Ellen M. Immergut

How electoral vulnerability affects pension politics: Introducing a concept, measure and empirical application

Are electorally vulnerable politicians really less likely to support controversial legislation, such as pension reforms? While the literature on welfare state retrenchment has increasingly pointed to the role of electoral factors in the dynamics of social policy cutbacks, there are few studies that actually measure the magnitude of electoral pressure and its consequent impact on the politics of reform. To this end, the authors have developed a quantitative measure of the electoral vulnerability of politicians and tested its impact on pension reform outcomes using an original dataset comprising 16 Western European countries from 1980 to 2003. In line with expectations, the results show that the impact of electoral vulnerability on reform depends upon the system of interest intermediation. In corporatist systems, electoral vulnerability indeed impedes reform. But in pluralist systems, increased electoral vulnerability is associated with higher levels of reform. This is because unions in corporatist (but not in pluralist) systems can exploit electoral vulnerability in pre-legislative bargaining, and thus pressure politicians. Consequently, this study has broader implications for the differential responsiveness of democracies to redistributive issues more generally.

Sweden: Markets Within Politics

The Swedish welfare state is regularly praised (or maligned) as the prototype of publicly organized and provided welfare. No matter how you slice it, the public sector is among the largest in the OECD, with public sector spending totalling 54 percent of GDP in 2005; the tax levels required to finance these extensive public commitments are similarly high (Statistiska centralbyran 2007: 31). As in most other advanced industrial countries, pensions and health care are the two largest categories in the public budget, and governments have faced strong economic and political pressures to reform both programs. The public pension and health care systems have undergone substantial change during the past two decades, but both programs remain firmly within the public sector. However, the role of “markets within politics” has increased substantially.

Veto Points and the Environment

In this chapter on veto points and environmental policy, we engage with three areas of research to which Manfred G. Schmidt has made seminal contributions: the German political system, the historical development of the welfare state, and his engagement with democratic theory. A leitmotif of Schmidt’s work is both the role of political parties in fostering policy change and the institutional factors that cause policy blockages.

Healthcare Futures: Visions of Solidarity and the Sustainability of European Healthcare Systems

One of the most striking findings of European attitude surveys is the very high level of healthcare solidarity. Analysis of the Democratic Forum discussions allows us to examine the basis for these attitudes. This chapter identifies four distinct framings of healthcare solidarity in the UK, Norway, Germany and Slovenia, respectively: exclusive solidarity, universal solidarity, contributory solidarity and egalitarian solidarity. These framings reflect national differences in citizens’ ideas about the appropriate risk community for healthcare and the rights and duties of the members of that community. In the UK solidarity is limited to insider citizens and hedged by a determination to exclude outsiders, in Norway it is rooted in universal collectivism, in Germany it stems from the community of contributors, and in Slovenia it draws on a shared socialist heritage and emphasis on equality.

The Sustainability of Democracy: The Impact of Electoral Incentives on the Input and Output Legitimacy of Democracies

International and domestic developments—both economic and ideational—create challenges for contemporary democracies, such as adapting their welfare states, recalibrating their agricultural policies, and reacting to the phenomenon of growing numbers of immigrants. These challenges are not just technical but political. For changes in policies generally mean redirecting public benefits away from current recipients to emerging challengers. Policy recalibration thus poses a distinct problem for democracy, because recalibration entails a reallocation of resources and recognition from established interests and influential voters to newly mobilizing voters and interests. When successful, policy recalibration demonstrates the responsiveness of democracies to new issues, new citizens, and changes in the world. At the same time, policy recalibration indicates governmental effectiveness in addressing these challenges. For, without effective executive pressure, political agreement on the reallocation of the costs and benefits of public policies rarely occurs. Consequently, one can think of policy recalibration as the place where input and output legitimacy meet. Governments respond to citizen demands and preferences, but also guide and mediate in the adjudication of these interests and preferences. Indeed, policy recalibration is a concrete function of government without which democratic polities cannot renew their relevance for citizens and residents. Consequently, the politics of policy recalibration is critical to the sustainability and renewal of democracy. In this essay, our central question is whether some institutions of political representation are more favorable for policy recalibration than others and how their interactions with institutions of interest intermediation intervene in the distribution of costs and benefits of calibration.