TY - JOUR

T1 - How governments strategically time welfare state reform legislation

T2 - empirical evidence from five European countries

AU - Wenzelburger, Georg

AU - Jensen, Carsten

AU - Lee, Seonghui

AU - Arndt, Christoph

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by implementing painful measures in the beginning of the mandate and expanding benefits as elections approach. In contrast to this linear relationship, this article argues that governments often feel pressured to fulfil (mostly expansionary) campaign promises during the first months in office. Consequently, cutting right away is not what should be expected. Instead, a more nuanced, U-shaped timing trajectory is probable with a period in the beginning characterised by both cuts and fulfilment of expansionary pledges, followed by a period of cutbacks, and finally an expansive phase towards the end of a mandate. This argument is tested on our new original dataset of legislative changes in five European countries–Britain, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany–during the last four decades.

AB - Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by implementing painful measures in the beginning of the mandate and expanding benefits as elections approach. In contrast to this linear relationship, this article argues that governments often feel pressured to fulfil (mostly expansionary) campaign promises during the first months in office. Consequently, cutting right away is not what should be expected. Instead, a more nuanced, U-shaped timing trajectory is probable with a period in the beginning characterised by both cuts and fulfilment of expansionary pledges, followed by a period of cutbacks, and finally an expansive phase towards the end of a mandate. This argument is tested on our new original dataset of legislative changes in five European countries–Britain, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany–during the last four decades.

KW - Electoral pledges

KW - electioneering

KW - political business cycle

KW - welfare state

KW - FULFILLMENT

KW - RETRENCHMENT

KW - POLITICAL BUDGET CYCLES

KW - RESPONSIBILITY

KW - ELECTION PLEDGES

KW - FISCAL CONSOLIDATION

KW - HONEYMOON

KW - ELECTORAL CONSEQUENCES

KW - PUNISHMENT

KW - BLAME AVOIDANCE

U2 - 10.1080/01402382.2019.1668245

DO - 10.1080/01402382.2019.1668245

M3 - Journal article

VL - 43

SP - 1285

EP - 1314

JO - West European Politics

JF - West European Politics

SN - 0140-2382

IS - 6

ER -