The Welfare State or the Economy? Preferences, Constituencies, and Strategies for Retrenchment

The assumption that voters systematically defend the welfare state is challenged by recent research showing that parties are on average not punished and sometimes even rewarded for welfare state retrenchment. We work to understand better the micro-foundations for this finding of non-punishment by exploring individuals' preferences over social policy. In particular, we distinguish general support for redistribution from views that existing levels of government spending strain the economy. As voters value economic stability in addition to equality, they are hypothesized to tolerate or support retrenchment when they feel that there are economic costs at stake. Analyzing a sample of 13 European societies with data from the European Social Survey Round 4, our results show that only welfare state supporters who do not believe that the welfare state hampers the economy punish retrenching governments. This finding helps explain the lack of more widespread electoral punishment following retrenchment, though other results also suggest that retrenchment involves a rather delicate process of juggling the preferences of diverse constituencie

The views of rich Europeans are more likely to be reflected by political parties than those of poorer citizens

How does income inequality affect political representation? Jan Rosset, Nathalie Giger and Julian Bernauer examine whether politicians represent the views of poorer and richer citizens equally. They find that in 43 out of the 49 elections included in their analysis, the preferences of low-income citizens are located further away from the policy positions of the closest political party than those with mid-range incomes. This suggests that income inequality may spill-over into political inequalities, although it is less clear whether this effect is likely to get better or worse as a result of the Eurozone crisis

Wie reagieren Wähler auf Sparpolitik? Eine theoretische und empirische Annäherung an die elektoralen Kosten von Sparpolitik

Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Konsequenzen von Sozialstaatsabbau auf die Popularität der Regierung und deren Wiederwahlchancen. Während die Literatur gemeinhin von einer direkten Beziehung zwischen dem Abbau des Sozialstaats und elektoralen Verlusten ausgeht, zeigt dieser Aufsatz, dass ein solcher empirisch nur zu erwarten ist, wenn man eine Reihe von zusätzlichen Annahmen trifft. Diese Annahmen werden im Folgenden kritisch diskutiert. Insgesamt weist dieser Beitrag nach, dass Wähler auf Sparpolitik reagieren, die Mechanismen jedoch komplexer sind als bisher angenommen. So wird die Unzufriedenheit der Bürger nicht immer direkt im Wahlresultat sichtbar und Sozial- und Wirtschaftspolitik ist nicht per se mit besonderen elektoralen Konsequenzen verbunden.This study looks at the consequences of social policy retrenchment on government popularity. While the literature treats the connection between social policy cutbacks and electoral costs as a direct line; this study provides theoretical and empirical evidence that this view does not live up to reality. The article then discusses the micro foundation for the argument of electoral costs and its assumptions critically. It is shown that the mechanisms underlying the relation between social policy cutbacks and the electoral fate of the incumbents is more complex than previously thought and social policy does not always have an impact on the re-election chances of the incumbent parties

The surge in women's representation in the 2019 Swiss federal elections

In the 2019 Swiss federal elections, women's representation increased more than at any time before, reaching an all-time high at 42%. In this article, we offer several explanations for this. First, in almost all parties, the percentage of female candidates was significantly larger than in the previous elections. Second, on average female candidates held better positions on party lists, both compared to men and to the previous election. Third, in 2019 (but not in 2015) women were about one percentage-point more likely to be elected than men, controlling for many relevant factors. Fourth, about one third of the surge was linked to the fact that parties that won seats in 2019 (the Greens, especially) had more women on their lists compared to the parties that lost seats. Fifth, in 2019 voters (women in particular) perceived female candidates as more fit for a political office compared to 2015

Policy or person?:What voters want from their representatives on Twitter

Social media have the potential to transform democracies as they allow for direct contact between representatives and represented. Politicians can use social media to show their policy positions but they can also give insight into their private lives. Based on survey experiments in Germany and Switzerland we show that social media messages about politicians’ private lives rather deter voters. Instead, we find that voters prefer candidates that communicate policy positions. The effect of a policy-oriented communication style on Twitter can even lead to appreciating a politician from a different party in Switzerland, which has an electoral system that gives a strong incentive to cultivate a personal vote

Introduction to the Special Issue “The 2015 Swiss National Elections”

This special issue brings together a large variety of contributions dealing with partychoice, political attitudes and the dynamics of electoral campaigns in Switzerland. Theintroduction places the contributions in the broader framework of current debates in theinternational literature and highlights substantial and methodological innovations. The articles inthis volume address central issues of the literature dealing with the two-dimensional structure ofpolitical competition, take up key questions of the dynamics of election campaigns, and finallyecho a large interest for the topic of populism, not only on the side of the parties but also on theside of the voters. The introduction also underlines the new and innovative ways in which thearticles link the different datasets together in order to address substantial questions on thecomplexity of the environment in which voters form their choice and political parties operateduring an election campaign

Microarrayed human bone marrow organoids for modeling blood stem cell dynamics

In many leukemia patients, a poor prognosis is attributed either to the development of chemotherapy resistance by leukemic stem cells (LSCs) or to the inefficient engraftment of transplanted hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) into the bone marrow (BM). Here, we build a 3D in vitro model system of bone marrow organoids (BMOs) that recapitulate several structural and cellular components of native BM. These organoids are formed in a high-throughput manner from the aggregation of endothelial and mesenchymal cells within hydrogel microwells. Accordingly, the mesenchymal compartment shows partial maintenance of its self-renewal and multilineage potential, while endothelial cells self-organize into an interconnected vessel-like network. Intriguingly, such an endothelial compartment enhances the recruitment of HSPCs in a chemokine ligand/receptor-dependent manner, reminiscent of HSPC homing behavior in vivo. Additionally, we also model LSC migration and nesting in BMOs, thus highlighting the potential of this system as a well accessible and scalable preclinical model for candidate drug screening and patient-specific assays

The Risk of Social Policy?: The electoral consequences of welfare state retrenchment and social policy performance in OECD countries

This book contributes to the existing literature by providing an empirical analysis of the electoral implications of social policy. Giger asks the basic research question: What are the electoral consequences of social policy performance and retrenchment? More specifically, the following questions are addressed in order to provide a systematic test of the topic: Is retrenchment indeed completely unpopular? Do people punish the government for bad performance in the field of social policy? And what are the political implications of such a punishment reaction; does it affect the government composition? It shows empirically that the risks of welfare state retrenchment to incumbent governments may be lower than previously thought, and presents a theoretical framework for re-examining the impact of retrenchment initiatives on election outcome