Alexander Hicks

POLITICS, INSTITUTIONS, AND WELFARE SPENDING IN INDUSTRIALIZED DEMOCRACIES, 1960-82

electoral turnout, as well as left and center governments increase welfare effort; that the welfare efforts of governments led by particular types of parties show significant differences and vary notably with the strength of oppositional (and junior coalitional) parties; and that relatively neocorporatist, centralized, and traditionalistic polities are high on welfare effort. Overall, our findings suggest that contrary to many claims, both partisan and nonpartisan facets of democratic politics and political institutions shape contemporary social welfare effort.

Cooperation and political economic performance in affluent democratic capitalism

Research on comparative political economic performance has traditionally followed two separate tracks, one concerned with collective economic gain (growth and efficiency) and the other focused on distribution and redistribution. Cooperative institutions offer a key to understanding cross–national variation among the affluent capitalist democracies in both facets of political economic performance. These institutions cluster along two dimensions: neocorporatism and firm–level cooperation. Pooled time–series analysis for 18 nations over 1960––89 suggests that (1) neocorporatism is a major source of distributive/redistributive policies and outcomes and of several sources of collective gain; (2) firm–level cooperation is a key contributor to economic growth.

Social Democratic Corporatism and Economic Growth

Recent papers by Lange and Garrett and by Jackman have debated whether the political and economic power of the Left has had a sustained impact on the economic growth of relatively affluent capitalist democracies since 1973. This paper indicates that, consistent with theory and research by Lange and Garrett, they have had such an impact. Economic growth between 1974 and 1980-1982 accelerated where both unions were organizationally strong and Left parties were strong participants in governments; and this finding is not an artifact of a 1970s oil boom in Social Democratic Norway. In addition, it is robust in the presence of several key control variables drawn from economic theory. These variables indicate that less affluent and slower growers tended to catch up, and that capital formation tended to accelerate growth while progressive governmental redistribution of income tended to dampen it.

The handbook of political sociology : states, civil societies, and globalization

This Handbook of Political Sociology provides the first complete survey of the vibrant field of political sociology. Part I explores the theories of political sociology. Part II focuses on the formation, transitions, and regime structure of the state. Part III takes up various aspects of the state that respond to pressures from civil society, including welfare, gender, and military policies. And Part IV examines globalization. The Handbook is dedicated to the memory of co-author Robert Alford.

Economic Globalization, the Macro Economy, and Reversals of Welfare: Expansion in Affluent Democracies, 1978 94

A key question in debates over globalization is its effect on the welfare states in particular on welfare “retrenchments”: programmatic retractions of the scope and coverage of social programs. We conceptualize such retrenchments as discrete policy events; and we offer a comprehensive model of their occurrence that integrates domestic economic, political, and institutional factors as well as those related to the global economy. Our analysis of all such retrenchments in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations between 1978 and 1994 indicates that the effects of globalization are complex, with trade openness and financial liberalization clearly operating against such retrenchments but outward foreign direct investment perhaps pressuring for them. In addition, we uncover support for a dynamic of “self-limiting immoderation”: economic and demographic pressures for costly welfare expenditures provoke actions to roll back eligibility and benefit rates that link increasing numbers of unemployed and retired persons to increased social spending. In short, the same demographic pressures that gave often been noted to substantially drive welfare spending may trigger welfare cutbacks. Our thanks to A. A. Alderson, Bob Jackman, Lane Kenworthy, Joakim Palme, Duane Swank, John Stephen, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and discussions, as well as to Kendralin Freedman for her work preparing the final manuscript. All remaining errors are our own. Previous versions of this article were presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association and the American Sociological Association. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the National Science Foundation or the U.S. government. All data and commands necessary to replicate the analyses presented here are available at our Web site 〈http://polisci.emory.edu/zorn/HZ/index.html〉.

Class Power and State Policy: The Case of Large Business Corporations, Labor Unions and Governmental Redistribution in the American States

This paper investigates the impact of business and labor organizations upon governmental redistribution to the poor, or the extent to which government expenditures and revenues redistribute income to poor households. A cross-sectional analysis of 48 American states circa 1960 supports the propositions that large business corporations negatively affect governmental redistribution and that labor unions positively affect governmental redistribution. The analysis also supports past findings relating socioeconomic development, poverty, and the interaction of Democratic party strengths and cohesion and interparty competition to governmental redistribution. Findings suggest that redistribution to the poor by American state governments is a class issue, partially determined by conflicting class forces.

National Collective Action and Economic Performance: A Review Article

This review article summarizes and criticizes two recent books by Peter J. Katzenstein and one by John Zysman on politics, industrial policy, and political economic performance in postwar industrialized capitalist democracies. Drawing some elements from these books and forging others from their criticism, the paper proposes a preliminary framework for the study of political economic policy and performance that stresses structures of interests, of state organization, and of interrelations among these.

Method and substance in macrocomparative analysis

Method and Substance in Macrocomparative Analysis L.Kenworthy & A.Hicks Introduction L.Kenworthy & A.Hicks Statistical Narratives and the Properties of Macro-Level Variables: Labor Market Institutions and Employment Performance in Macrocomparative Research B.Kittel Comparative Employment Performance: A Fuzzy-Set Analysis J .Epstein, D.Duerr, L.Kenworthy & C.Ragin Do Family Policies Shape Womens Employment? A Comparative Historical Analysis of France and the Netherlands J.Misra & L.Jude The Welfare State, Family Policies, and Womens Labor Force Participation: Combining Fuzzy-Set and Statistical Methods to Access Causal Relations and Estimate Causal Effects S.R.Eliason, R.Stryker & E.Tranby Family Policies and Womens Employment: A Regression Analysis A.Hicks & L.Kenworthy Part-Time Work and the Legacy of Breadwinner Welfare States: A Panel Study of Womens Employment Patterns in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, 1992-2002 J.Visser & M.Yerkes Comparative Regime Analysis: Early Exit from Work in Europe, Japan, and the United States B.Ebbinghaus Identifying the Causal Effect of Political Regimes on Employment A.Przeworski

Catholicism and Unionization in Affluent Postwar Democracies: Catholicism, Culture, Party, and Unionization

We build on a structural model of union density to construct a model of unionization in industrialized democracies that specifies a causal role for Roman Catholic culture. We consider the population size and political orientation of the Catholic laity, and the influences of political institutions, in particular Christian Democratic parties. We use generalized least squares regression analyses to evaluate pooled time series for 18 affluent democracies from 1961 to 1985. Our analyses show that, on average, Catholic population size tends to repress unionization. However, Christian Democratic party strength appears, on average, to augment unionization. Moreover, consistent with Wuthnow (1989) and others, the extent of Catholic political organization appears to generate prounion political orientations and Catholic influences on the memberships in Catholic unions. As Christian Democratic party strength increases, the effects of Catholic population size on unionization shift from being inhibitive to being supportive.

Family Policies and Women’s Employment: A Regression Analysis

There is good reason to suspect that “family-friendly” or “women-friendly” policies such the government provision or subsidization of child care, paid maternity leave, and extensive public employment will increase levels of female employment. There is supportive evidence from studies of individual behavior (Gustafsson and Stafford, 1992; Leibowitz, Klerman, and Waite, 1992; Barrow, 1996; Ondrich, Spiess, and Yang, 1996; Ilmakunnas, 1997; Joesch, 1997; Fagnani, 1998; Kimmel, 1998; Powell, 1998; Anderson and Levine, 1999; Ondrich et al., 1999; Michalopoulos and Robins, 2000; Smith, Downs, and O’Connell, 2001; Chevalier and Viitanen, 2002; Del Boca, 2002; Pylkkanen and Smith, 2003; Ronsen and Sundstrom, 2002; Gottschall and Bird, 2003; Hofferth and Curtin, 2003). But at the macro (country) level, the association has been largely assumed rather than demonstrated