Citizens are happier in countries where the government intervenes more frequently in the economy

What types of public policy promote greater happiness among citizens? Patrick Flavin, Alexander C. Pacek and Benjamin Radcliff present results from an analysis of survey data across 21 industrialised democracies between 1981 and 2007. They find that in countries where governments intervene more frequently in the economy there is a higher degree of self-reported happiness among citizens. They note that while these findings cannot strictly be taken as evidence that social democratic policies are better in a normative sense overall, the results suggest that more research is required on the impact of a country’s political context on the happiness of its citizens

Applied models in public policy optimizing

Thesis (B.A.) in Liberal Arts and Sciences--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1984.Bibliography: leaf 38.Microfiche of typescript. [Urbana, Ill.] : Photographic Services, University of Illinois, U of I Library, [1987]. 2 microfiches (45 frames) negative ; 11 x 15 cm

The Partisan Politics of New Social Risks in Advanced Postindustrial Democracies: Social Protection for Labor Market Outsiders

Advanced postindustrialization generates numerous challenges for the European social model. Central among these challenges is declining income, unstable employment, and inadequate training of semi- and unskilled workers. In this chapter, I assess the partisan basis of support for social policies that address the needs of these marginalized workers. I specifically consider the impacts of postindustrial cleavages among core constituencies of social democratic parties on the capacity of these parties to pursue inclusive social policies. I argue – and find support for in empirical analyses – that encompassing labor organization is the most important factor in strengthening the ability of left parties to build successful coalitions in support of outsider-friendly policies. I go beyond existing work on the topic by considering the full array of postindustrial cleavages facing left parties, by more fully elaborating why encompassing labor organization is crucial, and by considering a more complete set of measures of outsider policies than extant work. I compare my arguments and findings to important new work that stresses coalition building and partisan politics but minimizes the role of class organization

Organized Labor and Electoral Participation in American National Elections

I consider the role of unions in fostering electoral participation in the U.S. Using aggregate and individual data, I argue that turnout varies directly with the organizational strength of unions, not only through their ability to mobilize their own members per se, but also, and more importantly, through their ability to affect the rate of participation of voters in general. My results imply that unionization helps explain much of the post-1960 decline in voter turnout. The magnitude of the relationship is demonstrated to rival that of more conventional determinants of voter turnout such as education.

Democracy, elections, and rationality: An examination of the implications of social choice theory for the theory and practice of American government

Arrow's Theorem implies that the problem of cyclical majorities is endemic any non-dictatorial system of preference aggregation that meets certain minimal conditions of fairness. The present study attempts to access the significance of this result to the theory and practice of democratic government.The analysis begins with an empirical examination of individual and social level preferences for candidates in several recent American presidential elections. It is argued that clear Condorcet winners existed in each contest in question. Further, it was found that individual preferences tended, on whole, to be both transitive and single peaked along an ideological dimension. The significance of these findings to the American electoral process in particular and the economic analysis of politics in general are discussed.Attention then turns to an appraisal of several tradition models of representative democracy fare given the Pandora's Box of Arrow's Theorem and related impossibility results. It is maintained that the only theory to remain theoretically coherent is the highly minimalist notion of democracy associated with contemporary liberalism. However, it is maintained this theory might form a foundation upon which more robust visions of democracy might be built.Moving from theories of representation to those of direct participation, it is argued that while the General Will can be construed in such a way that it survives the challenge posed by the Arrow problem, such can be done only by via the importation of assumptions that are empirically dubious, normatively troubling, or otherwise so heroic as to make tax credulity.The analysis concludes that no acceptable theory of democracy can be based upon the assignment of particular properties to the results of majority rule, as the previous results indicate. Accordingly, an alternative model based in the inherent value of participation itself, as opposed to the outcomes produced via participation, is proposed. It is argued that this conception of democracy remains theoretically coherent in the face of the aggregation problem. The implications of this result to the real world of democratic government are discussed.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

Welfare Policy and Subjective Well-Being Across Nations: An Individual-Level Assessment

Welfare, Policy, Subjective well-being, Happiness, Life-satisfaction,