Government Ideology, Economic Pressure, and Risk Privatization: How Economic Worldviews Shape Social Policy Choices in Times of Crisis
ISBN: 9789048529384
Platform/Publisher: Cambridge Core / Amsterdam University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited

From the 1980s on, a privatization of labor market-related risks has occurred in the OECD. Governments have cut the generosity of social programs and tightened eligibility rules, particularly for the unemployed. Government Ideology, Economic Pressure, and Risk Privatization: How Economic Worldviews Shape Social Policy Choices in Times of Crisis analyses these curtailments for eighteen countries over the course of four decades and provides an encompassing comparative assessment of the interactive impact of government ideology and economic pressure. It demonstrates that the economic worldviews of governments are the most important factor in explaining why cuts are implemented or not. While ideas of non-intervention in the market underlie cuts in generosity, ideas of equality and fairness are at the heart of stricter eligibility criteria. This book also shows that the impact of the economic pressures often held responsible for the marginalization of politics and government ideology is in fact conditional on the specific ideological configuration.

Alexander Horn is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Government at Aarhus University. Previously, he took part in the PhD programs of the Berlin Graduate School and Duke University and defended his dissertation at Humboldt University Berlin. He has published in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of European Social Policy, and Social Science History.

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