Are welfare state reforms electorally risky? This study tackles two key gaps.
It first tests the reform-vote connection with data on actual legislative decisions, enabling robust statistical analysis. Voters reward governments for benefit expansions while punishing them for cutbacks — a phenomenon termed "compensation" that serves as an effective blame-avoidance strategy.
The second shortcoming addressed is ignoring expansionary reforms alongside cutbacks. This research finds voters respond negatively and positively to welfare changes in roughly equal magnitudes, suggesting voter negativity bias doesn't directly translate into electoral outcomes.
Key findings:
* Voters penalize governments for benefit reductions (cutbacks) but also reward them for increases (expansions)
* The magnitude of these positive and negative reactions appears similar
* This balance implies compensation is a viable political strategy
This analysis offers important insights into voter behavior regarding welfare state changes in two distinct systems.
| Risky Business? Welfare State Reforms and Government Support in Britain and Denmark was authored by Seonghui Lee, Carsten Jensen, Christoph Arndt and Georg Wenzelburger. It was published by Cambridge in BJPS in 2020. |
