Regimes in rich democracies

1. 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 • Organized along cleavage lines • Number, nature, intensity of cleavages varies • Institutions: create rules of the game that structure the way political actors compete for political power • Policies: outcome of political conflict filtered through institutions • 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) Regimes in rich democracies

2. Best exemplified in Scandinavian countries • Gradual, smooth process of democratization • Far-left parties never gained traction • Absence of linguistic, ethnic, and religious cleavages • Did 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: Politics

3. 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) • Key to binding middle-class welfare state • Resources and risks pooled in the welfare state creating a convergence of interest) • 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) • 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: Policies

4. 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 • range of services provided to relieve burden of care that previously required women to stay at home • Contributes to dynamism and competitiveness of economies • 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 welfare state

5. Centralized political systems • Parliamentary democracies • Party discipline (strong parties) • Governments govern through support of disciplined majorities; potential conflict, stalemate of competing legislative and executive branches avoided (fused executive-legislative) • 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 • 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) Social democratic: Institutions

6. 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: politics

7. Good at creating new jobs and increasing economic growth (Table 5.4, 130) • Lower payroll taxes and wages reduces labor costs for employers, allowing them to hire more workers • 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) • 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: policies

8. 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 Conservative: institutions

9. 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: politics

10. Big government (not as big as social democratic regimes) • Relatively high government expenditures, total tax revenue as proportion of GDP (between Social Democratic and Conservative Regimes) • High levels of welfare expenditures (proportion of GDP devoted to public expenditures) closer to social democratic than 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: policies

11. 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 Christian democratic: institutions

12. Physical well-being • 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 • Informed decision-making • 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 safe environment for citizens (using homicide rates; Table 5.9, 144) • Civil and political rights/quality of democracy • 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 Comparing capability