Losing the Issue, Losing the Vote: Issue Competition and the Reform of Unemployment Insurance in Germany and Sweden
Abstract
Welfare state research tends to assume strong and enduring public support for welfare state institutions. We challenge this assumption and show that in times of economic crisis, positive welfare state attitudes are confronted with conflicting preferences for improvement of labour market performance. We argue that such movements in public opinion have led to issue competition among major political parties and subsequent radical reform of unemployment insurance in two least-likely cases. In both Germany and Sweden, incumbent governments were losing voters' confidence as a result of high and persistent unemployment. In Germany, the social democratic government saw falling competence ratings at the same time as the issue of unemployment was highly salient among voters. In order to win back confidence, the party shifted its policy stance and introduced reforms which reshaped the unemployment insurance system. In Sweden, the situation was similar with falling ratings for the social democratic government and high levels of salience for the issue of unemployment among voters. When the government did not introduce reforms, the opposition moved in and won issue ownership, and subsequently the election, on an agenda of radical reform.
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Biographies
Johan Bo Davidsson holds a PhD from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), obtained in 2011 for a study on the institutional power of unions and labour market policy reform, and is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Economy and Welfare Studies at Lund University. He is a co-convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on the Politics of Welfare and Social Policy. His work has been published, inter alia, in the European Journal of Political Research.
Paul Marx is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. His research interests are related to comparative political economy, in particular welfare state reforms and preferences. He has recently published articles in Socio-Economic Review, Journal of European Social Policy, European Societies and the European Political Science Review.
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Article first published online: November 19, 2012
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