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Time preferences as partisan politics: what do party manifestos show in twenty-two OECD countries?
Abstract
This study examines the correlation between economic freedom and sexual freedom in the twenty-two OECD nations included in the 2020 Comparative Welfare States Dataset (Brady and Stephens, 2020). Our research builds on prior work by Unwin (1934, 1935, 1940) and Bose (2013), who suggest that economic freedom and sexual freedom are negatively related. We develop an economic and sexual freedom score from the Manifesto Project (Volkens et al., 2020) and take the difference between the two and track the difference since primarily the end of World War II. Our hypothesis is that right parties will emphasize more economic freedom in their party platforms than sexual freedom, whereas left parties will have more to say about sexual freedom in their party platforms than economic freedom. The difference is because the parties are attracting different types of voters based on their time preferences.
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Understanding legal regulation on sexual practices is a field in its infancy. In this paper we analyze the factors driving these sexual regulations using a novel dataset for the U.S. for the years 1990 to 2010. We first introduce the index of sexual regulation (ISR) and then using a spatial lag fixed effects estimator that accounts for spillover effects from neighboring states, we find that citizen’s ideology, population density, household income and median age are associated with a weaker sexual regulation while government ideology has a slight positive association with the overall sexual regulation. We also examine two dimensions of sexual practice regulation looking at the index of marriage practice regulation (IMPR) and sex crime regulation (ISCR). In the case of IMPR, our findings indicate that a more liberal government ideology, a higher share of population with the college degree and a higher median age are associated with a more liberal index of marriage practice regulation.
Political ideology represents an imperfect yet important indicator of a host of personality traits and cognitive preferences. These preferences, in turn, seemingly propel liberals and conservatives towards divergent life-course experiences. Criminal behavior represents one particular domain of conduct where differences rooted in political ideology may exist. Using a national dataset, we test whether and to what extent political ideology is predictive of self-reported criminal behavior. Our results show that self-identified political ideology is mono-tonically related to criminal conduct cross-sectionally and prospectively and that liberals self-report more criminal conduct than do conservatives. We discuss potential causal mechanisms relating political ideology to individual conduct.
Evidence from three studies reveals a critical difference in self-control as a function of political ideology. Specifically, greater endorsement of political conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with greater attention regulation and task persistence. Moreover, this relationship is shown to stem from varying beliefs in freewill; specifically, the association between political ideology and self-control is mediated by differences in the extent to which belief in freewill is endorsed, is independent of task performance or motivation, and is reversed when freewill is perceived to impede (rather than enhance) self-control. Collectively, these findings offer insight into the self-control consequences of political ideology by detailing conditions under which conservatives and liberals are better suited to engage in self-control and outlining the role of freewill beliefs in determining these conditions.
With sexual freedom represented by the changing definition of marriage in the news lately, the question this article seeks to answer is what drives the issue of sexual freedom. This article focuses on the hypothesized link between sexual freedom and possible explanatory factors. Data are obtained from 1990 to 2010. The examination of data shows that median income, ideology, median age, population density and religion variables are significant in understanding sexual freedom in the United States.
This study examines postwar patterns in macroeconomic policies and outcomes associated with left-and right-wing governments in capitalist democracies. It argues that the objective economic interests as well as the subjective preferences of lower income and occupational status groups are best served by a relatively low unemployment-high inflation macroeconomic configuration, whereas a comparatively high unemployment-low inflation configuration is compatible with the interests and preferences of upper income and occupational status groups. Highly aggregated data on unemployment and inflation outcomes in relation to the political orientation of governments in 12 West European and North American nations are analyzed revealing a low unemployment-high inflation configuration in nations regularly governed by the Left and a high unemployment-low inflation pattern in political systems dominated by center and rightist parties. Finally, time-series analyses of quarterly postwar unemployment data for the United States and Great Britain suggests that the unemployment rate has been driven downward by Democratic and Labour administrations and upward by Republican and Conservative governments. The general conclusion is that governments pursue macroeconomic policies broadly in accordance with the objective economic interests and subjective preferences of their class-defined core political constituencies.
We develop a general model of redistribution and use it to account for the remarkable variance in government redistribution across democracies. Weshow,that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the nature of political parties and the composition of governing coalitions, whether these are conceived as electoral alliances between,classes or alliances between class parties. Our argument implies a) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, while center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems, and b) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system in advanced democracies. We thank Jim Alt, Klaus Armingeon, Neal Beck, David Brady, Geoffrey Brennan, Gary Cox,
In the 25-year period between 1960 and 1985, there was a great expansion of welfare state programs throughout the West. The
fraction of GDP accounted for by social expenditures doubled in much of Europe and grew by 40–50% in many other OECD nations.
After 1985, growth in social insurance programs slowed relative to other parts of the economy. This paper explores the extent
to which institutions and ideological shifts may have accounted for the period of rapid growth, for differences in the extent
of that growth, and for the subsequent reduction in the growth rates of social insurance programs.
KeywordsConstitutional choice and institutional analysis-Ideological change-Public choice-Public finance-Public policy-Social insurance-Welfare state
JEL ClassificationH4-D6-P5
This paper examines the role of marriage as an institution for providing couples with the confidence to make long-term investments in their relationship. No-fault divorce has undermined the notion of marriage as a contract, thereby reducing the security offered by marriage and promoting opportunism by men. This has weakened the bargaining power of wives, both within marriage and when divorce occurs. Current legal reforms will improve the economic position of all divorced wives, including those who are primarily responsible for the breakdown of their marriage. The latter feature will encourage opportunism by women and make men less prepared to invest in their marriage. The paper argues that the only way to achieve parity between men and women, and deter opportunism by either sex, is to return to fault-based divorce. Both divorce settlements and the custody of children should depend on preceding marital conduct. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.
Results on whether party ideology influences the regulation of morally sensitive issues remain inconclusive. This is partly due to insufficient theoretical specifications of the link between party ideology and morality policy output that do not consider that different directions of policy reform give rise to distinct politics, although this insight has ranked prominently within the literature on comparative political economy as the ‘New Politics’ that characterize welfare state retrenchment. By integrating this insight into the ‘Two Worlds’ framework of morality politics, this paper achieves two things: First, it explains macro-level patterns of partisan impacts on the occurrence of permissive and restrictive reforms across six morality policy areas (abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, pornography, and prostitution) in 16 West European countries between 1960 and 2010. Second, it accounts for the micro-level political dynamics that characterize restrictive reforms adopted by Christian Democratic governments, which are dominated by blame-avoidance.
In recent years, several countries have experienced widespread, intense debates about morality issues such as the death penalty, abortion, ART/stem cell research, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. Assuming the distinctiveness of morality policies from other policy fields, this article analyses three alternative institutional models for explaining variations in the amount of conflict over these morality issues across 24 Western democracies. Is either the US-developed “policy type” model or the European-developed “two worlds” of morality politics, based on religious and secular party systems, applicable more broadly? Are there regional patterns (Europe and non-Europe) to any institutional findings? How does each model contribute to our understanding of morality policy comparatively across Western democracies? We find broader cross-national support for the policy type model, with the two worlds model largely restricted to Europe. The US has more morality policy conflict because of its unusual combination of a political party targeting religiously oriented voters within an institutional framework of multiple venues. The US and other non-European countries have similar patterns of institutional deliberation through decentralization, and the US also has similarities in multiple venues with religious party systems in Europe. Secular European party systems with centralized institutions have the fewest venues for morality policy debate.
There is a contrast in the way voter preferences are conceptualized in two strands of current literature: While most of the comparative political economy literature implicitly or explicitly theorizes voter preferences on economic and social policies and their relevance for party choice in terms of – mostly unidimensional – distributive conflict, the literature on political parties and elections that deals with the determinants of party choice has always emphasized the importance of alternative, “second” dimensions of political conflict (see, e.g., Lipset and Rokkan 1967, Kitschelt 1994, Kitschelt and McGann 1995, Rokkan 2000, Bartolini 2000, Hooghe et al. 2002, Kriesi et al. 2006, 2008, Bornschier 2010, De la O and Rodden 2008). We argue in this chapter that both strands of literature should integrate each other's insights. More specifically, we contend that in order to understand the challenges political parties face in contemporary capitalist democracies, the findings from both strands of literature need to be combined for several reasons: First of all, the European political space cannot be reduced to a single dimension of political conflict and competition, but has always been and still is structured by at least two conflict lines. The coexistence of two (or more) dimensions of conflict fundamentally alters the way we ought to view the electoral landscape and has critical implications for the way preferences are related to party choice. Moreover, the boundaries between distributional (economic) and identity-based (cultural) conflicts have become increasingly blurred: Issues such as welfare chauvinism, the unequal effects of welfare states on men and women, or the distributive balance between labor market insiders and outsiders have a clear distributive relevance, but they also relate to (more culturally connotated) considerations of a universalist versus particularist organization of the society and of social solidarity. Many economic, distributive struggles are thus inherently pluridimensional (see, e.g., Manow 2002, Manow and van Kersbergen 2009, Kitschelt and McGann 1995, Häusermann 2010, 2012).
This paper considers the effect of political democracy on the stratification systems of noncommunist industrial societies. In contrast to previous research, this study assumes that the effect of democracy will be incremental and, therefore, that the historical experience of democracy must be considered rather than the current political situation. Two hypotheses are suggested: that democracy itself will lead to equality and that only the election of socialist legislatures will lead to equality. The historical experience of democracy and that of socialist legislatures is related to five measures of inequality. It is concluded, after taking into account the level of economic development and the growth rate, that although democracy itself has little effect, the experience of democratic socialist parties is significantly related to variations in inequality. The stronger the democratic socialist parties, the more egalitarian is the contemporary class system.
The growing interest in morality politics has spurred a large number of studies on individual morality issues and the gradual shift from restrictive to permissive regulation across Western Europe. Several studies have further pointed to the changing role of religion as the main cause of permissive policy shifts. However, seen in a comparative perspective across four countries and five morality issues, the move towards permissiveness poses more of a puzzle than a simple shift. Religion and secularization do not impact on regulation directly, but are filtered through a policy dynamic in which the essential factor is whether or not the party system contains a conflict line between secular and confessional parties. Countries without confessional parties, here the United Kingdom and Denmark, surprisingly end up less permissive than countries with strong confessional parties, here the Netherlands and Spain, because the former group lacks the conflict line necessary to politicize morality issues
This article discusses recent research on party politics and the welfare state that differs from traditional ‘partisan politics theory’. The traditional approach states that left-wing and right-wing parties hold contrasting positions on welfare issues, depending on the interests of their respective electorates. This view has recently been challenged by three strands of research, which emphasize (1) the effects of electoral change on parties’ policy positions, (2) the role of context, notably electoral institutions, party competition and the configuration of party systems, and (3) the impact of different linkages between parties and electorates (particularistic versus programmatic). The implications of these arguments for the applicability of partisan theory are presented, and theoretical and empirical issues are identified for further research.
This paper presents the development of two Sexual Freedom Indexes for the 50 U.S. states for the year 2010. The indexes measure the degree to which the laws of the individual states encourage or discourage sexual freedom. Over a dozen variables are used to construct the index. Further, this paper runs some bivariate and multivariate regressions with the Sexual Freedom Indexes. One finding is that sexual freedom and economic freedom have a negative relationship. The paper seeks to complete a preliminary investigation into the role of time preferences, and the role of the median voter and interest groups in sexual freedom.
Between 1945 and 2005, nation-states around the world revised their criminal laws on sexual activities. This global reform wave—across countries and domains of sexual activity— followed from the reconstitution of world models of society around individuals rather than corporate bodies. During the post-World War II period, this process rearranged the global cultural and organizational underpinnings of sex, eroding world-level support for criminal laws aimed at protecting collective entities—especially the family and the nation—and strengthening world support for laws aimed at protecting individualized persons. To make our case, we use unique cross-national and longitudinal data on the criminal regulation of rape, adultery, sodomy, and child sexual abuse. The data reveal striking counter-directional trends in sex-law reforms, which simultaneously elaborated regulations protecting individuals and dissolved laws protecting collective entities. World-level negative-binomial regression analyses and country-level event-history analyses confirm our main propositions. The findings demonstrate a sweeping revolution in criminal-sex laws, rooted in the intensified global celebration of free-standing personhood.
This article challenges dominant explanations in the comparative political economy literature on the origins and purposes of social protection. Far from being a tool of working-class mobilization, social protection in southern Spain was strategically employed by a left party to politically demobilize its supposedly “natural” constituencies. This peculiar outcome is the result of a setting that is common in welfare states outside of northern Europe: the context of a divided left, in which parties and unions are seeking to mobilize different constituencies and in which left parties are themselves divided between moderate and far-left groups. The result in Spain was that social policy became a weapon in parties' efforts to undermine their political competition. This suggests the need to rethink the received wisdom about what the welfare state does to build working-class power in the context of a divided left.
Certain issues in British politics are known as issues of ‘conscience’. It is usual for such issues to be dealt with by a free vote in the House of Commons. Such votes used to occur mainly on private members’ bills, although it is now more common for the Commons to resolve issues of conscience by using legislation brought forward by the government (with private members’ bills being used either in the earlier stages of campaigning or to enact uncontentious pieces of legislation). Because of this change in the way in which conscience legislation is processed, three former criticisms of parliament's treatment of conscience issues are no longer valid: turnout is now high; the clauses or bills are at least as well drafted as most government measures; and it is far from easy to enact such change. The system does, however, raise issues of political accountability, because it allows controversial legislation to be enacted for which in practice no one takes responsibility. The claim that this is because these issues are ‘above party’ is considered and rejected: conscience issues remain, for the most part, party issues.
Among the negative predictors of sexual freedom, cultural complexity
always has been mentioned as most important. However, regression
analysis revealed the existence of a reverse trend within the interval
between 11 and 22 points of Murdock’s Cumulative Scale of
Cultural Complexity. This suggests that it is senseless to try to find
a general set of regularities regarding the correlation between cultural
complexity and sexual freedom. One would expect to find different
sets of regularities for simple, medium-complexity, complex,
and supercomplex cultures. In this article we begin with a summary
analysis of research conducted on simple societies, suggesting
a model of relationships between cultural complexity and female
premarital sexual freedom among foragers. We suggest that the underlying
variable in this model is foraging intensification.
Corruption in the public sector erodes tax compliance and leads to higher tax evasion. Moreover, corrupt public officials abuse their public power to extort bribes from the private agents. In both types of interaction with the public sector, the private agents are bound to face uncertainty with respect to their disposable incomes. To analyse effects of this uncertainty, a stochastic dynamic growth model with the public sector is examined. It is shown that deterministic excessive red tape and corruption deteriorate the growth potential through income redistribution and public sector inefficiencies. Most importantly, it is demonstrated that the increase in corruption via higher uncertainty exerts adverse effects on capital accumulation, thus leading to lower growth rates.
Comparative Political Data Set
- K Armingeon
- V Wenger
- F Wiedemeier
- C Isler
- L Knöpfel
- D Weisstanner
- S Engler
Comparative Welfare States Data Set
- D Brady
- E H J D Stephens