Taking the initiative: Direct democracy, coalition governments and welfare state expansion

Walter, André

doi:10.1177/0958928718805631

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…Other scholars, in the tradition of Downs (1957), argue that more direct participation, especially in the form of popular initaitives, may lead to more state intervention due to democracies' inherent tendency to redistribute (e.g. Freitag and Vatter, 2006;Asatryan, 2016;Asatryan et al, 2017;Blume et al, 2009;Blume and Voigt, 2012;Walter, 2019). In an encompassing literature review, Matsusaka (2018) finds that financial referendums are consistently observed to have a negative effect on state intervention.…”

Section: Direct Democracy and The Representative Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, they have a strong incentive to employ popular initiatives to increase public spending (in their favour). In addition, it implies that the smaller the number of parties in government, the more likely that societal groups not represented in government will, ceteris paribus, succeed in forming a winning coalition (Walter 2019). In contrast, in the case of large governing coalitions, parties have a narrower voter base and, thus, can externalise a higher share of the costs, which should lead to higher levels of public spending (e.g.…”

Section: Popular Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A classic question is whether the presence of direct democratic institutions affects the extent of state intervention (e.g. Wagschal 1997;Matsusaka 2004;Funk and Gathmann 2013;Walter 2019). In a recent comprehensive literature review, Matsusaka (2018) shows that effects differ between direct democratic institutions and depend on features of the representative system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Direct democracy, coalition size and public spending

2020

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This article contributes to the literature on direct democracy and public spending in two ways. First, we explore how direct democratic institutions interact with a specific aspect of the representative system, the size of the governing coalition, to influence public spending. Second, based on newly collected data, we examine the relationship between three different direct democratic institutions, coalition size and public spending over the period from 1860 to 2015. Empirically, we find that initiatives increase the size of the public sector under single-party governments, but this positive relationship disappears as coalition size increases. In contrast, we find that financial referendums slow down the growth of public spending, while law referendums are not systematically associated with public spending. Finally, we find that the relationship between direct democratic institutions, coalition size and public spending does not change over time despite the long period under investigation.

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Section: Direct Democracy and The Representative Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Popular Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Direct democracy, coalition size and public spending

2020

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“…Armingeon et al. ; Walter , ) or immigration policies and minority rights (Christmann ; Manatschal ). This variation in the institutional setup and public policies allows researchers to exploit cross‐cantonal and temporal differences in policy‐making to address important topics such as tax competition (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Partisan Composition of Cantonal Governments in Switzerland, 1848‐2017. A New Data Set

Walter

Emmenegger

2018

Swiss Political Sci Review

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Scholars increasingly use Swiss cantons to examine the effect of democratic processes and institutions on political, economic and social outcomes. However, the availability of political indicators at the cantonal level is limited, in particular for longer periods of time. We introduce a novel data set on the ideological and partisan composition of cantonal governments, covering the period 1848-2017 for most cantons. In this research note, we describe our data collection efforts and present some descriptives on the political development of cantonal governments in order to illustrate the data's potential. In particular, we look at the political strength of different parties and factions, the number of parties in government, government volatility and the nationalization of the party system. Our data thus provide new opportunities to examine political, economic and social outcomes as well as the formation of party systems in the Swiss cantons.

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Short-Term Health Policy Responses to Crisis and Uncertainty

Hornung

Bandelow

2021

J. Soc. Pol.

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The onset of the economic crisis more than a decade ago posed extreme challenges to health care systems that may now be repeated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting policies produced a wide range of (in some cases, even opposite) outcomes: increased or decreased public expenditures for health care. Curiously, however, countries that were considered particularly hard hit by the economic crisis showed different extremes of policy outcomes. Investigating these developments requires a dynamic view and identifying explanations for government action in one direction or the other. Using the lenses of several theoretical perspectives in public policy research, this article analyses the conditions under which public health expenditures changed in European Union member states after the financial crisis. Why did certain countries, at first sight similarly affected, show opposite outcomes? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) confirms that left-wing governments and coordinated market economies, in combination and alone, tended to increase public health expenditures in the short term, whereas countries where neither of these conditions was present decreased public health expenditures.

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Taking the initiative: Direct democracy, coalition governments and welfare state expansion

Cited by 3 publications

References 35 publications

Direct democracy, coalition size and public spending

Direct democracy, coalition size and public spending

The Partisan Composition of Cantonal Governments in Switzerland, 1848‐2017. A New Data Set

Short-Term Health Policy Responses to Crisis and Uncertainty

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