Economy or culture? How the relative salience of policy dimensions shapes partisan effects on welfare state generosity

Abstract

Abstract Whether parties matter for welfare policy is debated in comparative research. This article argues that one reason for dwindling partisan effects is that with the rising salience of cultural issues, political conflict has become increasingly two-dimensional. The argument expects parties to be more prone to shape welfare policy in ways expected by partisan theory if the salience of the economic policy dimension vis-à-vis the cultural dimension increases. To assess the relative salience of the dimensions, the article relies on parties’ emphases on economic issues compared to cultural issues from election manifestos. In a quantitative analysis of welfare benefits in 16 European countries between 1970 and 2011, partisan effects are shown to depend on the relative salience of the economic dimension in party competition: with increasing dominance of economic issues, the positive effect of left parties on welfare state generosity increases while partisan effects dissipate after elections dominated by cultural issues.