A House Divided? U.S. Sub-National Political-Economies in the Post-Welfare Reform Era

• In Event: 212 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Policy and Politics II

Abstract

Scholars have made great strides in the analysis of welfare regimes between affluent, industrialized nations. Concurrently, there is a growing body of literature highlighting the historical and contemporary political-economic heterogeneity among U.S. states. Despite this, few have attempted to examine U.S. sub-national/state-level political-economies on a holistic level. I addresses this gap by simultaneously analyzing four inter-related dimensions of U.S. sub-national political-economies in the post-1996 welfare reform era: labor policy, family/social policy, tax policy, and state imposed fiscal constraint. Using a two-stage measurement model built on exploratory factor analysis and k-means clustering, five state level political-economic types are delineated: (1) progressive; (2) contested progressive; (3) ambiguous; (4) Western conservative; and (5) Southern conservative. Next, four determinants of type membership—Democratic Party control, unionization, racial fractionalization and GSP/capita—are evaluated using multinominal logistic regression. Results verify these as significant determinants; however, the pattern of association varies depending upon the political-economic type in question, suggesting a series of conditional factors that shape type membership. I conclude by suggesting how this analysis can broaden our understanding of welfare states and political-economy on both a cross-national and U.S. specific level, in addition to suggesting future directions of research.

Author

• Eric Bjorklund, University of Arizona