This paper describes the empirical evidence on partisan politics in OECD panel studies. I
elaborate on the research designs, the measurement of government ideology and why the …

This paper examines whether government ideology has influenced the allocation of public
expenditures in OECD countries. I analyze two datasets that report different expenditure …

This article takes stock of and reviews the comparative literature on blame avoidance
strategies in social policy reform to identify the conditions under which blame avoidance …

Welfare is the largest expenditure category in all advanced democracies. Consequently,
much literature has studied partisan effects on total and policy‐specific welfare expenditure …

Whereas the call for a political science based study of older people and ageing is not new
(Cutler 1977; Heclo 1988), relatively little unified progress has been made so far. This …

Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state
retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by …

In times of an alleged waning of political business cycles and partisan policy-making, vote-
seeking policy-makers can be expected to shift the use of political manipulation mechanisms …

Research on unpopular policies such as welfare-state cutbacks has so far shied away from
an in-depth study of the complex interrelations between the occurrence and timing of …

The modern welfare state is indeed one of the greatest achievements of the post-war 20th
century. With its key aims of eradicating the five giant social ills of Want, Ignorance, Disease …

This paper investigates empirically the influence of government ideology on social policy
using German data. Examining the funding and the benefits of social security and public …