David Rueda

• PhD
• Professor at University of Oxford

In this paper we focus on perceptions of (or beliefs about) macro inequality and we argue that perceptions matter differently to the rich and the poor. We hypothesise that material and other-regarding factors make inequality perceptions push the redistribution preferences of the poor in a similar direction (i.e., more perceived inequality, more sup...

Political parties face a crucial trade-off between electoral and partisan goals: should they put electoral goals first, pursuing the policies they think will win them the most votes in the next election, or should they put partisan goals first, pursuing the policies their members, activists, and most loyal voters prefer? In this paper we argue that...

Why do left parties lose vote shares in times of economic crisis and hardship? Why do right-wing governments implement seemingly left-wing policies, such as labor market activation? Why is representation becoming more and more unequal? And why do workers vote for right-wing populist parties? Several political science theories propose meaningful and...

Cambridge Core - British Government, Politics and Policy - Who Wants What? - by David Rueda

Despite the increasing popularity of comparative work on other-regarding preferences, the implications of different models of altruism are not always fully understood. This article analyzes different theoretical approaches to altruism and explores what empirical conclusions we should draw from them, paying particular attention to models of redistri...

Altruism is an important omitted variable in much of the Political Economy literature. While material self-interest is the base of most approaches to redistribution (first affecting preferences and then politics and policy), there is a paucity of research on inequality aversion. I propose that other-regarding concerns influence redistribution prefe...

This chapter examines the long-run relationship between public opinion, party politics, and the welfare state. It argues that when large parties receive a clear signal concerning the median voter’s position on the welfare state, vote-seeking motivations dominate and the large parties in the party system converge on the position of the median voter....

What determines support among individuals for redistributive policies? Do individuals care about others when they assess the consequences of redistribution? This article proposes a model of other-regarding preferences for redistribution, which we term income-dependent altruism. Our model predicts that an individual's preferred level of redistributi...

Why is the difference in redistribution preferences between the rich and the poor high in some countries and low in others? In this article, we argue that it has a lot to do with the rich and very little to do with the poor. We contend that while there is a general relative income effect on redistribution preferences, the preferences of the rich ar...

This book serves as a sequel to two distinguished volumes on capitalism: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1999) and Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1985). Both volumes took stock of major economic challenges advanced industrial democracies faced, as well as the ways political and economic elites dealt with...

This paper argues that since the 1990s the welfare state has been transformed into a workfare state. It proposes a stylized framework to understand the influence of unemployment on inequality and the effects of labor market policy. Using this framework, the paper shows that the transformation of the welfare state has made the effects of unemploymen...

Technological change is widely considered to be a key driver of the economic and occupational structure of affluent countries. Current advances in information technology have led to significant substitution of routine work by capital, whilst occupations with abstract or interpersonal manual task structures are complemented or unaffected. We develop...

Altruism is an important omitted variable in much of the Political Economy literature. While material self-interest is the base of most approaches to redistribution (first affecting preferences and then politics and policy), there is a paucity of research on inequality aversion. I propose that other-regarding concerns influence redistribution prefe...

What determines support among individuals for redistributive policies? Do individuals care about others when they assess the consequences of redistribution? Using data for the US from 1978 to 2010, we find that differences in redistribution preferences between the rich and the poor are high in some states and low in others. Surprisingly, this diffe...

The understanding of observable associations between institutions and inequality today requires a better grasp of the process driving the selection of economic institutions, in particular wage bargaining centralization agreements, as the outcome of a distributive conflict in which inequality itself plays a prominent role. Low levels of inequality f...

Labour market dualization (an increasing separation between insiders and outsiders) has become an influential feature of many OECD economies since 1980s. This paper argues that dualization mitigates the generosity of the welfare state in a significant way. It also investigates the relationship between dualization and policies that protect and insur...

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between party strategies and the political be-havior of insiders and outsiders in the labor market, concentrating on the risk that outsiders may become politically alienated and marginalized. Taking the case of Sweden as our guide, we argue that labor market outsiders who perceive that they are being...

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between party strategies and the political be-havior of insiders and outsiders in the labor market, concentrating on the risk that outsiders may become politically alienated and marginalized. Taking the case of Sweden as our guide, we argue that labor market outsiders who perceive that they are being...

This paper presents an argument that rejects the conception of labor as a unitary political actor and the identification of social democratic governments as those that will promote the interests of labor. I divide labor into insiders, who enjoy employment protection, and outsiders, who do not, and reconceptualize electorally influential groups and...

In the literature on the comparative political economy of advanced democracies there has been a widespread theoretical consensus about the goals different political parties have when in power. At least in principle, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor and conservative ones those of what some authors have defin...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labor. The evidence shows that labor has become split into two clearly differentiated constituencies...

Why is it that some countries have witnessed significant increases in inequality since the 1960s while at the same time experiencing very little change in the way politics is conducted? And why is it that in other countries, where inequality has increased much less, the Left has become substantially more redistributive? The answer, the authors argu...

Historical institutionalists have been among the most cognizant of the importance of considerations of time in studying political phenomena. However, they have tended to do so in ways that assume the absence of sufficient information or rationality on the part of actors. By contrast, rational choice institutionalists have tended to hold precisely t...

I present a theoretical account of the politics of privatization that predicts left-wing support for the policy is conditional on the long-run strength of left-wing parties in a political system. In marked contrast to predictions derived from a traditional interest group approach, my claim is that a stronger systemic position will make it more like...

Why is it that some countries have witnessed significant increases in inequality since the early 1970s while at the same time experiencing very little change in the way politics is conducted? And why is it that in other countries, where inequality has increased much less, the Left has become substantially more redistributive? The answer, we argue b...

In this article we aim to return labor (particularly the most vulnerable members of the labor market) to the core of the comparative political economy of advanced democracies. We formulate a framework with which to conceptualize cheap labor in advanced democracies. We propose that to understand the politics of cheap labor, the weakest members of th...

The author argues that to understand the relationship between partisan government and equality two fundamental things need to be done: separate the effects of partisanship on policy and of policy on the economy; and assess the influence of government partisanship once the mediating role of corporatism is accounted for. The main goal of this article...

This chapter focuses on the effects of income inequality on party politics in industrialized democracies. Having devoted a great deal of attention to the political determinants of income distribution in the 1990s, students of comparative political economy have recently begun to address how the distribution of income affects politics and, in particu...

It is well known that wage inequality has increased dramatically in the United States over the last three decades. From 1973 to 1998, the hourly earnings of a full-time worker in the ninetieth percentile of the American distribution (someone whose earnings exceeded those of 90 percent of all workers) relative to a worker in the tenth percentile gre...

The determinants of the welfare state have received a great deal of attention in the comparative political economy literature. An analysis of the role that indirect taxation plays in the politics of advanced industrial societies is, however, missing. This article demonstrates that a full understanding of the links between redistribution, social dem...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

The analysis in this book disputes entrenched interpretations of the comparative political economy of industrialized democracies. It questions, in particular, the widely-held assumption that social democratic governments will defend the interests of labour. The evidence shows that labour has become split into two clearly differentiated constituenci...

A theoretical framework is presented that connects change in the organization of labor with change in corporate governance and financial system development. Building on work by Rueda (2005, 2006, 2007), the paper considers labor change in terms of reduced "insiderness" and examines how this might impact on the orientation of corporate governance vi...

Active labour-market policy is an important tool for governments interested in the promotion of employment. This article explores a topic in the comparative political economy literature in need of more attention: the politics behind the promotion of active labour policies. It is argued here that social democratic governments are often not intereste...

In much of the political economy literature, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor. The main thrust of this article is that labor is divided into those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). I argue that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies t...

In much of the political economy literature, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor. The main thrust of this article is that labor is divided into those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). I argue that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies t...

Through a pooled cross-section time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen OECD countries from 1973 to 1995, we explore how political-institutional variables affect the upper and lower halves of the wage distribution. Our regression results indicate that unionization, centralization of wage bargaining and public-sector em...

This article draws on a new data set that enables the authors to compare the distribution of income from employment across OECD countries. Specifically, the article conducts a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen countries from 1973 to 1995. The analysis shows that varieties of capitalism mat...

Most distributive theories in political economy understand individuals to be motivated by material self-interest, often approximated by their current positions in the income distribution. In this paper, we challenge this traditional view. The key to our argument is that individual preferences for more or less redistribution are the result of agents...

I present a theoretical account of the politics of privatization that leads to predictions regarding the effect of partisanship that are contingent on the strength of traditionally left-leaning interest groups. However, in marked contrast to predictions derived from a traditional interest group approach, my claim is that stronger left-leaning inter...

Abstract will be provided by author.

Why is it that some countries have witnessed significant increases in inequality since the early 1970s while at the same time experiencing very little change in the way politics is conducted? And why is it that in other countries, where inequality has increased much less, the Left has become substantially more redistributive? The answer, we argue b...

ABSTRACT

Recent research in political economy has demonstrated the importance of accounting for skill specificity in models of redistribution preferences. However, little is known about why and when individuals invest in specific skills. Do they rely solely on labor market conditions, such as wage structures and unemployment risk, or do they react to govern...

In previous work, we have explored the effects of insider-outsider differences on electoral politics, particularly on electoral participation, testing our claims with data from Sweden, which we argue is a critical case. In this paper, we argue that center-left parties in the industrialized democracies face a dilemma. If they propose policies that b...

Government formation in semi-presidential regimes is characterized by the fact that both president and assembly can play a role in the process. This paper asks under which conditions primary control over government formation shifts from the assembly to the president, leading to the choice of president-selected technical cabinets. The paper also exp...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, Aug., 2001. Includes bibliographical references.