Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation

Armingeon, Klaus; Guthmann, Kai; Weisstanner, David (2015). Choosing the path of austerity: how parties and policy coalitions influence welfare state retrenchment in periods of fiscal consolidation. West European politics, 39(4), pp. 628-647. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/01402382.2015.1111072

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What are the conditions under which some austerity programmes rely on substantial cuts to social spending? More specifically, do the partisan complexion and the type of government condition the extent to which austerity policies imply welfare state retrenchment? This article demonstrates that large budget consolidations tend to be associated with welfare state retrenchment. The findings support a partisan and a politico-institutionalist argument: (i) in periods of fiscal consolidation, welfare state retrenchment tends to be more pronounced under left-wing governments; (ii) since welfare state retrenchment is electorally and politically risky, it also tends to be more pronounced when pursued by a broad pro-reform coalition government. Therefore, the article shows that during budget consolidations implemented by left-wing broad coalition governments, welfare state retrenchment is greatest. Using long-run multipliers from autoregressive distributed lag models on 17 OECD countries during the 1982–2009 period, substantial support is found for these expectations.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science

UniBE Contributor:

Armingeon, Klaus, Guthmann, Kai, Weisstanner, David

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science

ISSN:

0140-2382

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Language:

English

Submitter:

Beatrice Romann

Date Deposited:

01 Mar 2016 14:47

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:51

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/01402382.2015.1111072

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.76093

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/76093

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