state, the linkage between public opinion, political parties and welfare state politics are a major topic of academic debate. Starting from the argument that welfare state retrenchment is unpopular with the general public, many scholars have analyzed how public opinion, agency and welfare state reforms relate to each other. This panel takes that literature as a starting point and brings together scholars who present their most recent findings on the interrelationships betwen welfare state reform, electoral politics and public opinion. The contributions analyze how public opinion, mass media and electoral competition affect how decision about welfare state reforms are made. A common foundation of all papers therefore is that they are interested either in the micro-foundation of welfare state politics, be it public opinion or emotions, or in the transmission of these forces via electoral competition, the mass media and the party system. Papers are using quantitative as well as qualitative methods and draw on data from surveys, experiments, hand-coded material on mass media or data on welfare state legislation.

Title	Details
Electoral Competition and the Partisan Politics of Employment Protection Legislation	View Paper Details
Is There a Private-Public Insurance Trade-Off? Longitudinal and Micro-Evidence from the OECD and Beyond	View Paper Details
Partisanship, Media Attention and Welfare Reforms. Why Media Reporting on Welfare State Has a Partisan Bias	View Paper Details
Public Opinion and Long-Term Investment – Under What Conditions Do Citizens Support Future-Oriented (Welfare) Reforms?	View Paper Details
Emotions and the Politics of Social Policy Reform	View Paper Details