Public opinion and social investment: How political-institutional context shapes support and opposition towards expanding childcare

Social investment policies are generally considered to be widely popular among the public and policymakers alike as they are expected to generate social and economic benefits, and to create political payoffs for governments implementing such policies. However, empirically, we observe strong and persistent variation across countries in their design of social investment policies. Focusing on early childhood education and care as a central element of social investment, I argue in this theoretical contribution that once we take into account the country-specific political and institutional context, the popularity of social investment should not be taken for granted. Contingent on who benefits from expansive childcare policies there can be a substantial potential of conflict in public attitudes between different societal groups. Building on theories of policy feedback, I elaborate the concept of perceived relative policy payoffs. How individuals perceive the costs and benefits associated with childcare policies can amplify or attenuate the potential of conflict in public attitudes towards expanding childcare. If an expansion of childcare comes at the cost of some groups in society and if reforms benefit only more narrowly defined groups, preferences are likely to be more conflictive and the political viability of expansive reforms appears more uncertain. The framework developed in this paper has implications for theories of policy feedback and the politics of social investment. Furthermore, it suggests that instead of a convergence towards a fully fletched paradigmatic social investment welfare state, we are likely to observe persistent variation across countries in their design of social investment policies

Unequal benefits - diverging attitudes? Analysing the effects of an unequal expansion of childcare provision on attitudes towards maternal employment across 18 European countries

Childcare policies have become an important element of social investment reforms, but in most countries access to childcare has remained socially unequal. Some studies have suggested that a trend towards more gender egalitarian work-family attitudes has facilitated the expansion of childcare provision. Yet, we know little about the repercussions of an unequal expansion of childcare provision on public attitudes towards the work-family nexus. Building on multilevel models of 18 European countries and two waves of the International Social Survey Programme, this analysis examines the effects of an unequal childcare expansion on attitudes towards maternal employment. The results reveal that individuals with lower income remain more skeptical of maternal employment when childcare provision is highly unequal. The unequally distributed benefits of an expansion of childcare provision contribute to a divergence of attitudes across socio-economic groups, which might create a more difficult political terrain for the implementation of expansive social investment reforms

Opposition to austerity outweighs support for the euro in Italy

Could a new financial crisis, brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, lead to Italy’s exit from the eurozone? Lucio Baccaro, Björn Bremer and Erik Neimanns present evidence from a new survey experiment on Italian attitudes toward a European bailout and exit from the euro. They find that a majority of voters would opt to stay ... Continue

Threats and solidarity in the Eurozone: how Italian and German citizens respond to information about Italexit

Previous research suggests a form of ‘democratic constraint’ blocks attempts to reform the euro. While voters in creditor countries oppose debt sharing across the Eurozone, voters in debtor countries are unwilling to push for change by threatening to leave the single currency. Drawing on a new study, Lucio Baccaro, Björn Bremer and Erik Neimanns claim this argument overlooks the fact citizens in debtor countries are receptive to information about the costs of remaining in the euro, and that citizens in creditor countries are concerned about the costs of a breakup

[Introductory chapter:] Public opinion and social Investment : How political-institutional context shapes support and opposition towards expanding childcare

Social investment policies are generally considered to be widely popular among the public and policymakers alike as they are expected to generate social and economic benefits, and to create political payoffs for governments implementing such policies. However, empirically, we observe strong and persistent variation across countries in their design of social investment policies. This variation presents an important empirical puzzle, given the postulated positive returns associated with such policies. Focusing on early childhood education and care as a central element of social investment, I argue in this theoretical contribution that once we take into account the country-specific political and institutional context, the popularity of social investment should not be taken for granted. Contingent on who benefits from expansive childcare policies there can be a substantial potential of conflict in public attitudes between different societal groups. Building on theories of policy feedback, I elaborate the concept of perceived relative policy payoffs. How individuals perceive the costs and benefits associated with childcare policies can attenuate or amplify the potential of conflict in public attitudes towards expanding childcare. If an expansion of childcare comes at the cost of some groups in society and if reforms benefit only more narrowly defined groups, preferences are likely to be more conflictive and the political viability of expansive reforms appears more uncertain. The framework developed in this paper has implications for theories of policy feedback and the politics of social investment. Furthermore, it suggests that instead of a convergence towards a fully fletched paradigmatic social investment welfare state, we are likely to observe persistent variation across countries in their design of social investment policies.publishe

Replication Data for: Unequal benefits - diverging attitudes? Analyzing the effects of an unequal expansion of childcare provision on attitudes towards maternal employment across 18 European countries

Childcare policies have become an important element of social investment reforms, but in most countries access to childcare has remained socially unequal. Some studies have suggested that a trend towards more gender egalitarian work-family attitudes has facilitated the expansion of childcare provision. Yet, we know little about the repercussions of an unequal expansion of childcare provision on public attitudes towards the work-family nexus. Building on multilevel models of 18 European countries and two waves of the International Social Survey Programme, this analysis examines the effects of an unequal childcare expansion on attitudes towards maternal employment. The results reveal that individuals with lower income remain more skeptical of maternal employment when childcare provision is highly unequal. The unequally distributed benefits of an expansion of childcare provision contribute to a divergence of attitudes across socio-economic groups, which might create a more difficult political terrain for the implementation of expansive social investment reforms

The Local Politics of Social Investment Under Fiscal Constraints: The Case of Childcare Expansion in Germany

Embedded in a broader discourse on future-oriented social policy and the idea of a social investment welfare state, governments in many of the advanced economies expanded childcare in recent years. Yet, in many countries considerable regional variation exists in coverage rates and expansion efforts, and often the supply of childcare still does not match demand. In this paper, we explore the politics of this regional variation by studying Germany, a country which had relatively low rates of childcare coverage for a long time, but recently introduced a legal entitlement to childcare. Despite this legal entitlement, we argue that local political and economic factors (continue to) matter for childcare expansion. We expect left-wing local political majorities to be associated with stronger expansion dynamics. At the same time, tight local fiscal constraints, which are widespread in Germany’s fiscal federalism, should limit partisan room for maneuver and party effects, and should slow down expansion. Analyzing local-level data on childcare coverage rates, socio-economic context factors and government partisanship, we find empirical support for our expectations. Building on these findings, we furthermore examine how local governments reconcile gaps in childcare provision with the legal entitlement to childcare and what distributive consequences this has

From media-party linkages to ownership concentration causes of cross-national variation in media outlets' economic positioning

A sizable literature on media bias suggests that media coverage is frequently biased towards certain political and economic positions. However, we know little about what drives variation in political and ideological bias in news coverage across countries. In this paper, we argue that increasingly commercialized and concentrated media markets are likely to be associated with media coverage leaning more favorably towards economically more right-wing positions. Media bias should reflect the preferences of media owners and should be a result of a reduced diversity of news media content. In contrast, where media outlets continue to be oriented more closely along partisan lines, often referred to as political parallelism, bias on economic issues should be more likely to cancel out at the aggregate level. To test these claims, we combine expert survey data on partisan attachments of media outlets, party ideologies, and media ownership concentration for twenty-four European countries. Results from multilevel regression models support our theoretical expectations. With media framing potentially affecting individual-level preferences and perceptions, high and rising levels of media ownership concentration may help to explain why governments in the affluent Western democracies often do remarkably little to counter trends of rising income inequality.Zahlreiche Untersuchungen zu Medienberichterstattung legen nahe, dass Medien in ihrer Berichterstattung oftmals bestimmte politische und wirtschaftliche Positionen unterstützen. Bislang gibt es allerdings kaum Befunde dazu, warum diese Positionierungen über Länder variieren können. In diesem Beitrag argumentieren wir, dass zunehmend konzentrierte Medienmärkten dazu beitragen, dass Medien stärker wirtschaftsliberale Positionen befürworten. Gründe hierfür können in den Positionen der Eigentümer in Kombination mit einer gesunkenen Vielfalt der Berichterstattung liegen. Richten sich Medien dagegen weiterhin enger an politischen Parteien aus, oftmals als politischer Parallelismus bezeichnet, sollten sich Verzerrungen in der Berichterstattung zu ökonomischen Themen in der Summe eher ausgleichen. Um unsere Erwartungen zu testen, analysieren wir Daten aus Expertenumfragen für vierundzwanzig europäische Länder zu parteipolitischer Ausrichtung von Medien, Parteipositionen und Eigentümerkonzentration. Die Ergebnisse von Mehrebenenregressionsmodellen stützen unsere theoretischen Erwartungen. Über die Medienberichterstattung vermittelte Framingeffekte haben ein großes Potenzial, individuelle Wahrnehmung und Präferenzen zu beeinflussen. Eine hohe und steigende Medieneigentümerkonzentration kann entsprechend helfen zu erklären, warum Regierungen in den wohlhabenden westlichen Demokratien oftmals nicht mehr tun, um einer steigenden Einkommensungleichheit zu begegnen

Conflictive preferences towards social investments and transfers in mature welfare states : The cases of unemployment benefits and childcare provision

This article explores potential cleavages and conflicts between political support coalitions of social investment versus classical social transfer policies. To that extent, we analyse international survey data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 21 European countries. Our central finding is that different welfare state beneficiary groups perceive and react negatively to increased government involvement in policy fields from which they do not benefit themselves: single parents are more likely to oppose government support for the unemployed when long-term replacement rates in the unemployment benefit scheme are high. Vice versa, the unemployed are less likely to support the public provision of childcare services if the latter is already well-funded. This finding has implications for the study of welfare states in general because it implies that in mature welfare states, political conflicts may be less about the welfare state as such, but about the distribution of welfare state services and benefits between different groups of beneficiaries.publishe

What growth strategies do citizens want? Evidence from a new survey

While research on the economic characteristics of growth models across countries is now extensive, research on the politics of growth models is still in its infancy, even though governments routinely pursue different strategies to generate growth. In particular, we lack evidence on (1) whether citizens have coherent preferences towards growth strategies, (2) what growth strategies citizens prefer, and (3) what shapes their preferences. We address these questions through a new survey of public opinion in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, which exemplify different models. We find that preferences for growth strategies are consistent with other policy preferences and are meaningfully structured by class and retirement status, and to a lesser extent by sector of employment. At the same time, differences across class and sector are small, and a large majority of respondents across countries favor wage-led growth. This suggests there is a "representation gap," since this particular growth strategy is in crisis everywhere.Es gibt mittlerweile umfassende Forschung zu den ökonomischen Eigenschaften von Wachstumsmodellen in verschiedenen Ländern. Politische Aspekte von Wachstumsmodellen sind dagegen bislang kaum erforscht, obgleich Regierungen unterschiedliche Wachstumsstrategien verfolgen, um Wirtschaftswachstum zu erzielen. Forschungslücken bestehen insbesondere zu den Fragen, 1) ob Bürgerinnen und Bürger kohärente Präferenzen zu Wachstumsstrategien haben, 2) welche Wachstumsstrategien sie befürworten und 3) welche Faktoren ihre Präferenzen beeinflussen. Wir adressieren diese Frage mithilfe einer neuen Meinungsumfrage für Deutschland, Italien, Schweden und das Vereinigte Königreich, welche unterschiedliche Wachstumsmodelle verkörpern. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Präferenzen zu Wachstumsstrategien konsistent mit Präferenzen für andere Politikbereiche sind und dass die soziale Klassenzugehörigkeit und, in geringerem Maße, der Wirtschaftssektor des Beschäftigungsverhältnisses einen prägenden Einfluss auf diese Präferenzen haben. Zugleich sind aber die Unterschiede in den Präferenzen über Klassen und Sektoren hinweg relativ gering und es zeigt sich, dass eine große Mehrheit der Befragten über Länder hinweg lohngetriebenes Wachstum befürwortet. Dieser Befund suggeriert eine Repräsentationslücke, da sich diese Wachstumsstrategie überall in einem Krisenzustand befindet