Christoph Arndt

Beating Social Democracy on Its Own Turf: Issue Convergence as Winning Formula for the Centre‐Right in Universal Welfare States

Recent elections yielded sweeping majorities for the centre-right in Scandinavia with a decade of pure centre-right majorities in Denmark and the longest sitting centre-right coalition in Sweden for decades. This is a blind spot in the issue voting literature, which would not expect centre-right parties to flourish in contexts where welfare issues have a natural salience as in the case of universal welfare states. In contrast, Scandinavian universal welfare states ought to benefit social democracy when it comes to issue voting on welfare issues. It is argued in this article that centre-right parties can beat social democrats by credibly converging to its social democratic opponent on issues of universal welfare. Issue ownership voting to the benefit of centre-right parties will then be strongest among voters perceiving the centre-right to have converged to social democracy and perceiving the centre-right as issue-owner. Using Danish National Election Studies, 1998–2007, the article shows that the Danish Liberal Party outperformed the Social Democrats on traditional welfare issues among those voters perceiving the Liberals to be ideologically close to the social democrats. The findings help us to understand why centre-right parties have recently turned into serious competitors on social democracys turf: the universal welfare state.

Policy instruments and welfare state reform

A core, but so far untested, proposition of the new politics perspective, originally introduced by Paul Pierson, is that welfare state cutbacks will be implemented using so-called ‘invisible’ policy instruments, for example, a change in indexation rules. Expansion should, by implication, mainly happen using ‘visible’ policy instruments, for example, a change in nominal benefits. We have coded 1030 legislative reforms of old-age pensions and unemployment protection in Britain, Denmark, Finland and Germany from 1974 to 2014. With this unique data at hand, we find substantial support for this crucial new politics proposition.

Risky business? Welfare state reforms and government support in Britain and Denmark

Are welfare state reforms electorally dangerous for governments? Political scientists have only recently begun to study this seemingly simple question, and existing work still suffers from two shortcomings. First, it has never tested the reform–vote link with data on actual legislative decisions for enough points in time to allow robust statistical tests. Secondly, it has failed to take into account the many expansionary reforms that have occurred in recent decades. Expansions often happen in the same years as cutbacks. By focusing only on cutbacks, estimates of the effects of reforms on government popularity become biased. This article addresses both shortcomings. The results show that voters punish governments for cutbacks, but also reward them for expansions, making so-called compensation, a viable blame-avoidance strategy. The study also finds that the size of punishments and rewards is roughly the same, suggesting that voters’ well-documented negativity bias does not directly translate into electoral behavior.

Union members at the polls in diverse trade union landscapes

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white-collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white-collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters’ coalitions in post-industrial societies.

Social democracy’s mobilization of new constituencies: The role of electoral systems

Social democratic parties have changed their electoral appeals substantially to cater to new voter segments. This article examines social democracy’s fortunes in attracting new voters among the salaried middle class across different electoral systems. Previous research ignored the importance of electoral systems and was inconclusive as to whether social democratic parties succeeded in mobilizing new constituencies. I argue that electoral systems play a crucial role since proportional systems enhance the electoral competiveness of left-libertarian parties, social democracy’s most serious challengers among the salaried middle class. In contrast, majoritarian systems allow social democratic parties to gain a foothold among these voters as left-libertarians remain marginalized. Using ISSP data for 11 Western democracies, the findings demonstrate that social democratic parties were outperformed by their left-libertarian challengers among the salaried middle class under highly proportional systems, but not under majoritarian systems.

Social democracy after the Third Way: restoration or renewal?

Given the ill-fated political experience with the Third Way, one would not expect social democratic parties that return to office after long opposition spells to take up again the liberal, supply-side oriented policies that were so typical for the Third Way. A case study of Denmark, however, shows that that is precisely what happens and that it has the same disastrous electoral consequences. Taking a comparative perspective and learning from the Danish experience, we conclude that other future social democratic governments are likely to pursue many elements of the updated Third Way we found in the Danish case.

Issue evolution and partisan polarization in a European multiparty system: Elite and mass repositioning in Denmark 1968–2011

Issue evolution is a well-established theoretical perspective in the analysis of long-term party competition and partisanship in the US. However, this perspective has rarely been used to analyze political elite effects on partisan polarization in European multiparty systems. Consequently, I apply the issue evolution perspective to polarization in a European multiparty system. I find an emergence of cultural issues in Denmark, where mass level polarization on cultural issues followed elite level polarization. Unlike two-party systems, niche parties drive issue evolution on the elite level, which is then followed by niche partisan polarization and, finally, mainstream party adaption. The findings illustrate the mechanisms of issue evolution in a European-style multiparty system and the role of niche parties.

An empirical model of issue evolution and partisan realignment in a multiparty system

Since Carmines and Stimson’s seminal work, the concept of issue evolution has become a common theoretical toolkit to examine and explain polarization around cultural issues and partisan realignment in the United States. However, very few studies outside the United States have applied the concept of issue evolution to explain electoral change and realignment around new issues at national elections over time. Analyzing whether and how Carmines and Stimson’s concept travels to electoral change in a multiparty system would provide more theoretical leverage and create empirical knowledge on the logic of issue evolution outside the United States and also whether the logic of electoral change differs from U.S.-style two-party systems. This article applies the issue evolution concept to a multidimensional multiparty system using micro-level data from 1971 to 2011 in combination with data on elite-level polarization to demonstrate that partisan realignment in Denmark follows an issue evolution process with niche parties as main drivers. Moreover, niche party polarization on the new dimension of conflict has a stronger effect on vote choice than mainstream party polarization.

Public policy-making and risk profiles: Scandinavian centre-right governments after the turn of the millennium

Recent theoretical advances in the welfare state literature have outlined the differences between labour market- and life course-related schemes as centre-right parties have difficulties in enacting retrenchment on life course-related schemes because these concern every voter. In contrast, the textbook risk profile of centre-right parties’ electorates allows them to cutback on labour market-related schemes as these parties get negligible support from workers and low-income voters. Conducting a comparative case study of recent Danish and Swedish centre-right governments, this article analyses the stylized assumptions on the party level by comparing two similar centre-right governments, which differed in their voter coalitions’ risk profile. I first argue that centre-right governments are generally constrained by the popular entrenchment of the universal welfare state when it comes to life course-related welfare schemes. Second, I argue that the leeway on labour market-related schemes is contingent on the actual risk profile of the centre-right’s electorate, and thereby move beyond the stylized assumptions from recent literature. In this respect, the Danish centre-right did, in contrast to its Swedish counterpart, gain power with an unusual high support among working-class voters which constrained its latitude on labour market-related schemes. I find that the Danish centre-right governments after 2001 acted with bound hands thanks to its high working-class backing, and refrained from outright cutbacks on both labour market- and life course-related schemes until 2010 except for labour market outsiders. In contrast, the Swedish centre-right had a much lower working-class backing and therefore engaged in some outright cutbacks of labour market-related schemes such as unemployment benefits directly after taking office 2006. The centre-right’s actual voter coalition’s risk profile is thus an important determinant for its public policies and its leeway for policy-seeking.

Die Wahlen zum dänischen Folketing vom 18. Juni 2015: knapper bürgerlicher Sieg bei erdrutschartigen Wählerwanderungen

Seit der Folketingswahl 2011 gab es nach zehnjahriger burgerlicher Dominanz wieder eine Mitte-links-Minderheitsregierung, die von den Sozialdemokraten angefuhrt wurde .1 Diese Koalition aus Sozialdemokraten (S), Sozialliberalen (Det Radikale Venstre, RV) und der Sozialistischen Volkspartei (SF), die von der linksradikalen Einheitsliste (EL) toleriert wur- de, wurde jedoch bei der Wahl im Juni 2015 nicht im Amt bestatigt . Dies war auch die Konsequenz aus zahlreichen internen Auseinandersetzungen, Kabinettsumbildungen und dem Bruch zentraler Wahlversprechen seitens der Sozialdemokraten und Sozialisten, die im Austritt der Sozialisten aus der Koalition Anfang 2014 kulminierten . Im Gegensatz zu ihrer liberal-konservativen Vorgangerin war die sozialdemokratische Minderheitsregierung haufig auf blockubergreifende Zusammenarbeit mit den Oppositionsparteien angewiesen, da sich die linksradikale Einheitsliste den zahlreichen Sozialstaatsreformen in der Wahlperiode 2011 bis 2015 verweigerte, in denen auch ein Grund fur die gescheiterte Wiederwahl der sozialdemokratisch-sozialliberalen Minderheitsregierung zu sehen ist . Die Wahl 2015 war durch die groste Nettovolatilitat seit 1973 gepragt und brachte die nationalkonservative Danische Volkspartei als grosen Sieger hervor, wahrend die rechtslibe- rale Venstre ihre Position als starkste Partei an die Sozialdemokraten abgeben musste und nur noch drittstarkte Kraft ist . Die Danische Volkspartei wurde zum ersten Mal die starkste burgerliche Partei; somit konnte der europaweite Trend zu einer Starkung nationalkonser- vativer Parteien auch bei der Folketingswahl 2015 beobachtet werden . Die neue liberale Minderheitsregierung wird zum ersten Mal seit 1973 von der drittstarksten Partei allein gebildet . Ihr langfristiges Uberleben wird von ihrer Manovrierfahigkeit und der Fahigkeit abhangen, Kompromisse mit den anderen burgerlichen Parteien einzugehen . Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass die Ausnahmeregelungen fur die so genannten Rechtsvorbehalte Dane- marks in der Europaischen Union in einem Referendum am 3 . Dezember 2015 bestatigt wurden, was als Niederlage fur die amtierende Regierung gewertet werden kann .