We examine the roles of democratic politics and political institutions in shaping social welfare spending in 18 contemporary capitalist democracies. We explore the social spending consequences of government partisanship, electoral competition and turnout, and the self-interested behaviors of politicians and bureaucrats, as well as such relatively durable facets of political institutions as neocorporatism, state centralization, and traditionalist policy legacies. Pooled time series analyses of welfare effort in 18 nations during the 1960–82 period show that electoral turnout, as well as left and center governments increase welfare effort; that the welfare efforts of governments led by particular types of parties show significant differences and vary notably with the strength of oppositional (and junior coalitional) parties; and that relatively neocorporatist, centralized, and traditionalistic polities are high on welfare effort. Overall, our findings suggest that contrary to many claims, both partisan and nonpartisan facets of democratic politics and political institutions shape contemporary social welfare effort.

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Using a theoretical framework that stresses political institutions, we examine the consolidation of income-security programs during the formation of the welfare state around the turn of the century. Boolean analyses and ancillary historical materials indicate distinct routes to consolidation of social insurance programs. A "Bismarckian" path centers on strategic co-optive responses of patriarchal states and state elites to working-class mobilization. A second path, a "Lib-Lab" route, centers on strategic incorporation of labor parties and/or unions into governing Liberal coalitions. A possible third path involves reforms by Catholic parties governing patriarchal, unitary states confronting working-class challenges. The virtual absence of leftist governments before the Great Depression has challenged claims for major impacts of the working class on welfare-state formation through the 1920s. However, we find that mobilization of the working class was integral to each conjuncture that generated the adoption of social security programs during the 1880-1930 period. Worker mobilization combined with such varied and distinctly state institutions as patriarchal states and Liberal party governments in ways that advanced welfare states.