Caregiver credits in France, Germany, and Sweden: lessons for the United States

Recently, analysts in the United States (US) have proposed adopting caregiver credits, or pension credits, provided to individuals for time spent out of the workforce while caring for dependent children and sick or elderly relatives. The primary objective of these credits, used in almost all public pension systems in the European Union, is to improve the adequacy of old-age benefits for women whose gaps in workforce participation typically lead to fewer years of contributions, lower lifetime average earnings, and consequently lower pensions. This article examines caregiver credits in the context of future reforms to the US Social Security system, with attention given to the adequacy of current spouse and survivor benefits and how changing marital patterns and family structures have increased the risk of old-age poverty among certain groups of women. It then analyzes caregiver credit programs in selected countries, with particular focus on design, administration, and cost.     

The structure of foreign policy attitudes in transatlantic perspective: Comparing the United States,United Kingdom,France and Germany

While public opinion about foreign policy has been studied extensively in the United States, there is less systematic research of foreign policy opinions in other countries. Given that public opinion about international affairs affects who gets elected in democracies and then constrains the foreign policies available to leaders once elected, both comparative politics and international relations scholarship benefit from more systematic investigation of foreign policy attitudes outside the United States. Using new data, this article presents a common set of core constructs structuring both American and European attitudes about foreign policy. Surveys conducted in four countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany) provide an expanded set of foreign policy‐related survey items that are analysed using exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Measurement equivalence is specifically tested and a common four‐factor structure that fits the data in all four countries is found. Consequently, valid, direct comparisons of the foreign policy preferences of four world powers are made. In the process, the four‐factor model confirms and expands previous work on the structure of foreign policy attitudes. The article also demonstrates the capability of ESEM in testing the dimensionality and cross‐national equivalence of social science concepts.     

Regulatory Commitment to Negotiated Agreements: Evidence from the United States, Germany, The Netherlands, and France

Negotiated Agreements (NAs) are arrangements between firms and regulators in which firms voluntarily agree to reduce their pollution. This article analyzes the institutional features that facilitate or hamper the implementation of NAs. We illustrate the analysis with case studies on the implementation of NAs in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. We find that NAs are implemented when regulators are able to commit credibly to the objectives of NAs. Institutional environments marked by fragmentation of power and open access in policymaking reduce regulatory credibility and thus hamper the implementation of NAs.     

Voting on Electoral Reform: A Comparative Perspective on the Alternative Vote Referendum in the United Kingdom

Referendums on electoral systems are relatively rare. In most countries changes to the electoral system are enacted through the legislatures. The British referendum in May 2011 is thus one of the rare examples. In this article it is shown that the apparently idiosyncratic factors in the referendum were consistent with general trends identified in other referendums. While the media focused on the harshness of the campaign, the referendum also resulted in surprising coalitions between long‐term foes, thus suggesting that the referendum contributed to cross‐party cooperation rarely seen in a majoritarian system like that of Great Britain.     

Constitutional courts as veto players: Lessons from the United States,France and Germany

The number of constitutional courts and supreme courts with constitutional review rights has strongly increased with the third wave of democratisation across the world as an important element of the new constitutionalism. These courts play an important role in day‐to‐day politics as they can nullify acts of parliament and thus prevent or reverse a change in the status quo. In macro‐concepts of comparative politics, their role is unclear. Either they are integrated as counter‐majoritarian institutional features of a political system or they are entirely ignored: some authors do not discuss their potential impact at all, while others dismiss them because they believe their preferences as veto players are entirely absorbed by other actors in the political system. However, we know little about the conditions and variables that determine them as being counter‐majoritarian or veto players. This article employs the concept of Tsebelis’ veto player theory to analyse the question. It focuses on the spatial configuration of veto players in the legislative process and then adds the court as an additional player to find out if it is absorbed in the pareto‐efficient set of the existing players or not. A court which is absorbed by other veto players should not in theory veto new legislation. It is argued in this article that courts are conditional veto players. Their veto is dependent on three variables: the ideological composition of the court; the pattern of government control; and the legislative procedures. To empirically support the analysis, data from the United States, France and Germany from 1974 to 2009 is used. This case selection increases variance with regard to system types and court types. The main finding is that courts are not always absorbed as veto players: during the period of analysis, absorption varies between 11 and 71 per cent in the three systems. Furthermore, the pattern of absorption is specific in each country due to government control, court majority and legislative procedure. Therefore, it can be concluded that they are conditional veto players. The findings have at least two implications. First, constitutional courts and supreme courts with judicial review rights should be systematically included in veto player analysis of political systems and not left aside. Any concept ignoring such courts may lead to invalid results, and any concept that counts such courts merely as an institutional feature may lead to distorted results that over‐ or under‐estimate their impact. Second, the findings also have implications for the study of judicial politics. The main bulk of literature in this area is concerned with auto‐limitation, the so‐called ‘self‐restraint’ of the government to avoid defeat at the court. This auto‐limitation, however, should only occur if a court is not absorbed. However, vetoes observed when the court is absorbed might be explained by strategic behaviour among judges engaging in selective defection.     

The psychological roots of populist voting: Evidence from the United States,the Netherlands and Germany

What are the psychological roots of support for populist parties or outfits such as the Tea Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom or Germany's Left Party? Populist parties have as a common denominator that they employ an anti‐establishment message, which they combine with some ‘host’ ideology. Building on the congruency model of political preference, it is to be expected that a voter's personality should match with the message and position of his or her party. This article theorises that a low score on the personality trait Agreeableness matches the anti‐establishment message and should predict voting for populist parties. Evidence is found for this hypothesis in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. The relationship between low Agreeableness and voting for populist parties is robust, controlling for other personality traits, authoritarianism, sociodemographic characteristics and ideology. Thus, explanations of the success of populism should take personality traits into account.     

Government Partisanship and Managing the Economy: Japan and Sweden in Comparative Perspective

It is generally taken for granted that countries governed by leftist governments expand social policies and have an affinity for active fiscal policy that implies higher tolerance of deficit‐ridden budgets. In contrast, conservative governments are taken to be less likely to favor welfare expansion, especially when it has negative fiscal consequences. We challenge this conventional wisdom by comparing the reactions of the Swedish and Japanese governments to economic crises during the 1990s. The puzzle is that the Social Democratic governments in Sweden were able to reduce ballooning budget deficits and thus bring the economy back into balance, while still having one of the largest public sectors in the developed world. In contrast, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party governments in Japan have been unable to redress their deficit problems despite having one of the smallest public sectors among the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries. We argue that this can be explained by taking into consideration that governments’ tax and spending policies are influenced by bureaucratic structures and institutionally driven public beliefs. By comparing Japan and Sweden, we show how political parties actively seek to make their policy stances permanent by structuring taxation and expenditure policies to create institutionalized support for their policy preferences.     

The Europeanization of National Administrations: A Comparative Study of France and the Netherlands

Studies of the impact of European integration on the national administrations of the member states of the European Union (EU) have pointed towards an uneven process of "Europeanization." While there has unquestionably been a growing range and frequency of contacts between national administrations and the EU system, there is little evidence of an expected convergence towards a common institutional model. This uneven Europeanization is presently explained with reference to a neo-institutionalist framework, drawing primarily on the work of March and Olsen. It is argued that the politico-administrative systems of the member states differentially adapt to the pressures of European integration in a manner which reflects the preexisting balance of domestic institutionnal structures, as well as th broader matrices of values which define the nature of appropriate political forms in the case of each national polity. Distinctive national patterns of institutional adjustment, rather than appearing anomalous, emerge as corresponding to a basic logic of differentiation indissociable from the integration process itself. The general argument is illustrated by an extended comparative study of France and the Netherlands, examining both the making and the implementation of European policy in the two countries.     

Regulating Lobbyists: A Comparative Analysis of the United States, Canada, Germany and the European Union

Lobbying is central to the democratic process. Yet, only four political systems have lobbying regulations: the United States, Canada, Germany and the EU (most particularly, the European Parliament). Despite the many works offering individual country analysis of lobbying legislation, a twofold void exists in the literature. Firstly, no study has offered a comparative analysis classifying the laws in these four political systems, which would improve understanding of the different regulatory environments. Secondly, few studies have analysed the views of key agents—politicians, lobbyists and regulators—and how these compare and contrast across regulatory environments.
We firstly utilise an index measuring how strong the regulations are in each of the systems, and develop a classification scheme for the different 'ideal' types of regulatory environment. Secondly, we measure the opinions of political actors, interest groups and regulators in all four systems (through questionnaires and elite interviews) and see what correlations, if any, exist between the different ideal types of system and their opinions. The conclusion highlights our findings, and the lessons that can be used by policy-makers in systems without lobbying legislation.     

The relationship between political attitudes and political participation: Evidence from monozygotic twins in the United States,Sweden, Germany,and Denmark

Many studies have shown that political efficacy, interest in politics, and political knowledge are strongly related to political participation. In most analyses, these variables are described as having a causal effect on participation. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the relationship between political attitudes and participation is confounded by familial factors. By using the discordant twin design, which relates within-pair differences in political attitudes to within-pair differences in political participation, we are able to examine the relationship net of confounding factors rooted in genes and the early rearing environment. Using four samples of monozygotic twins from the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark, we find that the relationship between political attitudes and political participation is confounded to a large extent. This study makes an important contribution to the literature on political attitudes and political participation given the longstanding idea that attitudes cause political participation. Our findings also have practical implications for those interested in elevating levels of political participation. In addition, they have important implications for how scholars theorize about, model, and examine political participation in the future.     

The Role of Government in Collective Bargaining: Scandinavia and the Low Countries

This article compares the role of government in collective bargaining in five small West European countries. For the period until the second half of the 1970s, a distinction is made between countries in which government often interfered in wage bargaining, e. g. Denmark and The Netherlands, and countries in which government refrained from intervention, like Sweden. Belgium and, to a lesser degree, Norway. In all countries the tradition of (non)-intervention had already started before the Second World War. The article reviews some explanatory variables: in Scandinavia centralization of labour relations is crucial, in the Low Countries the nature of political verzuiling . Recent developments show that government intervention has become a characteristic of labour relations in all but one country.     

Improving return-to-work strategies in the United States disability programs, with analysis of program practices in Germany and Sweden

The General Accounting Office (GAO) has made recommendations for improving the disability programs by citing practices that have been successful in Germany, Sweden, and the private sector. This issue is important in the United States because the number of disability beneficiaries is growing rapidly, program costs are increasing proportionately, and few disability recipients are leaving the disability rolls to resume work activity. GAO points out that the estimated lifetime savings for removing an additional 1 percent of the disabled beneficiaries from the rolls of the Disability Insurance (DI) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs each year will ultimately reach $3.0 billion. GAO cites three specific practices as showing the most promise for returning the disabled to work. They are (1) intervening as soon as possible after a disabling event to promote and facilitate return to work, (2) identifying and providing necessary return-to-work assistance and managing cases to achieve return-to-work goals, and (3) structuring cash and health benefits to encourage people with disabilities to return to work. This article examines these suggestions to improve the rate of rehabilitation of disabled workers using research by experts on return-to-work practices in Germany, Sweden, and the United States. Experts caution that any consideration of borrowing practices from other countries needs to take into account the unique economic, social, and political elements in each country. Although other countries appear to be very successful in their rehabilitation programs, practices that are successful in one country may not necessarily work well in another. Countries have different definitions of disability and payment structures. The existence of temporary and partial awards in Germany and Sweden may ensure a number of easily rehabilitated individuals, while the U.S. vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies have been mandated to focus on only the most severely disabled individuals. Public expenditures for vocational rehabilitation, work for the disabled, and disability benefits are much higher as a percentage of gross domestic product in Germany and Sweden than they are in the United States. Compared with the United States, Germany spent twice as much for VR, and Sweden spent 2.6 times more. Impediments to GAO's suggestions include divergent goals of the Social Security program and VR agencies, lack of availability of VR services, the timing of VR referral (which is significantly later than the onset of the disability), and little incentive for return to work built into the payment structure. The Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 is currently being considered by a Congressional conference committee. The bill would establish a Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency program and would require or authorize the Social Security Administration to demonstrate and evaluate different ways of encouraging return to work. In designing these demonstrations, early intervention after a potentially disabling illness or injury is an approach that merits serious attention.     

Institutional conditions for the integration of immigrants in welfare states: A comparison of the literature on Germany,France, Great Britain,and the Netherlands

Abstract. In this paper we analyse the literature on a particular aspect of immigrant integration in Western European welfare states: the extent to which this can be explained by conditions set by institutions, social rights and rights of residence. Our focus is on health care, old age insurance, housing and vocational training, and on the circumstances under which migrants have access to benefits from the general systems of social security. In particular, the assignment of a legal position by the rights of residence plays an essential role. The various legal groups have access to social benefits depending on their status of residence. The institutional framework of each welfare states is also relevant to the access that people have to social benefits. In the countries analysed, Germany, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, the individual security systems are organised according to different political concepts, each of them allowing immigrants access to their benefits to a different degree. On the whole, the degree and kind of governmental regulations seem to be crucially important for the integration of immigrants into the welfare state.     

Interest group–party linkage in the twenty‐first century: Evidence from Denmark,the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

This article systematically investigates interest group–party interactions in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom based on cross‐national surveys with responses from 1,225 interest groups. The findings show that interest groups and parties still interact in the beginning of the twenty‐first century, but that the vast majority of their interaction involves a low degree of institutionalisation. Using fractional logit analysis, it is demonstrated that the strength of interest group–party linkage is primarily affected by systematic differences in state–society structures and organisational group characteristics. Moreover, differences are found in what conditions different types of interaction. Whereas historical legacies and partisan origin influence an interest group's structural party links, group resources make interactions of a less institutionalised, ad hoc nature more likely.