Veto Players, Political Parties, and Welfare-State Retrenchment in Austria

Abstract

Theoretical reasoning on social policy making beyond the golden age of the welfare was crucially influenced by Paul Pierson's seminal work on the politics of the welfare state (Pierson 1996; 2001). This new paradigm refers to a new logic of social policy making in times of permanent austerity. Rising unemployment rates, increasing public debt, declining economic growth, globalization, and changing demographics have increased pressure on advanced welfare states. Pierson argues that the politics of welfare-state retrenchment in times of austerity is quite distinct from the political processes underpinning the earlier welfare-state expansionthe old politics of the welfare state. Consequently, research on the 'golden age' of social policy will provide a rather poor guide to understanding the current period (Pierson 2001, 2). Pierson argues that a new political logic is responsible for the remarkable resilience of the welfare over the last two decades. This rationale is driven by a politics of blame avoidance (Weaver 1986). Since support for the welfare is strong and welfare clienteles constitute a substantial share of the electorate, efforts to scale down the welfare carry the risk of punishment at the polls. Office-oriented politicians thus either refrain from welfare-state retrenchment or pursue strategies to enact retrenchment by stealth. Central to the latter are various strategies of blame avoidance like obfuscation, division, compensation, or attempts to complicate policy reform in order to diffuse responsibility for unpopular retrenchment efforts and reduce the visibility of painful benefit cuts (Pierson 1994, 19-26).