The Limits of Solidarity. Political Coalitions around Distributive Priorities

• In Event: The Coalitional Dynamics of Distributive Politics in the Knowledge Economy

Abstract

The reconfiguration of the political space of mass politics over the past two decades has reshaped the political coalitions that are driving economic-distributive reforms in Europe. However, it is still undertheorized through which mechanisms the emergence of a socio-cultural dimension of electoral politics is affecting welfare state reform. We argue that while this dimension may not alter the positions individuals and collective actors defend regarding welfare reforms, it is likely to affect the relative importance these actors attribute to different types of welfare reform.
More specifically, we hypothesize that where the socio-cultural cleavage is salient, a coalition of middle-class voters, culturally and/or economically liberal political parties, and producer groups from the post-industrial sectors forms around the prioritization of social investment policies, thereby opposing a coalition of working-class voters, protectionist parties and producer groups from industrial sectors who prioritize the defense of existing welfare policies. By contrast, where the cleavage over the extent of state intervention is more dominant, we expect a more traditional coalition of left-wing parties, as well as voters from the working class and the educated middle class to jointly and generally advocate expansive welfare reforms, with lower differentials in their priorities.
This implies that changing political constraints (even if not in the field of welfare politics) drive wedges into existing alliances of solidarity via priorities. We assess these hypotheses with newly collected data from an online-survey conducted in 8 Western European countries among both citizens and elites.

Authors

• Macarena Ares, University of Zurich

• Matthias Enggist, University of Zurich

• Michael Pinggera, University of Zurich

• Silja Haeusermann, University of Zurich