The Political Economy of Welfare Recalibration: What Determines the State’s Responses to the Emergence of New Social Risks?

Abstract

This study examines the conditions under which welfare states are likely to adapt their social policies to the transformation of social risk structures under post-industrialization. It argues that in the era of welfare retrenchment, while heterogeneous policy preferences among veto players impede the expansion of new social risk policies, the same institutional characteristics encourage the growth of old social risk policies. This study analyzes the time-series and cross-section data of advanced industrialized democracies from 1980 to 2001 with a fixedeffect model, and reveals that the composition of veto players structures the state’s ability to adjust its social policies to post-industrialization.