The article is devoted to the analysis of key technological trends of the fourth industrial revolution and their impact on modern international re lations. Such areas of technological development as the Internet of Things and distributed ledger technologies are considered. Particular attention is paid to issues of digital sovereignty and the need for a balance between national regulation and international cooperation in the context of global digital transformation.
Open access
Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
Abstract This article discusses four significant changes in lesson drawing, policy learning, or policy borrowing. Thematically , the issue of educational expansion has preoccupied policy-makers worldwide for the past hundred years. They have been eager to learn from experiences elsewhere, initially how others decentralized the finance and management of schooling to enable universal access and later how they addressed the fallout of decentralization reforms, notably inequity and quality erosion. Regarding the modalities of policy learning, the âtravelling observerâ has been replaced by myriad digital platforms that propagate best practices and âactionableâ policy recommendations. As a consequence of the decentralization of governance and finance and, in some countries, structural adjustment policies, the drivers of policy borrowing have shifted from ministries of education to a wide range of stakeholders, including ministries of finance, offices of presidents and prime ministers, and private foundations and businesses. Finally, changes in the objects of emulation or reference societies reflect a spatial reconfiguration of a special sort. Along with countries in the same geopolitical or cultural space, the education systems of league leaders in international large-scale assessments, such as Finland, Korea, and Singapore, have become objects of policy attraction for both OECD and non-OECD countries.
Abstract This chapter argues that, although political finance rules should be normatively assessed in tandem with the party system, in order to develop more precise recommendations for political finance design and reform, tailored to specific political systems, we need to consider a number of contextual factors. These include electoral institutions, institutions of decentralization, form of government, and party organization. Some of these factors may directly impact on a countryâs party system. But even when they do not, they should still be considered in the analysis at this stage as they can help to qualify the evaluation of party system/political finance combinations and thereby formulate more nuanced judgements that are well suited to the design of rules in a practical setting.
In order to overcome negative demographic trends in the Russian Federation, measures to stimulate the birth rate have been developed and financed at the federal and sub-federal levels. At the moment, on the one hand, there is a tendency to centralize expenditures for these purposes at the federal level, on the other hand, the coverage of the subjects of the Russian Federation, which introduce sub-federal (subnational) maternity capital (SMC), is expanding. The study was recognized to answer the question: whether the widespread introduction of SMC is justified, whether the effect of its use depends on the level of subsidization of the region and the degree of decentralization of expenditures.
Prashasti Pritiprada, Ipseeta Satpathy, B. C. M. Patnaik, Park Thaichon
This chapter explores the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and metaverse technologies within the European context, highlighting the pioneering role of women driving innovation in these fields. Through inspiring case studies, it showcases European companies where women are leveraging these cutting-edge technologies to create positive change across diverse industries. The chapter delves into the remarkable contributions of European women in AI research and applications, blockchain implementation, and metaverse development. It underscores the significance of gender diversity in these domains and advocates for empowering women to lead the way in shaping a more inclusive and pioneering technological future. AI is revolutionizing industries in Europe, from healthcare to finance, by increasing efficiency, improving decision-making, and fueling groundbreaking research. Blockchain disrupts traditional sectors, promoting transparency and trust through decentralized solutions in finance, supply chain management, and digital identity. The metaverse, an immersive virtual environment, redefines human interaction and collaboration, with European innovators exploring its potential in entertainment, education, and virtual commerce. The chapter explores how AI, blockchain, and the metaverse contribute to womenâs empowerment in Europe, creating new opportunities, breaking barriers, and promoting inclusivity. It highlights initiatives enabling access to education, bridging the gender pay gap, encouraging entrepreneurship, enhancing workplace diversity, improving healthcare access, combating gender-based violence, enabling work-life balance, and supporting women in STEM fields. Overall, this chapter underscores Europeâs commitment to responsible development of emerging technologies while preserving values of diversity and inclusion, setting the stage for a transformative digital future driven by the remarkable contributions of women in AI, blockchain, and the metaverse.
Abstract In this chapter, the historical development of the relationship between the central and local governments in Japan will be analyzed in terms of three aspects â administration, finance, and politics â and the characteristics of the relationship between the central and local governments in Japan will be clarified by setting a framework of interfusion and separation. When modernizing, Japan studied the local government systems in place throughout the European continent and chose to adopt the interfusion model of the relationship between central and local governments, whereby the central government delegates its policies to local governments to ensure their implementation. The relationship between the central and local governments in Japan has undergone changes through functional centralization during the wartime regime, decentralization through reforms implemented during the Occupation, and decentralization reforms that have been taking place since the 1990s. However, the characteristics of interfusion have been maintained and reinforced through municipal mergers and the development of a system of fiscal adjustments. While Japan has a high ratio of local government to total government activities relative to other countries, this characteristic of Japan is supported by an interfusion-type relationship between the central and local governments.
In the context of neoliberalism and its consequences for the economy and for democracy, this article offers a distinct framing of the political nature of the French âYellow Vestsâ ( Gilets Jaunes ) movement. Fundamentally, the movement should be understood as a popular and radically democratic response to the growing social inequalities of top-down austerity governance. The movement, which began in 2018, was spontaneous, autonomous, and decentralized, made up primarily of loosely connected citizen networks and popular committees not bound by political affiliation, social class, or age group. Responding to the neoliberal policies of the government of President Emmanuel Macron, symbolized by an unpopular fuel tax, the Yellow Vests quickly developed into a wide-ranging movement with diverse forms of action and organization. Despite a carrot-and-stick response from the government, the movement continues to the present, though its impact was greatest in the first year, which is the focus of this paper. Difficult to classify, we understand the Yellow Vests as an instantiation of âpopular politicsâ, or an atypical social movement, primarily defined by and significant for its ardent anti-austerity and pro-democracy positions. The movement is only misleadingly labeled populist or associated with populism; there is a collective intellectual awakening of political consciousness, with participants and supporters articulating their structural dispossession and setting out to strengthen their common good through collective action and more direct democracy, not through party politics or existing institutions, nor through charismatic leadership or other forms of centralized or top-down politics. The Yellow Vests therefore signify the prospect of democratizing democracy, or re-democratizing democracy, in the face of the legitimacy deficits of neoliberal governance.
MĂĄrcia Miranda Soares, EncarnaciĂłn Murillo GarcĂa, JesĂșs Ruiz-Huerta Carbonell
Abstract The article compares the patterns and territorial inequalities in the funding of two social policies that are pillars of the welfare state and present a high degree of territorial decentralization in Spain and Brazil: education and health. The analysis uses specialist literature, national legislation and government documents to describe the policies and their financing mechanisms. Fiscal data are used to analyze subnational government inequalities in the funding of education and health in both countries. The conclusion is that the Spanish experience has significantly leveled spending on health and education between the autonomous communities of common regime, with lower levels of inequality than those observed in Brazilian states and municipalities. The Spanish result derives from an incremental process of improvement of the countryâs fiscal federalism, which culminated in a model marked by prioritization and territorial solidarity in the funding of social policies. This model is reference for the analysis and discussion of the Brazilian case, which has configured its fiscal federalism with little concern for reconciling efficiency and equity in the distribution of resources between subnational governments, but which has presented important advances in the reforms of education and health funding.
International research on adult education systems reaches certain limitations when explaining differences between and within countries. Often, research within the multilevel system of adult education examines issues located at the macro-level, meaning policy and legal frameworks, and at the micro-level, dealing with impacts on learners. This article focuses on the meso-level of adult education in two sample countries, referring to providers and their educational offers of publicly financed basic and community education. Guided by the theoretical approaches of educational governance and neo-institutionalism, we identify governance regimes and organizational fields and analyze the impacts of legal and financial regulation on providers and their provision. Based on document review and expert interviews, relations at the national and regional levels are analyzed. We find a decentralized system supporting the regional provision of basic adult education in Spain and a mixture of national and regional regulations leading to regional provision based on learnersâ needs in England.
The COVID-19 pandemic that hit Europe in early 2020 radically reshaped the political agenda at all levels of Europe's multi-level system within a matter of weeks. It continued to overshadow all other public concerns throughout 2021. The single most important development that distinguished the second year of the pandemic from the first was that, from early 2021, COVID-19 vaccines became widely available and were rolled out throughout Europe. Early hopes that vaccination might offer full protection against infection were soon dashed. However, the availability of vaccines propelled governments to reorient policy from strict containment to approaches that meant âlearning to live with the virusâ. This shift was not linear. Partly driven by the emergence of new COVID-19 âvariants of interest and concernâ, policy changes and reversals were frequent. But during 2021, restrictions on individual and civil liberties justified on public health grounds became complemented by the reliance on vaccination as the chief means to combat the pandemic. Vaccination meant that public policies became increasingly differentiated between the (fully) vaccinated and the non-vaccinated (for details, see Hale et al., 2022), often provoking intensive protest. The year 2021 was also when the full political and institutional implications of the pandemic became ever more apparent, as the long-term nature of the fight against COVID-19, with its ever-changing variants, sunk in, economic and social costs escalated, and initial emergency measures at EU and national levels became routinized, normalized and, in some instances, institutionalized. Throughout 2021, political scientists continued to engage intensively with the fast-moving pandemic-related policy, institutional and political developments, building on an early wave of empirical work conducted in the first weeks and months of the pandemic (for a review, see Goetz and Martinsen, 2021). Empirical inquiry into this post-vaccine phase of COVID-related governance is still very much ongoing. At the risk of over-accentuating shifts in research foci, one can discern several trends that partly reflect the post-vaccine reality. Initial work in public policy was strongly focused on public health. The diversification of policies from public health to those addressing the economic and social fallout of the pandemic has been reflected in work that seeks to trace the wider scope of policy responses triggered by the pandemic. An early focus on how regional, national, EU and multi-level institutions shaped political and policy responses has become complemented by work that seeks to understand how Europe's multi-level architecture is being reshaped. In writing on pandemic politics, contestation of, and protests against, public measures designed to contain the pandemic have emerged as important themes. Following an initial ârally round the flagâ effect and evidence of high public trust in public policy-makers, system support seems to have become strained (Bor et al., 2021). This review focuses on the intertwined multi-level and democratic implications of the pandemic, as it progressed into its second year, and on political science scholarship that has sought to describe, explain and make sense of policy, institutional and political responses and consequences. Given its transboundary nature, it was clear from the outset that the pandemic called for co-ordination across regional, national, EU and international levels. The inadequacy of existing European multi-level institutions to respond effectively was readily apparent from the onset of the pandemic and there were calls for rapid far-reaching reforms, for example in the form of a European health union. Academic observers have taken different views on both the extent to which the pandemic has changed the institutional balance and power relations between the EU and its member states and on its democratic implications. Disagreements are evident between crisis accounts that suggest an incremental âfailing forwardâ logic of integration, on the one hand, and studies of European âemergency politicsâ, on the other. The âfailing forwardâ argument regards crisis-driven institutional change in the EU multi-level system as inherently insufficient to provide rapid and effective functional responses (Jones et al., 2016, 2021). EU institutions tend to be little prepared when faced with sudden crises due to the thresholds of intergovernmental bargaining. When a crisis hits, the incompleteness of previous institutional responses becomes apparent. Member states are forced to the negotiation table to re-examine existing institutions, but disagreements prevent more than lowest common denominator outcomes. Thus, âfailing forwardâ is a repetitive, incremental institutional response. By contrast, âemergency politicsâ accounts see the institutional impact of crises as more profound, albeit in highly problematic ways (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022; White, 2019, 2022). When major challenges arise, urgency can be cultivated, exploited and made to serve political ends (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022, p. 954). Politics of âthe last resortâ may propel â or force â actors into unprecedented agreements, and put normal rules of procedure and ordinary decision-making on hold. It sets aside usual democratic processes and controls (Schmidt, 2022). Decisions taken in the emergency mode are consequential, since they are capable of creating novel and lasting institutional outcomes. In particular, European emergency politics shift power from the national to the supranational level. Next to multi-level shifts, emergency accounts also engage directly with the democratic implications of this mode of policy-making: emergencies empower âtechnical executivesâ and experts at the expense of democratically elected actors (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022, p. 956; Schmidt, 2022, p. 980; White, 2019, p. 2). In the following, we first address major developments along the vertical and horizontal axes of the multi-level system, before turning to key democratic challenges of post-vaccine politics, focused on democratic performance, democratic quality and democratic support. Much research on the institutional impact of the pandemic on the EU has concentrated on the domains of health and the economy (see, for example, Becker and Gehring, 2022; De la Porte and Heins, 2022; De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; Deruelle and Engeli, 2021; Fabbrini, 2022; Forman and Mossialos, 2021; Rhodes, 2021). In both domains, we see vertical institutional shifts of powers and responsibilities towards the EU, with the Commission taking centre stage. Whereas 2020 was the year of game-changing decisions, such as the agreement on the Next Generation EU funds, and of novel EU powers, in 2021 the decisions had to be implemented and the new powers used, while executive action at all levels became exposed to intense public scrutiny and contestation. When struck by the pandemic, the EU's weak capabilities, dispersed authority and limited budget in health security stood out (Forman and Mossialos, 2021). With catastrophic health news beginning to emerge first in Italian Bergamo, followed soon by fears that the US would monopolize coronavirus remedies and that member states would outcompete one another in the race for vaccines, the need for a pan-European response was soon acknowledged (Becker and Gehring, 2022; Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). In retrospect, the decision-making speed is notable. Already in June 2020, the European Commission was endowed with the novel power of collective vaccine procurement and member states had approved a supranational vaccine plan (Becker and Gehring, 2022; Rhodes, 2021). On 21 December 2020, the Commission and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine. Throughout 2021, another four vaccine authorizations followed suit. On 6 May 2021, the Commission presented its COVID-19 therapeutics strategy to complement the vaccine strategy and to deal with the long-term effects of the infection. Also in 2021, the Commission developed the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which entered into force by 1 July and became interoperational across EU borders. Given that member states had traditionally guarded their health sovereignty closely, this upshift in EU powers is notable and demonstrates that under emergency rule, a recalibration of political authority can occur rapidly and on a scale that would previously have been considered highly improbable (Tesche, 2022; Vollaard et al., 2016; Vollaard and Martinsen, 2017). However, as a concomitant, the Commission also came under increasing scrutiny for its actions. Soon after the major decision to let the Commission directly purchase vaccines and the provision of a considerable budget to do so, the Commission's abilities became subject to severe criticism. The objection was that the inexperienced Commission had chosen the wrong strategy, aiming for lower prices rather than speedy delivery of vaccines and thus fell behind the US and the UK. Also, at the end of 2020, the EMA was fiercely criticized for being too slow in the approval of COVID-19 vaccines. On 2 December 2020, the UK approved the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, followed shortly after by the US and Canada. EMA's approval came just three weeks later, but the Commission and the agency had already lost the game for public approval. Their claim to carry out a more thorough authorization procedure did not resonate in the midst of public critique (Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). The following year became no easier. Early 2021 was marked by severe supply shortages and delays in delivery (Becker and Gehring, 2022). Again, the Commission was subject to condemnation, this time for not having secured enough vaccines and for unfair distribution between its member states (De Gruyter, 2021; Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). In the spring of 2021, there was public criticism of severe production problems and of the relatively slow vaccine roll-out in the EU, which fell notably behind the US, the UK and Israel. By May 2021, the EU had apparently caught up. The Commission had set up a vaccine procurement task force, funded in part by a new BioNTech/Pfizer production site in Germany, and it had secured 1.8 billion doses of vaccine from the same company (Cokelaere, 2021; De Gruyter, 2021; Rhodes, 2021). Only a year later, problems of supply had turned into problems of demand. The European Commission had now secured 4.2 billion doses of vaccine. After an informal meeting of health ministers on 18 May 2022, officials from a number of EU countries prepared a letter asking the European Commission to redraw its existing coronavirus vaccine procurement agreements and to allow member states to take up only the vaccine doses they actually needed (Martuscelli, 2022). In economic policies, too, the pandemic implied considerable vertical institutional dynamics, centralizing more powers around the European Commission. For the first time, the European executive was endowed with the power to borrow money on the financial markets and to transfer funds to member states (Fabbrini, 2022). In this regard, the European Council meeting in July 2020 is noted as a turning point at which the EU heads of state and government agreed on the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery plan as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) (Hillion, 2021). The early negotiations in March and April 2020 of the recovery plan were, however, ripe with political disagreements (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; Ferrera et al., 2021). De la Porte and Jensen three which under normal would have a deal or turned it into a lowest common denominator emerged on the member states as to financial support to member states be only or by a of and with came to support the and the â the and â also came to the of and to was on the of The Commission and the of member states to to from the and the to and the of and strongly negotiations were with a policy member states between those that to to be to and and those that emergency recovery to be (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021). severe the was agreed The deal considerable changes in the EU vertical institutional balance (Becker and Gehring, 2022). It with the of no common and an of (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021). to it the EU's to and new institutions as a crisis response. than âfailing Europe's multi-level has forwardâ 2021, p. In particular, the Commission has new political and institutional to borrow on the markets on of the EU all the up to billion (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021, p. major shift by are new of The European Council agreed on a to its common in part the system and new a new a and a (Fabbrini, 2022, p. On December 2021, the Commission of three new in of the effects on EU economic governance that the policy measures by the EU to address the economic of COVID-19 were a for the European and a major between the economic and the of and as such a in the of European (Fabbrini, 2022, p. Whereas since its had on a between a policy with the European at its and a economic policy at the state the for the first time endowed the EU with its powers (Fabbrini, 2022, p. The key of â the and â was by the European and the Council on 18 December The a of billion in and available to support and by EU 1 only has the Commission been to borrow but it is also in of its and of and the member recovery and to the June 2021 the Commission its first of national recovery and the extent to which the national the of and social the Commission to the of and throughout 2021, due to The plan was only on 1 June 2022, the plan is still at the time of writing 2022). By 2021, and became the first countries to a under the 2 countries followed soon all an initial of their were to be authorized by the on the of the and in the national recovery and The Commission's executive is as it has unprecedented financial means to or member Next to vertical institutional shifts, the multi-level system has also been reshaped by new horizontal institutional dynamics, national intergovernmental the European EU experts and the European the of the pandemic, a new EU health governance architecture has to take In this take centre stage. that become increasingly important institutions for European at the expense of supranational institutions, most notably the Commission et al., However, rather than institutional are new horizontal by and and between the and health The European for and came to a in the pandemic and Engeli, 2021). Deruelle and that COVID-19 became a functional for the which changed its from risk to a of risk This co-ordination in with the intergovernmental in the Council of the and with the Commission. than a power between the institutions, the that the of the have been to the the institutions have to when co-ordination in the and Engeli, 2021, p. Thus, the intergovernmental of national has had to and with both the Commission and the The EMA became another in EU in it is one of the more EU health institutions with its to EU approval to new and Mossialos, The agency was thus for the COVID-19 vaccines. for the first time, this (Schmidt, its to was and by the as experts centre in national did the EMA with the Commission's had to respond to political and public to its The the US and the EU in a political vaccine race on would be first to to the vaccine. At a on 21 December 2020, the approval of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, the EMA its approval three weeks behind the UK called the a while that the had not been public the last EMA has the intense taking in the public some for a approval. were that development was too of interest at EMA have and been by the of the evidence and After the first BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine approval on 21 December 2020, the authorization of vaccines followed at a rapid On 6 2021, the Commission that the vaccine had been authorized on the of EMA's and quality The vaccines developed by and followed on March and December 2021, The year 2021 thus became when the Commission and EMA vaccine authorization at unprecedented The of did however, the from criticism. EMA's too, had a to and in The became in the vaccine processes of the COVID-19 vaccine 2022; et al., 2022). of the vaccine were up after some of In 2021, disagreements between the EMA and national became more and EMA that the vaccine was to that the of the vaccine for most (Deutsch et al., 2021). However, national increasingly the vaccine, its and, by the of EMA and its to the the European Commission towards a European In 2020, several were for EMA as as for the The EMA was approved in At the time of writing 2022), negotiations are between the member states and the European on the the most important European by the Commission was the of a new the and At the was to a new European agency to as a to the US and However, for those aiming for a the of was of an became a within the European for and It became in a of member states had changed from a considerable of EU health to more or of such a transfer of powers 2021). It is that was by means of a Commission by 2021. The European was thus in In the horizontal institutional in health are by the EU and experts as the new of actors in EU crisis At the same time, we see disagreements between supranational and national The European by contrast, in the In economic policy, too, horizontal and disagreements came to the in around the (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; 2022). out that the crisis a around the which to (Tesche, 2022, p. The of emergency politics thus only be for in the of crisis but in of consequences. to the Council decision on the the and the horizontal institutional have been On the one hand, the Council decision marked a turning the Commission in the of the COVID-19 recovery On the the and heads of government had to some extent in the Council a the Council on the and more Council when the Commission the (Hillion, 2021, p. 2). after the European Council agreement on the and the in July 2020, the political in the European against the intergovernmental deal and to the budget the became and more The European and the Council a on the budget in 2020, only to be by from and the a was and the budget in December However, soon and continued the the The member states before the of of the European that the the put the of the on hold. On 2022, the its 6 in the the from and and the for the Commission to the to democratic governance became apparent very early on during the pandemic and have concerns and research and around three major can European with the the pandemic a in and democratic and can trust and support of, or in of, the measures taken to combat the pandemic and its economic and social is at in democratic performance, democratic quality and democratic support. The most scholarship on three increasingly their empirical For example, between restrictions on liberties and public et suggest that the pandemic an for the to individual 2). from Germany, and the they that COVID-19 had a on restrictions on civil liberties âthe that the impact of trust the a key for the of civil liberties was with of civil 2). et on performance, trust and across European that both levels of social and political trust and in trust â notably between government and â are in in in European as a key The of European multi-level would be to with the pandemic â and how they would be to â the of the challenges was on states were not to the of restrictions on that the pandemic to for and to empirical work that democratic countries to have a COVID-19 2022), that we be of that democratic be to the from the we do not between the of and COVID-19 et al., 2021, p. However, most research has focused on across to explain both in policy responses and policy outcomes. In with approaches in public policy, political and and their are to For example, of in national have been to make a and 2021; and 2022), et that between policy and political trust national responses and is in for in outcomes. in responses to the pandemic, politics have also been to Thus, et they the of to the pandemic and to be a of the responses of both and The of responses a of democratic quality has much public and 2021, the with democratic and civil and individual liberties has been in some European countries by public to regards democratic the on âemergency politicsâ and its effects on democratic quality the pandemic, as noted of âemergency politicsâ have been to the to the pandemic as another of a by now of executive and by empirical work has to a more et have a countries and and of democratic for emergency measures across that countries have in at some of democratic since the beginning of the pandemic. more common in such are also in democratic also however, that weak and of democratic be of as take of the to and In has in particular, on and 2022), evidence of democratic throughout 2021. of and democratic trust and support of Much initial work on focused on responses and trust in ârally round the flagâ that an in trust in was in some European but was in et al., 2021; and 2021). research a differentiated and, in some For example, et evidence that to a marked in democratic system support as the pandemic on from and the US, they a of system support in all four countries throughout their also that âthe to system support is more at that system support may not the of the pandemic When the COVID-19 pandemic hit it set in a of slow in system and as the crisis rather than to a key Thus, et suggest that and different democratic for democratic support. This with the of and on from the UK from 2020 and 2021, they evidence of a between levels of COVID-related and and lower of government and trust in of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European multi-level be and and institutional changes take time to their full implications become only apparent and, empirical research on how multi-level has and been reshaped the pandemic is still very much in This three developments stood out in 2021. at the of the European the decisions taken in 2020 that far-reaching new powers and to the EU and, the were put to in 2021, as the and was rolled out and as the European executive emerged as the authority in vaccine authorization and It became clear that, in important the EU had from it to the pandemic. the post-vaccine phase of pandemic governance meant that, at national some of the measures taken to contain the of the to be albeit et al., 2022). At the same time, had as such as the of or the to carry vaccination and became the of thus to emerge in a a to individual and liberties and ways of and an that of the public health measures to combat COVID-19 would be to for the evidence is still accounts suggest that the effects on may and be more than might have at In this the of in the to on the pandemic has become For example, has that, in the of the pandemic and a development that did not the as by it its ever of the in the April In the of to from the pandemic and to do very in the for The pandemic in 2021 may not have new in European but it may out to have and political
Abstract Corporatizationâarguably as important as privatization regarding public service reformâremains an underâresearched topic in Public Administration. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the implementation of different types of corporatization strategies can be explained by the ideology of the ruling party in the Spanish public healthcare sector, selected for study because this sector was subject to reform, particularly, decentralization and marketization. To do so, we use countâdata regression models to analyze secondary data from the 17 Spanish regional governments for the period 2003â2017. Our estimates reveal that rightâwing controlled regional governments exhibit a clear preference for corporatization strategies that actively involve the private sector, such as PublicâPrivate Partnerships and Public Finance Initiatives. Further analysis suggests that leftâwing governments are positively associated with the implementation of corporatization strategies that do not involve the private sector, such as the creation of Public Enterprises and Public Entities. These results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications.
Abstract We examine the role of political alignment and the electoral business cycle on municipality revenues in Greece for the period 2003â2010. The misallocation of resources for political gain represents a waste of resources with significant negative effects on local growth and effective decentralization. The focus of our analysis is municipality mayors since they mediate the relationship between central government and voters and hence can influence the effectiveness of any potential pork-barrelling activity. A novel panel data set combining the results of two local and three national elections with annual municipality budgets is used to run a fixed-effects econometric model. This allows us to identify whether the political alignment between mayors and central government affects municipality financing. We examine this at different stages of local and national electoral cycles, investigating both direct intergovernmental transfers (grants) and the remaining sources of local revenues (own revenues, loans). We find that total revenues are significantly higher for aligned municipalities in the run-up to elections due to higher intergovernmental transfers. We also find evidence that the 2008 crisis has reduced such pork-barrelling activity. This significant resource misallocation increases vertical networking dependency and calls for policy changes promoting greater decentralization and encouraging innovation in local revenue raising.
Subnational governments have become more involved in the âregulation of unemploymentâ (the design, implementation and financing of unemployment-related benefits and activation), partly because they are thought to be better placed to activate the unemployed than federal governments. However, depending on its specific design, decentralization can reduce the incentives subnational governments have to implement effective activation. Such âinstitutional moral hazardâ is not yet systematically theorized. We examine how and to what extent it affects three federal countries. We distinguish three factors that influence whether institutional moral hazard is perceived as a problem and how it can be resolved. We identify two types of subnational challenges to federal control.
After a general campaign that aimed at changing the political and socioeconomic system, the 15M/Indignados abandoned the visible occupation of central squares decentralized through neighborhood assemblies, and specialized around different issues, such as housing, and the health and public education systems. Although often cohabitating amid tension, feminist activists of different generations forged internal and autonomous spaces that prioritized feminist aspirations and permeated dissent in the shadow of the Great Recession, sharing arenas with people who would not have been reached otherwise. Despite the feminist movement(s)â heterogeneity, intersectional character, and organization through polycephalous networks, it has in recent times grown to stand out as the movement with the highest mobilization capacity in the country. Based on original qualitative data from 12 semi-structured interviews with key informants and activists, the piece of research sheds light on the tensions between different generations of feminists. It will explain the continuities and discontinuities between veteran and younger activistsâ world views when it comes to their forms of politicization, theoretical underpinnings, strategic priorities, organizational configuration and resource mobilization, repertoires of action and cultural foundations. In addition, it contends that the ability of veteran and new activists to forge arenas of encounter, fostering debate and synergies during the antiausterity cycle of protest, were key to account for the cross-generational alliance-building processes, which have hitherto seldom been explored in the feminist movement(s) and beyond.
Ciara Brennan, James Rice, Rannveig TraustadĂłttir, Peter Anderberg
Article 19 of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires states to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to a range of support services, including personal assistance. The Convention is an agreement between state parties and the UN. However, in practice, disability services are often implemented at the local level. Drawing on the findings of qualitative research in Iceland, Norway and Sweden, this paper examines a paradox whereby states commit to ensure access to support services, but decentralize responsibility to autonomous and independent local governments. A multi-level governance framework is applied to analyse the findings of qualitative inquiry with policy-makers, local government officials and leaders of independent living organizations in all three Nordic countries. A multi-level analysis highlights the tensions and contradictions between decentralization and human rights commitments.
This dissertation comprises three empirical essays in political economy. The first essay analyzes the implementation of a French social program by subnational governments following a decentralization reform. Using program implementation data, it shows that local political environments strongly influence implementation decisions after decentralization, and that decentralization results in an overall tightening of benefits. The second essay reports the results of a conjoint field experiment involving German welfare offices. Using random assignment of cues about ethnicity and other characteristics in requests to welfare offices, it is shown that putative non-German applicants receive replies at the same rate as putative Germans, but are disadvantaged in terms of the substantive quality of responses. This suggests that minority populations do experience discrimination when attempting to access social benefits. Finally, the third essay uses micro-level voter file data from Illinois to measure whether property tax limitations reduce participation in local elections. In contrast with prior research, results from panel regressions with matching adjustments suggest that tax limitations do not affect political participation negatively. Together, these essays contribute to our understanding of public finance and social policy in contexts characterized by multi-level governance.
Over the past decade, a large number of studies have shown that in advanced democracies policymakers are more likely to represent the preferences of high-income citizens than the preferences of low-income citizens (e.g., Gilens 2005, 2012; Bartels 2008; Ellis 2012; Giger, Rosset and Bernauer 2012; Hayes 2012; Rigby and Wright 2013). In a quest to understand this income bias in substantive representation, several authors have recently suggested that the persistent descriptive underrepresentation of low-income groups in policymaking institutions may explain why political decisions are so frequently skewed toward the preferences of the affluent (e.g., Carnes 2012; Carnes and Lupu 2015).2 However, although this is a plausible explanation, many previous studies dealing with the consequences of descriptive representation have failed to find an effect of policymakers' incomes or social class backgrounds on their behavior in office (e.g., Matthews 1984; Norris and Lovenduski 1995). In this essay, we argue that descriptive representation may indeed have an effect on policymaking, yet for it to be consequential three necessary conditions must be satisfied. We explain in the next section what these conditions are. We then present research that we have recently conducted on representation in the Swiss parliament. Our analyses show that although Swiss legislators coming from lower-income backgrounds appear to have distinct preferences over policy, these differences in preferences do not translate into distinct behavior in the policymaking arena. Finally, drawing upon the three necessary conditions described below, the last section provides some suggestions as to why we fail to find an effect of descriptive representation on legislative behavior in the current Swiss context. The descriptive representation of different income groups may be important simply on symbolic grounds, since the legitimacy and authority of a ârepresentativeâ body such as parliament can be undermined if it fails to reflect the composition of the population that it is intended to represent (e.g., Norris and Lovenduski 1995). If we assume, however, that constituents care primarily about policy outcomes (e.g., Downs 1957), rather than the composition of parliament, descriptive representation is important only to the extent that it affects legislative behavior.3 Based on this assumption, and following in part Carnes and Lupu (2015), we argue that there are three necessary conditions that must be satisfied for descriptive representation to have an effect on legislators' policymaking actions. First, legislators must share policy preferences with the group they represent descriptively, at least for a subset of the policies on the political agenda. Such preference congruence can be the result of two mechanisms. On the one hand, people with similar background characteristics may have âshared experiences,â which in turn promote similar interests and preferences over policy (Mansbridge 1999). By merely following their personal preferences, descriptive representatives then further not only their own interests but also those of the social groups they represent. On the other hand, congruence between the preferences of representatives and citizens belonging to the same socioeconomic group may be the product of responsiveness (Achen 1978). If the former have incentives to respond to the policy preferences of the latter (for instance because of reelection concerns; see, e.g., Mayhew 1974), the represented can âinduceâ preferences in their legislators (e.g., Snyder and Ting 2005). Second, much of the literature on legislative politics assumes that multiple principals can influence the voting behavior of legislators. Most important in this regard are party discipline and constituent pressure (e.g., Levitt 1996; Burden 2007; Carey 2009). Consequently, although legislators' behavior may be constrained by party leaders and constituents who do not belong to their descriptively represented groups, for descriptive representation to be relevant these principals must not determine legislators' actions completely. In order to be able to act according to the preferences of the groups they represent descriptively, representatives must therefore have some discretion in the policy decision-making process (see also Carnes and Lupu 2015). Third, legislators who descriptively represent a particular group must be presented with choices in the policymaking process that separate them from other legislators who do not represent the same group descriptively but are otherwise similar (e.g., in terms of party affiliation). If this is not the case, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of descriptive representation from the effects of other characteristics shared by the descriptive representatives and other (similar) representatives. Provided that these three conditions are satisfied, we expect descriptive representation to matter for legislative behavior. We turn next to a discussion of our research assessing whether and to what extent socioeconomic characteristics affect legislators' attitudes and behavior in the Swiss parliament. The Swiss parliament is a militia parliament. Hence, although the compensations legislators receive for their parliamentary activity may suffice to cover the cost of living, many retain a professional activity during their parliamentary mandates. Members of the Swiss parliament are therefore likely to have relatively diverse economic conditions, not only as a result of the different professions they exercised before entering parliament and the different levels of accumulated wealth, but also because their incomes can vary substantially depending on the professional activities conducted during their mandates. An important argument put forward by proponents of the militia system is that it allows for a more diverse composition of parliament and a closer connection between legislators and their constituents. However, in practice, the militia system does not seem to enhance the descriptive representation of different social classes, as the Swiss parliament is predominantly composed of liberal professionals, entrepreneurs, and high-rank civil servants (Pilotti et al. 2010, Pilotti this debate). These two features of the Swiss parliament â diversity in legislators' income levels, combined with a significant overrepresentation of representatives coming from high-income backgrounds â make it an interesting case for analyzing the link between the descriptive and the substantive representation of economically defined groups of citizens. In this essay, we thus report on two recent studies dealing with descriptive representation and its consequences in Switzerland. The first study focuses on policy preferences among candidates in the Swiss Federal elections of 2007 (Rosset 2013a, pp. 109-133). It is based on data from the candidate survey conducted as part of âSelects,â the Swiss electoral study. For this survey, all candidates to the two chambers of the Swiss parliament have been contacted and asked to answer a paper or online questionnaire regarding their political engagement, campaign activities, policy preferences as well as their socioeconomic background. Based on these data, the study analyzes candidates' preferences with regard to redistribution, using a question asking to what extent respondents agree with the statement that the state should do more to reduce income differences between the rich and the poor. The main independent variable of interest is the candidates' monthly household income. The analysis reveals that controlling for party affiliation, gender and education, income â even though measured only crudely by seven categories â has a significant negative effect on support for redistribution. In other words, candidates from the same party are on average less favorable to redistribution of income by the state if they themselves have higher incomes. Consequently, since citizens on average have both lower incomes and policy preferences that are much more favorable towards redistribution than their representatives (Rosset 2013b), this result suggests that the unequal descriptive representation of income groups in parliament could explain the unequal representation of their preferences on redistribution. The second study focuses on legislator responsiveness. It takes advantage of Switzerland's direct democratic system, in which parliament votes on each policy proposal that is put to a popular vote (WĂŒest and Lloren 2014). This institutional setting thus provides a unique opportunity to compare legislators' and citizens' policy preferences on identical scales.4 The empirical analysis consists of two steps. First, based on data from surveys carried out after popular votes (âVoxâ surveys), the study examines whether citizens' policy preferences vary according to income. In line with previous research findings (Gilens 2009; Rigby and Wright 2011), this analysis shows that with regard to economic issues the poor tend to have more left-leaning preferences than more affluent citizens. After having shown that the preferences of poor and rich citizens differ, the study then assesses in a second step whether legislators with different socioeconomic backgrounds respond unequally to the policy preferences of different income groups. To do so, WĂŒest and Lloren (2014) regress legislators' voting decisions in parliament on three sets of independent variables: (i) indicator variables showing whether a legislator has a lower-income, middle-income or higher-income occupation (see Pilotti, Mach and Mazzoleni 2010), (ii) variables measuring the preferences of poor, middle-income and rich citizens, respectively, in a legislator's reelection constituency and (iii) a set of indicator variables to control for legislators' party affiliations.5 The analysis reveals, first, that representatives are more responsive to higher-income groups and that the preferences of the less affluent are therefore underrepresented in the legislative arena. Second, and most importantly for this essay, representatives occupying low-wage jobs are not more likely to cast a left vote than their colleagues who have middle- and higher-income occupations. Thus, conditional on party affiliation, legislators' socioeconomic backgrounds do not affect their voting decisions. Finally, the results show that legislator responsiveness to income group preferences does not depend on party affiliation. Consequently, this second study suggests that occupational income has no effect on legislators' behavior in final passage votes and that the overrepresentation of well-off representatives in parliament does not contribute to explaining the lack of congruence between legislators and lower-income citizens. At first sight, this finding contradicts a growing body of research that politicians' personal such as gender or ethnic influence their political behavior at various stages of the legislative process, thus enabling marginalized groups to voice their political concerns more accurately (Lefkofridi, Giger, and Kissau, 2012; Lloren 2015b; Preuhs 2006; Swers 2002). Some might argue that grouping legislators' according to income could be an improper measure to grasp the effect of one's position in the social structure on political decision-making (Carnes 2012; this debate; Mansbridge this debate). Accordingly, the politics of presence (Philipps 1995) postulates that personal features matter only to the extent that they generate shared social experiences, such as discrimination. Indeed, although a law student and a manual worker can be found in the same income brackets, no one would expect them to have similar social experiences or life chances, and, in turn, share a distinct set of policy preferences. However, the study carried out by Rosset (2013a) and discussed in the previous section shows that personal income determines candidates' preferences with regard to redistribution. Our findings presented above have shown that Swiss legislators' socioeconomic backgrounds are related to their attitudes towards income redistribution, yet do not seem to translate into specific patterns of voting behavior. Hence, although more research is needed to better understand the relationship between representatives' preferences and policymaking actions, we conclude this essay by offering some suggestions as to why legislators' socioeconomic characteristics do not appear to affect their behavior in parliament. As set forth in the introduction, three conditions must be satisfied for descriptive representation to have consequences for legislative behavior. Whereas the first of these conditions â that preferences of legislators are close to the preferences of the socioeconomic group they descriptively represent â is obviously satisfied, the other two are potentially violated. The second condition is violated if legislators' behavior is completely determined by party leaders and/or constituents not belonging to the groups they represent descriptively. In Switzerland, parties are decentralized organizations and legislators do not attach much importance to party loyalty as a guiding principle for their actions (Loewenberg and Mans 1988). However, this does not mean that they do not act in a cohesive manner and recent research suggests that party unity is higher on final passage votes and votes on salient issues (Traber et al. 2014). Therefore, the small influence of socioeconomic characteristics on legislators' voting behavior might be explained by the fact that their behavior is largely determined by party positions in votes on economic issues which are arguably salient. With regard to constituent pressure, we first note that given the large size of the underrepresented group of low-income citizens, legislators have a priori little electoral incentives to respond exclusively to the preferences of the more affluent. However, there is a clear class bias in political participation, which might explain why representing richer citizens could be of particular importance for reelection-seeking legislators (Rennwald 2014). Further, given the lack of party finance regulations and the low level of party subsidies in Switzerland, it may also be that politicians attach more importance to the preferences of constituents with greater financial resources they can contribute to political campaigns. Finally, the third condition for descriptive representation to matter is violated if there are no alternatives on the political agenda separating descriptive representatives from other legislators who do not represent the same group descriptively but who are otherwise similar. While coalition patterns among Swiss parties tend to differ across policy domains, recent research shows that with regard to economic issues there is a clear left-right cleavage, with center and right-wing parties favoring less welfare state than left-wing parties (Afonso and Papadopoulos 2014). Economic policies, therefore, divide legislators strongly along party lines, blurring more subtle differences in preferences that may exist among legislators with different income levels within parties (see also Mansbridge this debate). Consequently, proposals on economic issues might simply be not heterogeneous enough to allow us to disentangle the effects that socioeconomic characteristics may have on legislative behavior. This discussion also intends to serve as a cautionary note. Although in our analysis we failed to find an effect of descriptive representation on legislators' behavior, this does not imply that descriptive representation is irrelevant for policymaking. Rather, we believe that its effect is context-dependent. When the context changes (e.g., when party pressure decreases or more heterogeneous proposals are voted on in parliament), descriptive representation may become more important in structuring legislative behavior. For example, women's descriptive representation in the Swiss National Council has increased substantive representation for women (Lloren 2015a). In that case, the three conditions discussed earlier were satisfied. Women legislators are more likely to favor women friendly policy than their male colleagues and to vote together â sometimes even against their party â to support women's interests, especially on policies that yield weak left-right polarization such as moral issues. Exploring such context dependencies for other politically marginalized groups thus constitutes a fruitful avenue for future research. Finally, we should note that legislators' socioeconomic backgrounds might affect behavior other than roll call voting. For instance, some scholars have argued that legislators are less constrained by party pressure in earlier stages of the legislative process, such as when sponsoring bills or in floor debates, and therefore have more discretion to act according to the preferences of groups they represent descriptively (see, e.g., Carnes and Lupu 2015; Lupu this debate). Anouk Lloren is a postdoctoral visiting fellow at Columbia University funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Within the field of political behavior, her work relates to political participation, representation, gender, and socio-economic inequalities. Jan Rosset is a postdoctoral researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, with a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation. His research focuses on the relationship between economic and political inequality and on democratic political representation. Reto WĂŒest is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Geneva. His research interests include legislative institutions and behavior, economic inequality and political representation, and formal theory.
If millionaires in the United States formed their own political party, that party would make up just three percent of the country, but it would have a majority in the House of Representatives, a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate, a 5:4 majority on the Supreme Court, and a man in the White House. If working-class Americansâpeople employed in manual-labor and service-industry jobsâwere a political party, that party would have made up more than half of the country since the start of the twentieth century. But legislators from that party (those who last worked in blue-collar jobs before getting into politics) would never have held more than two percent of the seats in Congress. In the last few years, scholars of US politics have started taking a renewed interest in what I call white-collar government,1 the disproportionate numerical representation of wealthy people and white-collar professionals in our political institutions. Political scientists are once again asking how government by the upper class affects public policy in the United States. And they're starting to ask why our representative process consistently gives us such economically unrepresentative slates of politicians. By virtually any measure of class or social attainment, the average policy maker in the United States is vastly better off than the average citizen. The size of the social gap between citizens and their representatives varies somewhat across different political institutions and depends in part on how we measure class or economic standing. In general, though, politicians tend to be drawn overwhelmingly from the top strata of American society. For example, members of Congressâthe branch of the federal government often touted as most closely reflecting the nation's diversityâare considerably more privileged than the people who elect them. Lawyers and business owners make up approximately 10 percent of the population but constitute at least half of both chambers. Almost every member today is a college graduate, a distinction held by just one in three Americans (Ruggles et a1. 2009). And the median net worth of members of Congress is approximately $1.5 million (Center for Responsive Politics 2014), roughly eleven times the median net worth of American families. These imbalances are by no means recent developments (e.g., Domhoff 1967; Matthews 1954a; 1954b; 1985; Mills 1956; Pessen 1984; Zeller 1954). They have persisted, moreover, even as other underrepresented groups have begun to break through the glass ceiling. Figure 1 plots the percentage of members of Congress who served between 1901 and 1996 who were women, racial or ethnic minorities, and who were from the working class (that is, who last worked as manual laborers, service industry workers, or union officials before entering politics). Although women and minorities were still underrepresented at the end of the twentieth century, both groups gained considerable ground during the postwar period. In sharp contrast, working-class Americansâwho have made up more than half of the labor force for at least the last hundred years (even after that Information Revolution of the late-20th century)âhave never held more than two percent of the seats in Congress. The Demographic Makeup of the United States Congress, 1901â96 Source: Carnes 2012. This long-standing feature of American political life doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon. Data on the makeup of state and local institutionsâwhich tend to foreshadow demographic changes in national officesâsuggest that, if anything, working-class representation may decline even further in the short term. In state legislatures, for instance, women's representation skyrocketed from 8 percent to 24 percent between 1976 and 2007, and the share of lawmakers who were Black or Latino grew from 9 percent to 11 percent. During the same period, the share of state legislators from blue-collar jobs fell from 5 percent to 3 percent (National Conference of State Legislatures 2011). The path to political office has always been difficult for the working class, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution were skeptical about the importance of a politician's economic or social class background. In Federalist #35, Alexander Hamilton defended government by the privileged (see, for instance, Lewis 1961; Manin 1997), arguing that blue-collar workers âknow that the merchant is their natural patron and friend; and they are aware that however great the confidence they may justly feel in their own good sense, their interests can be more effectually promoted by the merchant than by themselves.â Why should it matter whether the people who represent us come from one background or another? Workers and business owners both want economic prosperity, so what's the harm in letting the upper class call the shots? This rosy take on government by the privileged has been an important part of American political thought ever since. Campaigns and candidates routinely invoke âslogans such as president Calvin Coolidge's âthe business of the nation is businessâ or Charles E. Wilson's (Eisenhower's secretary of defense and a former executive at General Motors) statement that âwhat was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versaââ (Witko and Friedman 2008, 72). Unfortunately, the idea that class doesn't matter in our political institutions appears to be flat wrong. Scholars of public opinion have known for decades that Americans from different classes have different views about economic issues, that working-class Americans tend to be more progressive, and that the wealthy tend to want government to play a smaller role in economic affairs (e.g., Gilens 2009; Hout 2008; Keely and Tan 2008; Manza and Brooks 2008; Rehm 2010). Politicians seem to be no exception. Like ordinary citizens, politicians from different classes tend to have different personal views about economic issues. And because politicians often have some discretionâtheir hands aren't always tied by parties, citizens, and interest groups (Burden 2007)âthey sometimes base their choices in office on their own views about the issues before them. In Congress, for instance, legislators who had working-class jobs before being elected tend to have more progressive personal views about economic issues, tend to introduce more progressive economic proposals and work harder to pass them, and tend to cast more progressive votes on economic bills (Carnes 2012; 2013). Figure 2 plots data from the Chamber of Commerce (America's largest business association) on how frequently members of Congress sided with business interests when voting on major economic proposals. The figure divides legislators according to the main occupations they held before serving in Congress: average voting scores for members who worked in profit-oriented white-collar jobs (like owning a business) are graphed at the top, service-oriented white-collar jobs (like teaching, law, or social work) are plotted next, and working-class jobs appear at the bottom. The pattern in the data is unmistakable. Like ordinary citizens, lawmakers from the working class tend to be more pro-worker, and lawmakers from white-collar jobsâespecially profit-oriented jobs in the private sectorâtend to be more pro-business (even when I control for a wide range of constituency and legislator characteristics). Class and Roll Call Voting in Congress, 1999â2008 Source: Carnes 2013. These social class divisions are remarkably consistent across different datasets. They appear in voting scores computed by other organizations, in data from different periods of American history, in data on other forms of legislative conduct like introducing bills, and in surveys of state and federal legislators' personal beliefs (Carnes 2013). They are also mirrored in other studies that use different measures of class and privilege. Members of Congress from specific white-collar occupations like business (Witko and Friedman 2008) and law (Eulau and Sprauge 1964; Miller 1995) tend to vote differently on legislation that affects their industries. Legislators who have more money invested in stocks are more likely to vote to protect the markets (Grose 2013). Wealthier legislators are more likely to vote against the estate tax (Griffin and Anewalt-Remsburg 2013). Legislators with more wealth and education are more likely to support bills that increase economic inequality (Kraus and Callaghan 2014). However we define class or privilege, it seems to matter in our legislatures. Like ordinary citizens, lawmakers who are well off themselves are more likely to support policies that protect the well off. And these class-based differences in individual legislative conduct can have dramatic consequences in the aggregate. Figure 3 plots data from 1993 and 1995 on the social class makeups of state legislatures against data on the percentages of states' budgets devoted to social welfare programs (top panel), the generosity of unemployment benefits in each state (middle panel), and the tax rate on corporations in each state (bottom panel). State legislatures with more working-class members devote more of their resources to social safety net programs and tax corporations at higher rates. States with more business owners and executives in their legislatures spend less on welfare, provide lower levels of unemployment benefits, and tax companies at lower rates (Carnes 2013, ch. 5). Economic Policy and the Social Class Makeup of State Legislatures, 1994â1996 Source: Carnes 2013, ch. 5. Note: Lines represent quadratic best-fit estimates (with 95 percent confidence intervals shaded gray). Welfare spending and corporate tax rate data are from 1994 and 1996; maximum weekly unemployment benefits data are from 2001. Of course, many other features of US politics mute our government's response to the needs of the working class, like the decline of labor unions and the recent and unprecedented surge in campaign spending (see Gilens in this debate). White-collar government isn't the only barrier to pro-worker policy in the United Statesâbut it certainly belongs on the list.2 The rosy notion that lawmakers from business and professional backgrounds want what's best for everyone is seriously out of line with the realities of legislative decision making in the United States. The economic issues at stake in American politics often involve difficult trade-offs between the material well-being of different classes of citizens. And the scarcity of lawmakers from the working class ultimately tilts decisions about the distribution of economic resources, protections, and burdens in favor of the more conservative policies that affluent Americans tend to prefer. Government by the upper class promotes government for the upper classâand government for the upper class is often bad for everyone else. Why, then, are there so few working-class people in our political institutions in the first place? If the policy stakes are so high, why does our representative process consistently yield such an unrepresentative group of decision makers? Political scientists currently know more about the effects of government by the privileged in the United States than they do about the causes. However, a growing body of research seems to be ruling out several potential culpritsâand implicating others. Probably the most common view among pundits and political observers is that white-collar government is something of a practical necessity in the United States. One popular version of this argument holds that government by the privileged is what Americans want, that white-collar professional rule in the U.S. because American voters prefer white-collar candidates. Another common and related view is that government by the upper class is what Americans need, that working-class people don't have the skills or qualifications required for holding office. The Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist William A. Henry III (1995, 21) summarized both when he wrote that âvoters repeatedly reject insurrectionist candidates who parallel their own ordinariness [âŠ] in favor of candidates of proven character and competence.â Why are we governed by the rich? Many observers believe it's because the rich make better politiciansâand voters know it. These arguments have deep historical roots in the United States. However, they've never found much support in hard data on U.S. politics. There has never been an empirical study that has shown that American voters prefer white-collar candidates. And there has never been a single studyânot oneâthat has concluded that working-class people are underrepresented in public office because they are less qualified for the job. On average, members of Congress from the working class do almost exactly as well in elections as members from white-collar professions (Carnes n.d.). Experiments comparing hypothetical candidates from different classes reach identical conclusions. Sadin (2011) finds, for instance, that voters randomly assigned to evaluate a hypothetical candidate from the working class are just as likely to report that they would vote for him as those randomly assigned to evaluate an otherwise identical hypothetical candidate from an elite professional background. Far from âreject[ing] ⊠candidate[s] who parallel their own ordinariness,â voters seem to like working-class candidates just fine. A shortage of qualified workers doesn't seem to be to blame, either. It's true that on average working-class Americans are less likely to have many of the personal qualities that promote success in politics or that we might want in our leaders: knowledge about public affairs, confidence that the political process can be used to achieve real change, âtoleran[ce] of unpopular voicesâ (Verba 2003, 669), and so on. However, there are many more working-class people than there are white-collar professionalsâso many more, in fact, that there are actually more blue-collar workers with many of these desirable characteristics than there are white-collar professionals (Carnes 2013, ch. 6). If even just half a percent of the blue-collar workers in the United States have the skills required for holding office, there would be enough of them to fill every seat in Congress and in every state legislature more than 40 timesâwith enough left over to run a few thousand city councils. Something other than voters and qualifications seems to be responsible for the shortage of working-class citizens in American political institutions. Scholars haven't yet confirmed exactly what that is, but we're starting to make some headway. Building on research on other historically underrepresented groups like women (e.g., Crowder-Meyer 2010; Lawless and Fox 2005; 2010; Sanbonmatsu 2002; 2006), the nascent scholarship on the shortage of working-class Americans in public office is beginning to find evidence that workers are underrepresented not because of some deficiency on their part, but because of discouraging circumstances, like the practical burdens associated with holding office and the gatekeeping decisions of party leaders and interest groups. In places where holding office is less burdensome and in places where workers are better integrated into parties and interest groups, workers tend to hold office in larger numbers. Figure 4 illustrates this point with data on the share of working-class Americans in state legislatures (from Figure 3). In states with more professionalized legislaturesâthat is, where holding office takes more time and energyâfewer workers hold office. In states where working-class citizens make up larger shares of party and campaign volunteers, workers tend to hold office in larger numbers. And in states where unions are stronger, workers are more likely to lead (Carnes n.d.; see also Carnes forthcoming; Sojourner 2013). The factors that keep workers out of office don't seem to have to do with voters or with the supposed shortcomings of the working class itself. They seem to have far more to do with the structural features of the political landscape that have captivated scholars of U.S. politics for decades: parties, institutions, and interest groups. What Predicts Working-class Representation in State Legislatures? Source: Carnes n.d. These findings are still preliminary, of courseâthere simply hasn't been much research on this topic yet. Scholars still need to develop a complete account of the individual behavioral or psychological factors keeping workers from running and winning (e.g., differences in resources, ambition, recruitment, etc.). We need to link those factors to the structural features of the political environment that give rise to them, like the high cost of running an election, the weakness of labor unions in the US, and so on. We need to think through and identify the causal relationship between these factors and working-class representation. And we need to think about change over time. Many of these structural factors are changing in ways that probably discourage working-class office holdingâelections are getting more expensive and unions are getting weaker. Holding office was always challenging for workers (see Figure 1), but it may be getting even harder. Scholars need to understand how these changes are affecting the already difficult process of transitioning from a working-class job to a career in politics. Reformers do, too. In the last few years, activists have started taking an unprecedented interest in government by the privileged. In the 1990s, the New Jersey AFL-CIO launched a âcandidate schoolâ to identify, recruit, and train working-class citizens to run for public office. Since then, similar working-class candidate training programs have been launched in California, Connecticut, Maine, Nevada, New York, and Oregonâand more are on the way (Carnes 2013, ch. 6). Programs like these are premised on the same basic ideas that are emerging from the scholarly research on the factors keeping working-class Americans out of office, namely, that there are many qualified working-class Americans out there, that workers do well in elections when they run, and that electing more workers will tilt economic policy toward the progressive policies that workers tend to support and away from the conservative policies favored by America's rich. However, scholars and practitioners still have a lot to learn about why the United States has a white-collar governmentâand what we can do about it. Nicholas Carnes is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. His research focuses on U.S. politics, legislative decision making, representation, social class, economic inequality, and state and local politics. His new book White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making examines how the shortage of people from the working class in American legislatures skews the policymaking process towards outcomes that are more in line with the upper class's economic interests. He is also starting a large-scale study on the factors that discourage working-class Americans from holding public office and the programs that could help to address the shortage of working-class Americans in our political institutions.
This article addresses the market for employment services. It adopts a dynamic perspective on welfare markets and demonstrates how the institutional design of quasiâmarkets in the Danish Public Employment service has been promoted, altered, and reâregulated over a period of 10 years. It was in 2002 when quasiâmarkets have been created by using the instrument of contractingâout employment services to private providers. Seen from the perspective of policymakers at the national level, contractingâout is attractive as it has a buffering function and allows adapting the amount of the public financed employment services comparatively easy to changing needs resulting from changing labor market conditions. However, contractingâout makes accountability to public goods more difficult as the chain of accountability is stretched or may even be broken. Against the background of accountability scandals, which have revealed the poor quality of privately provided services, the market design was reâmodeled again by replacing standardized national tendering with a decentralized, partnershipâbased and dialogueâoriented approach, where services are developed in joint efforts between purchaser and provider. All in all, the development of quasiâmarkets in the Danish Public Employment system can be described as a partial reversal from marketization. Paradoxically, elements of network governance, which were abolished initially, have been introduced again.
Greece's residual type of welfare model is facing the past six years an intense pressure caused by the economic crisis (2008) and the emergence of new social risks. Restrictive policies and internal devaluation process adopted to restructure economy, underestimated the social impact. The State, choosing a different welfare model with emphasis on commodification and selective services, gradually withdraws from the implementation of social policy, seeking, through administrative reforms, to transfer responsibilities to local government, without, however, the necessary funding. At the same time, European Union's social policy, despite its rhetoric and some initially ambitious efforts, particularly with the Treaty of Lisbon, shows inability to create a âcommunity acquisâ, which would contribute decisively to the Europeanization of the southern countries. By applying âsoft lawâ measures and always based on the principle of subsidiarity, European strategy is confined, almost entirely, to an application of employment support measures, primarily seeking to improve competitiveness and meet the financial objectives of Monetary Union. The study of basic economic and social EU-28 indices for the period 2008-2012, confirms that diversification of welfare models has a crucial effect in mitigating income inequality and reducing the risk of poverty, enhancing therefore, the dispute over theoretical approaches that support the adequacy of policies related to economic growth. This paper attempts, given the aforementioned conditions, to present the current situation in local government organizations, both from the structures and the financing means perspective, based on a primary research, conducted for this purpose using a structured questionnaire filled by competent executives of all municipalities in the Prefecture (now regional unit) of Thessaloniki. Research findings, though highlighting the efforts to substitute central government's role in an institutional context, constantly under reform, indicate that municipalities are facing significant efficiency problems. Social policy is exercised by different organizational units without integrated strategic planning, new structures which were created primarily to address poverty are inadequate to meet the actual needs and funding is limited in an effort to replace the reduced own resources through European programs, without seeking future alternative sources. The acute lack of human resources and coordination, adversely affects evaluation of local government's social policy. The findings also intensify the concern about structures sustainability and the capacity of municipalitiesâ overall support, but at the same time detect needed interventions in order to implement an efficient decentralized policy, which will become an essential factor of social cohesion and prevent escalation of social exclusion.
Since the mid-1980s, both Shanghai and Hong Kong have implemented health insurance reform to contain healthcare costs. But the reform result in these two places represents polar extremes. While Shanghai witnessed a revolution in healthcare financing in 2000, Hong Kong remains status quo on healthcare financing. Using the theory of historical institutionalism, this study examines how the complex interplay of forces affects health insurance reform implementation in these two places. It finds that Shanghai succeeded in implementing health insurance reform because of contextual influences, ideological shift, policy feedback, the authoritative political institutions, the dominance of key bureaucratic stakeholders in health insurance reform process, the endorsement of new ideas, and the decentralization power given to local governments. On the other hand, it finds that Hong Kong failed to implement any health insurance reforms in 1993 because of a more democratic political system, policy feedback, the persistence of old ideas, and a robust economy. Besides, it finds that the government failed to implement healthcare financing reforms in 1999 and 2000 because of a disjointed political system, difficult economic circumstances, the new idea lacking public acceptance, policy feedback, and the institutionalization of old ideas.
Abstract In the last three decades, China has experienced dual decentralization in transforming its economy, resulting in decentralization and deconcentration in public administration and social service delivery. Under the policy framework of decentralization, particularly when welfare financing has been decentralized to local governments, the emergence of welfare regionalism is evident in China. This paper sets out against this policy context to examine how three local governments in eastern coastal areas in China handle changing labour welfare needs by institutionalizing social and labour protection measures to meet the local needs instead of implementing central policy. With particular reference to examine why regional variations exist in welfare provision even though the socio-economic development status is similar in these areas, this paper shows how different forms of capitals, government's governance style and diversity of industries have affected welfare arrangements for labour in China.