The politics of (de)liberalization: studying partisan effects using mixed-effects models

Liberalization is a perennial topic in politics and political science. We first review a broad scholarly debate, showing that the mainstream theories make rival and contradictory claims regarding the role of political parties in (de)liberalization reforms. We then develop a framework of conditional partisan influence, arguing that and under what conditions parties matter. We test our (and rival) propositions with a new dataset on (de)liberalization reforms in 23 democracies since 1973 covering several policy areas. Methodologically, we argue that existing quantitative studies are problematic: They rely on time-series cross-section models using country-year observations; but governments do not change annually, so that the number of observations is artificially inflated, resulting in incorrect estimates. We propose mixed-effects models instead, with country-year observations nested in cabinets, which are nested in countries and years. The results show under what conditions parties matter for (de)liberalization. More generally, the paper argues that mixed-effects models should become the new standard for studying partisan influences

Die Bildungspolitik der grün-schwarzen Landesregierung in Baden-Württemberg 2016–2021

Bildung ist laut Grundgesetz Ländersache – in kaum einem anderen Politikfeld können die Länder ähnlich viel gestalten. Bildungspolitik ist damit ein zentrales – wenn nicht das zentralste – Thema von Landespolitik. Dieses Kapitel analysiert die Bildungspolitik der grün-schwarzen Regierung in Baden-Württemberg (2016–2021). Im ersten Teil vergleichen wir die Wahlkampfversprechen von Grünen, CDU und SPD und analysieren, welche Partei sich im Koalitionsvertrag durchgesetzt hat. Im zweiten Teil untersuchen wir, welche Reformvorhaben die Regierung umsetzen konnte und wie sich die politischen Prozesse gestalteten. Im letzten Teil diskutieren wir diese Ergebnisse. Aus politikwissenschaftlicher Perspektive interessiert uns vor allem, ob die Bildungspolitik der grün-schwarzen Regierung eher von Kontinuität zu ihren Vorgängerregierungen geprägt ist oder ob sie neue Akzente setzen wollte und konnte.publishe

The effect of economic globalization on compensatory and social investment policies compared: a multi-level analysis of oecd countries

The debate on effects of economic globalization on welfare states is extensive. A prominent hypothesis is that generous welfare policies buffer the negative externalities of globalization, but recent empirical evidence confirms a negative association between globalization and public social spending. Attempting to reconcile these conflicting findings, we broaden the perspective by investigating not only the impact of globalization on traditional compensatory social policies (e.g., unemployment benefits) but also on future-oriented social investments (e.g., education). We argue that instead of demanding compensation for globalization-induced job-loss ex post, people try avoiding unemployment ex ante by demanding increased skill-investments. We find a positive association between globalization and individual-level demand for public spending on education, but not for unemployment. Nevertheless, we show that this demand is not translated into policy output. Thus, a potential mismatch between popular demand for and supply of welfare is revealed, which challenges conventional wisdom in the policy responsiveness literature

The political economy of higher education finance: the politics of tuition fees and subsidies in OECD countries, 1945-2015

This book analyzes the political economy of higher education finance across a range of OECD countries, exploring why some students pay extortionate tuition fees whilst for others their education is free. What are the redistributional consequences of these different tuition-subsidy systems? Analysing the variety of existing systems, Garritzmann shows that across the advanced democracies “Four Worlds of Student Finance” exist. Historically, however, all countries’ higher education systems looked very much alike in the 1940s. The book develops a theoretical model, the Time-Sensitive Partisan Theory, to explain why countries have evolved from a similar historical starting point to today’s very distinct Four Worlds. The empirical analyses combine a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative evidence, studying higher education policies in all advanced democracies from 1945-2015

How much power do oppositions have? Comparing the opportunity structures of parliamentary oppositions in 21 democracies

A political system cannot be imagined without opposition. Despite this crucial position in politics, political science has largely neglected to study oppositions. Attempting to fill this gap, this article analyses the institutional opportunities of parliamentary oppositions. It offers a parsimonious framework by distinguishing two dimensions of opposition influence: some institutions enable oppositions to control governments, while others offer opportunities to present alternatives. A comparison of oppositions’ opportunities in 21 democracies shows that countries fall into four groups along these dimensions: in majoritarian democracies, weak control mechanisms are countered by excellent opportunities to publicise alternatives. Consociational democracies are characterised by strong control mechanisms, but provide only weak opportunities to present alternatives. Moreover, in Southern Europe, control mechanisms and opportunities to present alternatives are weak, while both are pronounced in Nordic Europe. The results are summarised in three indices that can easily be applied in future research examining oppositions and their power

Academic, vocational or general? An analysis of public opinion towards education policies with evidence from a new comparative survey

Education policy is a salient topic both in political debates and in the scholarly literature. Still, the study of individual policy preferences on education policy has received little scholarly attention, mostly because existing comparative surveys provide only very crude measures on education policy. To address this research gap, we conducted a representative survey of public opinion on the details of education policy in eight Western European countries. This article, first, presents analyses of these data, focusing on people’s preferences for public expenditure on education relative to other social policies as well as its distribution across different education sectors (early childhood and pre-primary education, general schools, vocational education and training, and higher education). In contrast to existing surveys, our survey forces citizens to prioritize between different policy areas and education sectors. We investigate determinants of individual preferences, focusing particularly on self-interest, ideological norms and institutional feedback effects. We find that individual educational background, partisan ideology and having children are significantly associated with variation in preferences. Furthermore, we find tentative evidence for self-undermining institutional feedback effects

Attitudes towards student support : How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

This article provides a detailed analysis of individual preferences towards public financial aid to students from low-income families. Who favours/opposes such aid? What are the determinants of the respective preferences? I argue that three sets of factors jointly shape these preferences: materialistic self-interests, political attitudes, and the status quo of the higher education subsidy systems by generating positive feedback-effects. Results of multilevel ordered logit models utilizing the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data for up to 22 countries over two decades indicate that self-interest matters: students strongly favour subsidies as do their parents, while those paying for the spending and those not expecting to benefit oppose such aid. Moreover, political attitudes are important: Supporters of redistribution and of increased public education spending in general, as well as leftwing voters, are much more likely to support students. On the macro-level, the findings suggest that positive feedback-effects exist: in countries with generous subsidy systems, public support for subsidies is higher. This article is the first to systematically analyse preferences towards higher education subsidies across countries and time and demonstrates how positive feedback-effects increasingly lock-in countries’ tuition-subsidy paths, making the systems resistant to (radical) change. As such, it speaks to the literature on the political economy of skill formation, the welfare state, public opinion and the public opinion–policy link