This paper aims to describe and explain different welfare state responses to three major economic crises: the Oil Shocks of the 1970s, the worldwide recession of the 1990s and the current Financial Crisis. Policy developments in three small open economies – Sweden, the Netherlands and...

This paper examines the influence of country exposure to the world economy on mass policy preferences in advanced capitalist democracies. Informed by economic and sociological accounts, I develop a set of competing claims for how signals from the world economy shape public policy demands. Claims...

Cross-national evidence has shown that there is trade-off between full decision-making autonomy for local governments and inequality reduction among jurisdictions. Setting symmetrical arrangements to coordinate decentralized provision of services is one strategy largely employed by polities...

This paper develops a model of electoral targeting in multi-party systems. Seat-share maximizing parties can use policy transfers to win votes by 1) converting undecided voters, 2) mobilizing loyal supporters, or 3) lowering the turn-out of voters loyal to other parties. The model allows for the...

The Bundestag elections of 2009 meant a crushing defeat for the German social democrats. Never before had a party faced losses at such a high percentage in post-war Germany. The paper argues that these losses were not incurred at the margin but at the core of the social democrats' traditional...