Farmers and the Origin of the Welfare State: Evidence from 308 Roll Call Votes between 1882 and 1940☆

Abstract

Studies of early social policy development highlight the progressive role of farmers, especially in Scandinavian countries. I argue that this notion does not match with the role played by farmer's representatives or the party in parliament. Being ideologically committed to more market‐oriented solutions, less exposed to labour market risks and fearing for their labour supply, Farmers as a social group and party, I argue, had strong incentives to resist welfare state expansion. This study moves beyond single events or a small selection of reforms used in previous studies, to ascertain preferences of farmers over all welfare reforms undertaken up to 1940. Using newly collected data on roll calls for 308 failed and successful legislative proposals in Norway between 1882 and 1940, totalling 24,791 votes this approach allows for greater precision in measuring the preferences of classes and parties on welfare policy. I find that farmer MPs as a class and later as a party consistently downvote generous welfare compared to the worker parties. Conservatives and Farmers turn out to be equally antagonistic to welfare proposals compared to Labour. This pattern is not substantially transformed during the period of Worker–Farmer coalitions of the 1930s. Further, considering the backgrounds of Members of Parliament (MP), farmers' representatives systematically vote against generous welfare proposals, even voting and vocally protesting coverage extensions to the rural sector. It is therefore doubtful whether the origins of Scandinavian universalism prior to 1940 can be found in the role played by farmers.