Mass Warfare and the Welfare State – Causal Mechanisms and Effects

Petersen, Klaus; Obinger, Herbert

doi:10.1017/s0007123415000162

Cited by 32 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…These findings are not predicted by our theoretical argument (but they do not directly contradict it either). We speculate that the results could partly stem from the active pronatalist policies—with the intended purpose of increasing childbirths and expanding the population (for evidence that autocracies have systematically higher fertility and population growth rates, see Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, & Limongi, 2000, chapter 5)—pursued in many regimes to prepare for war (see Obinger & Petersen, 2017). Thus, we conjecture that while our argument focusing on “internal security threats” to the regime may explain the pension findings, a logic centering on “external security threats” might account for the maternity leave and family allowances results.…”

Section: Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Autocratic Welfare State: Old-Age Pensions, Credible Commitments, and Regime Survival

Knutsen

Rasmussen

2017

Comparative Political Studies

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In this paper we argue that autocratic regimes are no less likely than democracies to adopt old-age pensions, although autocratic programs are less universal in their coverage. Our theoretical argument focuses on the strong incentives that autocratic regimes have for enacting and maintaining such programs to ensure regime survival. Autocratic pension programs can be considered club goods that I) are targeted to critical supporting groups and II) solve credible commitment problems on promises of future distribution, thereby mitigating probability of regime breakdown. We test three implications from the argument, drawing on a novel dataset on welfare state programs and including 140 countries with time series from the 1880s. First, we find that autocracies are no less likely than democracies to have old-age pension programs. But, second, autocracies have less universal pension programs than democracies. Third, pension programs effectively reduce the probability of autocratic breakdown. * We are grateful to Øyvind Skorge,

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Section: Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Autocratic Welfare State: Old-Age Pensions, Credible Commitments, and Regime Survival

Knutsen

Rasmussen

2017

Comparative Political Studies

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“…Wars have been shown to create prosocial behavior at the individual level (Bauer et al 2016) and to encourage burden-sharing and institution-building at the collective level (Obinger and Petersen 2017). The collective experience of hardship during war seems to lead to a logic of "we share the burden, we share resources" (see Titmuss 2019: chap.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solidarities, Fairness, and Economic Governance in Advanced Capitalism: The Cases of COVID-19 Responses in Germany and the United States

Goerres

Vail

2021

SSRN Journal

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This paper addresses the theoretical question of how competing models of social and economic solidarity shape patterns of economic governance in periods of economic crisis. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a signal case, we seek to understand how changes in public opinion in response to similar social and economic shocks are informed by deeper ideational structures among citizens relating to their capacity for empathy, mutual support, and willingness to support and trust public policy interventions. Drawing on scholarly literatures related to moral economies and the social embeddedness of economic relationships, we undertake an empirical study of how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped patterns of support for social and economic policies. We focus on Germany and the United States, countries with widely divergent modes of integration of capitalist markets and, therefore, potentially different levels of support for particular kinds of policy responses. We trace American and German policy responses since March 2020 across a number of domains, complemented by a systematic analysis of public opinion in the two countries, drawing from fifteen different sources of public-opinion data, in order to assess the pandemic's effects on public support for individualized and collectively-oriented policy responses.

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“…Obinger and Petersen also draw attention to the importance of the demobilisation phase, where soldiers and workers employed for war production have to be reintegrated back into civil economies [55] . This phase presents a particular economic challenge in warding off economic collapse once the demand-pull effects of war time cease and technological systems deployed in the war effort may also have to be reoriented back towards civil purposes.…”

Section: Situating This Study Within ‘Energy Transitions’ Research: Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

World wars and the age of oil: Exploring directionality in deep energy transitions

Johnstone

McLeish

2020

Energy Research & Social Science

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This paper explores the role of the world wars in 20th century energy transitions, focusing on the growth of oil as a major energy source which accelerated after the Second World War in North America and Europe. We utilise the recently developed Deep Transitions framework which combines Techno-Economic Paradigms and sociotechnical transitions approaches. The first deep transition entails the long running emergence of industrial modernity since the late 18th century which culminated in the post-Second World War economic ‘golden age’ underpinned by rapid and stable growth and prosperity in North America and Western Europe. The Deep Transitions framework draws attention to the increasing role of fossil fuels over this long period, and how fossil fuel consumption accelerated in the 20th century taking on a particular direction where energy, mobility, and food systems became increasingly reliant on oil while the share of coal as a proportion of the energy mix decreased. This paper integrates sociotechnical, historical and geopolitical literatures to examine how the development of the age of oil was shaped by wartime demand pressures and logistical challenges and the search for new solutions to these challenges in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

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Mass Warfare and the Welfare State – Causal Mechanisms and Effects

Cited by 32 publications

References 43 publications

The Autocratic Welfare State: Old-Age Pensions, Credible Commitments, and Regime Survival

The Autocratic Welfare State: Old-Age Pensions, Credible Commitments, and Regime Survival

Solidarities, Fairness, and Economic Governance in Advanced Capitalism: The Cases of COVID-19 Responses in Germany and the United States

World wars and the age of oil: Exploring directionality in deep energy transitions

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