Transcript Regimes in rich democracies

REGIMES IN RICH DEMOCRACIES


Regime = a particular pattern of politics, institutions, and
policies
Politics: the way people compete for political power through
social movements, interest groups, and political parties




Institutions: create rules of the game that structure the way
political actors compete for political power
Policies: outcome of political conflict filtered through
institutions


Organized along cleavage lines
Number, nature, intensity of cleavages varies
Different policy choices among regimes
Regime types among rich democracies



Social democratic (Denmark, Norway, Sweden)
Conservative (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands)
Christian democratic (Canada, Ireland, United States)
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC: POLITICS

Best exemplified in Scandinavian countries

Gradual, smooth process of democratization
 Far-left

Absence of linguistic, ethnic, and religious cleavages
 Did

parties never gained traction
not weaken, compete with class basis of political loyalty)
Unique set of alliances
 Disunity
among opponents; forged alliances with groups
beyond working class (farmers and workers; later, white-collar
workers, middle-class voters)

Disunity among opponents, social homogeneity,
strong working-class attachments, appeal to
middle-class voters beyond working-class base
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC: POLICIES


Capitalist economic systems (vibrant businesses generates tax revenue for
social democratic policies)
Big government



High rates of state expenditures and government revenues as percent of GDP
(Table 5.1, 122)
High percentage of public sector employees (Table 5.2, 123)
Social democratic welfare state

Universal: available to all citizens (health care, day care, pensions, etc. provided
to rich and poor alike)





Comprehensive: cradle-to-grave protection (day care to home help for the elderly)
Generous: replacement rates for income lost due to pregnancy, sickness, injury,
unemployment high (around 75% of former earnings)
Quality of life detached from performance in labor market (wages and benefits;
standard of living does not depend on pay check)




Key to binding middle-class welfare state
Resources and risks pooled in the welfare state creating a convergence of interest)
Certain goods taken out of the market
Provided as a right of citizenship
Service intensive: range of services delivered by the state is extensive
Redistributive: benefits provided to most of the population, and these tend to be
equal (which ironically has greater redistributive effect than those regimes that
target the poor)
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WELFARE STATE


Critics charge welfare state reduces incentives to work
Scandinavian style welfare state has contributed to economic efficiency and
productivity, has actually supported the economy

High labor force participation rates


Contributes to dynamism and competitiveness of economies








range of services provided to relieve burden of care that previously required women to stay
at home
Home markets are small, have to export what they produce
Need to adjust continually, adopt new technologies, allocate resources to new sectors
depending on shifts in international markets
“Creative destruction” poses threats to workers who risk loosing their livelihood when
plants close, industries become uncompetitive
Welfare state alleviates threats by socializing costs of economic change (they do not fall on
workers themselves)
Security provided by welfare state reduces opposition to new, labor-saving technologies and
demands to maintain uncompetitive firms (think GM)
Moderates workers’ wage demands
Active labor market policies: retraining, job placement, and relocation assistance
to unemployed workers assist in making transition; promotes increasing skill
levels among workers
Result: Highly competitive capitalist economies and large, redistributive
welfare states
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC: INSTITUTIONS

Centralized political systems

Parliamentary democracies






Unitary: power concentrated at national level
Judicial review authority generally weak
Unicameralism, weak federalism, absence of judicial review,
parliamentary government give dissenting groups few
opportunities to block legislation majority prefers
Large and powerful labor movement



Party discipline (strong parties)
Governments govern through support of disciplined majorities; potential
conflict, stalemate of competing legislative and executive branches
avoided (fused executive-legislative)
High percentage of unionized workers (high union density)
Unions and party closely allied
Corporatist interest groups

Unions and employers engage in centralized bargaining with
encouragement of state (somewhat in decline)
CONSERVATIVE: POLITICS


Production of goods and services left almost wholly to the market;
marginal state intervention/regulation
Weakness of left-wing parties




Either completely absent (e.g., U.S.), or outsiders
Class-voting low: class position does not determine how voters vote to
the same degree
Class cleavages less intense; other sources of conflict (e.g., in U.S., race,
gender, religion cross-cut and weaken class identification)
Business politically dominant




Interest group advantage (organization, lobbying, campaign
contributions)
Low voter turnout; lowest among working class (class divide subdued)
Politicians deliver policies that appeal to wealthy voters who are most
likely to vote and ignore demands of working-class voters less likely to
vote
Business interests identified with interests of society as a whole
(“What’s good for GM…is good for America”)
CONSERVATIVE: POLICIES

Good at creating new jobs and increasing economic growth (Table 5.4, 130)


Small public sector (does not require high taxes)







Low state spending and revenues as proportion of GDP
Regulatory hand of the state constrained (gives way to managerial authority)
when it comes to business activity
Low in terms of welfare effort (proportion of GDP devoted to social spending;
Table 5.6, 132)


Lower payroll taxes and wages reduces labor costs for employers, allowing them
to hire more workers
Not designed to create broad equality
Creates a floor under which poor cannot fall
Private to public spending devoted to welfare high (citizens pay larger proportion
of cost of day care, health care, retirement)
Low levels of public spending on welfare (lesser benefits distributed to poor)
Circumstances of those who are not poor determined through private sector
(by their fortunes in the labor market rather than shared fate as citizens)
Wealthy find policies suitable because small costs of welfare state limits
their taxes, and they can afford to purchase privately (through the market) a
level of services that fits their income
CONSERVATIVE: INSTITUTIONS







Great variety of forms
Some federal; others unitary
Parliamentary and presidential
Bicameral (but significant differences in power of
second chamber)
Different electoral systems (PR and plurality)
Differences in judicial review
Differences in centralization (from highly centralized to
least centralized, U.S.)


E.g., U.S.: strong federalism, bicameralism, independent
Congress, weak parties, judicial review make it easy for
minorities to capture part of state and thwart will of majority
Similar interest group structures: pluralist; smaller union
movements
CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC: POLITICS
Organized around both class and church-state
cleavages (although more recently both are
less prominent than in the past with
emergence of new parties and political issues)
 Tend to be centrist in orientation (catch-all
parties): able to attract cross-section of
workers, farmers, shopkeepers, business
executives
 Able to more right or left in seeking coalition
partners
 All use PR electoral systems

CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC: POLICIES

Big government (not as big as social democratic regimes)


High levels of welfare expenditures (proportion of GDP devoted to public
expenditures) closer to social democratic than conservative regimes




Relatively high government expenditures, total tax revenue as proportion of GDP (between
Social Democratic and Conservative Regimes)
Above average in spending on health and pensions
Below average on poverty and social services
Medium on replacement rates for income lost due to retirement or unemployment
Different kind of collective services than social democratic regimes





Provide generous transfer payments and cash benefits to citizens
Public sector employment lower than average for conservative regimes
State sector ambiguous: large fiscal presence (high taxes and expenditures), but small
social presence
Goal of social policy: reinforce traditional family values (income security for families so
women can remain in traditional domestic role); mitigate effects of inequality
Welfare programs managed by union and employer representatives for each sector of the
economy


Benefits preserve differentials among occupations (more to more highly valued occupations)
Social programs do not bind citizens; segment citizens by occupation; reinforce class differences
CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC: INSTITUTIONS
Parliamentary democracies
 Bicameral, but differences in power of
upper/lower houses
 Differences in judicial review
 Differences in unitary-federal forms
 Corporatist interest groups

 Limited
number of hierarchically structured
associations recognized by the state and
participate in policy-making process
 State of corporatism varies across regimes
COMPARING CAPABILITY

Physical well-being



Informed decision-making


Social democratic regimes perform best in providing safe environment for citizens (using
homicide rates; Table 5.9, 144)
Civil and political rights/quality of democracy





Social democratic regimes have best literacy scores, conservative regimes the worst (using IALS
data; Table 5.8, 143)
Safety


Social democratic regimes perform best in providing for physical needs of citizens (Absolute
poverty rates, Table 5.7, 141)
Conservative regimes have highest rate of absolute poverty
No noteworthy differences in press freedom, political rights, civil liberties, competitive elections
Significant differences in “voice and accountability” (using quality of democracy measures, U.N.
Human Development Report; Table 5.10, 145)
Social democratic regimes performed better than Christian democratic and Conservative
regimes
Also, voter turnout rates highest in Social democratic regimes
Social democratic regimes perform better in meeting the standards of the good
society than Conservative or Christian democratic regimes




Quality of democracy higher
Levels of safety and security higher
Citizens more likely to possess skills needed to make informed decisions
Christian democratic regimes do marginally better in meeting physical needs