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Abstract
This article focuses on the capacity of parties to cultivate public opinion to accept welfare state reform. ‘Preference shaping’, it is argued, depends on the intensity of party ‘messages’, which will be at their strongest where there are sharply defined partisan cleavages in opinion. The aversion of German public opinion to economic reform can thus be explained by the reluctance of the parties (particularly the CDU/CSU) to articulate emphatic reform messages. This is attributable to the weakness of partisan cleavages on socio-economic issues. The linkage between public opinion, party position and partisan cleavages is tested by comparison with three countries – Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands – that have faced similar problems of economic reform to those now confronting Germany.
Notes
1. ZDF, 14/05/2004, Sparen statt Schulden, http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/18/0.1872.2126226.00.html reported SPD support at 21 per cent in the March 2004 Politbarometer, the lowest level for either of the major parties since the poll began in 1977.
2. See Gordon Smith, ‘Does West German Democracy Have an Efficient Secret?’, in W.E. Paterson and G. Smith (eds.), The West German Model: Perspectives on a Stable State (London: Frank Cass, 1981), p.74: see also Kenneth Dyson, ‘The German Model from Schmidt to Schröder’, in S.A. Padgett and T. Poguntke (eds.), Continuity and Change in German Politics: Beyond the Politics of Centrality (London: Frank Cass, 2002), p.135.
3. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957). The neo-Downsian literature is too voluminous to cite comprehensively, but see the following; Ian Budge and Dennis J. Farlie, Voting and Party Competition, (London/New York: Wiley, 1973); Ian Budge and Dennis Farlie, Explaining and Predicting Elections; Issue Effects and Party Strategies in 23 Democracies, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983); Ian Budge, David Robertson and Derek Hearl (eds.), Ideology, Strategy and Party Change, Spatial Analysis of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Ian Budge, ‘A New Spatial Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Spatially’, British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), pp.443–67.
4. Paul Pearson, ‘Coping with Permanent Austerity; Welfare State Restructuring in Affluent Democracies’, in Paul Pierson (ed.), The New Politics of the Welfare State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.413.
5. For an account of the median voter syndrome in relation to welfare state reform see Herbert Kitschelt, ‘Partisan Competition and Welfare State Retrenchment: When do Politicians Choose Unpopular Policies?’, in Paul Pierson (ed.), The New Politics of the Welfare State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.273. See also Kitschelt, ‘Political-Economic Context and Partisan Strategies in the German Federal Elections 1990–2002’, West European Politics, 26/4 (2003), pp.125–52.
6. Ole Listhaug, Stuart E. Macdonald and George Rabinowitz, ‘Ideology and Party Support in Comparative Perspective’, European Journal of Political Research, 25 (1994), pp.111–49. Stuart E. Macdonald, George Rabinowitz and Ole Listhaug, ‘On Attempting to Rehabilitate the Proximity Model: Sometimes the Patient just can't be Helped’ Journal of Politics, 60 (1998), pp.653–90.
7. Donald Granberg and Mikael Gilljam, ‘Implausible Hypotheses in the Directional Model of Issue Voting’, European Journal of Political Research, 32/1 (1997), pp.31–50.
8. Kees Aarts, Stuart E. Macdonald and George Rabinowitz, ‘Issues and Party Competition in the Netherlands’, Comparative Political Studies, 32/1 (1999), pp.66–8.
9. Bernard Grofman, ‘Political Economy: Downsian Perspectives’, in Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (eds.), A New Handbook of Political Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.698.
10. See Patrick Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice (New York/London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp.117–19.
11. See for instance Jurgen Kramer and Hans Rattinger, ‘The Proximity and the Directional Theories of Issue Voting Compared; Results for the USA and Germany’, European Journal of Political Research, 32 (1997), pp.1–21: Russell Dalton, ‘Political Parties and Political Representation: Party Supporters and Party Elites in Nine Nations’, Comparative Political Studies, 18 (1985), pp.267–99: James Adams and Samuel Merrill, ‘Modeling Party Strategies and Policy Representation in Multiparty Elections. Why are Strategies so Extreme?’, American Journal of Political Science, 43 (1999), pp.765–91.
12. Torben Iversen, ‘Political Leadership and Representation in West European Democracies: A Test of Three Models of Voting’, American Journal of Political Science, 38/1 (1994), p.70.
13. Herbert Kitschelt, ‘Partisan Competition and Welfare State Retrenchment: When do Politicians Choose Unpopular Policies?’, in Paul Pierson (ed.), The New Politics of the Welfare State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.278–9.
14. See Roy Pierce, ‘Mass–Elite Linkages and the Responsible Party Model of Representation’, in W.E. Miller, R. Pierce, J. Thomassen, R. Herrera, S. Homberg, P. Essaiasson and B. Wessels (eds.), Policy Representation in Western Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.23–4; Edeltraud Roller, ‘The Welfare State: The Equality Dimension’, in Ole Borre and Eleanor Scarbrough (eds.), The Scope of Government: Beliefs in Government, Volume 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.165–90.
15. Iversen, ‘Political Leadership and Representation’, p.65.
16. James Adams, ‘A Theory of Spatial Competition with Biased Voters: Party Policies Viewed Temporally’, British Journal of Political Science, 31 (2001), pp.121–58.
17. Ian Budge and David Robertson, ‘Do Parties Differ and How?’ in I. Budge, D. Robertson and D. Hearl (eds.), Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analysis of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp.398–9.
18. For an overview of the debate and empirical test of the respective positions see Jeffrey A. Karp and Susan A. Banducci, ‘Issues and Party Competition under Alternative Electoral Systems’, Party Politics, 8/2 (2002), pp.123–41. See also Jocelyn A.J. Evans, ‘In Defence of Sartori: Party System Change, Voter Preference Distributions and Other Competitive Incentives’, Party Politics, 8/2 (2002), pp.155–74.
19. Arend Lijphart, ‘Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty Six Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), cited in Karp and Banducci, ‘Issues and Party Competition’, p.125.
20. Gary Cox, ‘Centripetal and Centrifugal Tendencies Incentives in Electoral Systems’, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), pp.903–35; Karp and Banducci, ‘Issues and Party Competition’, pp.125–6.
21. Swedish Election Study 1979, SED 0089; 1982, SED 0157; 1985, SED 0217; 1991, SED 0227; 1994, SED 0391; 1998, SED 0470.
22. Danish National Election Study 1990, DDA 1564; 1994, DDA 2210: 1998, DDA 4189: 2001, DDA 812516.
23. Dutch election studies were accessed via the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 1986, ICPSR 8876; 1989, ICPSR 9950; 1994, ICPSR 6740; 1998, ICPSR 2836.
24. ALLBUS 1982, ZA-S1160; ALLBUS 1984, ZA-S1340, ALLBUS 1990, ZA-S1800, ALLBUS 1991, ZA-S1900, ALLBUS 1994, ZA-S2400: ALLBUS 1998, ZA-S3000; ALLBUS 2000, ZA-S3450. (ALLBUS was used in the absence of items on social equality and welfare benefits in German election studies).
25. See Edeltraud Roller, ‘The Welfare State: The Equality Dimension’, and Per Arnt Pettersen, ‘The Welfare State: The Security Dimension’, both in Borre and Scarbrough (eds.), The Scope of Government, pp.165–97 and pp.198–230 respectively.
26. Cross-national analysis faces the comparability problem since national surveys formulate questions in different ways (see Pettersen, ‘The Welfare State’, p.225). By posing the same question across national samples, the ESS provides a comparability check on national data sources.
27. Data cover party programmes from elections between 1945 and 1998 across 23 countries, and is contained in the CD-Rom accompanying Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum (eds.), Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments, 1945–98 (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2001).
28. For an outline of MRG methodology see Ian Budge, ‘Theory and Measurement of Party Policy Positions’, in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp.80–81.
29. Where there are two electorally significant centre-right parties, analysis is conducted separately, e.g. conservative/social democratic partisanship.
30. National surveys use differently constructed response scales. In the data presented in and , these differences are dealt with by merging response categories to give the percentage of respondents favouring income equality. As a test of the reliability of national election study data, European Social Survey data are given in the right-hand column. In all cases, ESS data corroborate national data.
31. The availability of data in Pettersen, ‘The Welfare State’, p.210, provides a longer-term perspective on fluctuations in opinion.
32. Politbarometer Nov. 2003, see http://www.heute.t-online.de/ZDFheute/artikel/7/0,1367,HOME-0-2085351,00.html; Politbarometer, May 2004, see http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/18/0.1872.2126226,00.html; Politbarometer, Aug. 2004, see http://www.heute.t-online.de/ZDFheute/artikel/18/0,1367,POL-0-2185682,00.html.
33. Aarts et al., ‘Issues and Party Competition in the Netherlands’, pp.64–5.