Social Democratic Government Research Articles

Welfare regimes and socioeconomic inequalities in edentulism: A multilevel analysis of 40 countries

Abstract Aim To evaluate the association between welfare regimes with edentulism and to investigate if it modifies the magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities in edentulism. Methods We analysed data from 40 high-, middle- and low-income countries collected between 2007 and 2018, encompassing 117397 individuals 20 years or older. The main outcome was edentulism and welfare regimes were the main exposure and effect modifier. Individual level variables were sex, age and quintiles of the wealth score. Multilevel logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of being edentulous and cross-level interaction terms between individual wealth and country factors were tested. Findings Individuals at the lowest wealth quintile had a consistently higher prevalence of edentulism. The highest age-sex standardised prevalence of edentulism was found in Eastern European countries (9.9%) followed by Informal Security (9.4%), while the lowest was among the Insecurity regime (1.4%) followed by the Social Democratic regime (4.7%). Liberal countries presented the highest magnitude of absolute and relative inequalities, where the lowest quintile had OR = 16.7 (95%CI: 10.5-26.5) times more chances of being edentulous and 14.4 percentage points higher prevalence. Low-income countries in the Insecurity Regime in social and labour market presented the lowest level of inequalities. Among HIC and upper-middle income countries, Social Democratic regime had the lowest absolute inequalities (4.0 percentage points difference between highest and lowest quintiles) and the Informal Security regime had the lowest relative differences between the highest and lowest quintiles (OR = 3.21, 95%CI: 2.83-3.63). Interpretation Our findings suggest that policies in some welfare regimes might improve oral health while reducing inequalities. High and upper-middle-income countries presented a high level of edentulism and inequalities. Key messages • Larger socioeconomic inequalities in edentulism were found in high-income countries with liberal policies. • A possible benefit of welfare policies on prevalence and inequalities in edentulism may be only evident among industrialised countries.

Mapping the Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Costs for Terminal Cancer Patients across Europe

Abstract Background In many countries, including those with universal health insurance, cost-sharing for healthcare is prevalent, resulting in out-of-pocket expenses for cancer patients. However, the proportion of government contribution to national healthcare expenditure varies across countries. This study aims to determine the prevalence and magnitude of out-of-pocket expenditure among cancer decedents in their final year of life and to assess whether decedents’ characteristics or their country’s welfare regime have a greater impact on out-of-pocket expenditure. Methods SHARE data was analyzed for individuals aged 50 and above from seven European countries (including Israel) who passed away from cancer. Interviews were conducted with the decedents’ family members to gather information about out-of-pocket expenditure on behalf of their deceased relatives. Results The study identified 1,950 cancer decedents with an average age of 74.4 (S.D.=9.39), of which 58.0 percent were male. In their last year of life, 58 percent of the decedents incurred out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare services. The welfare regime is found to be the primary factor influencing the likelihood of out-of-pocket expenditure, while patients’ characteristics have minimal impact. The proportion of out-of-pocket expenditure varies significantly across welfare regimes, with the highest probability observed in the Continental and Social Democratic regimes and the lowest in the Mediterranean and East European regimes. Conclusions A country’s welfare regime plays a crucial role in determining the generosity of its public healthcare spending and its ability to alleviate the financial burden on the households of cancer patients. Increasing public funding for cancer care may reduce patients’ out-of-pocket expenditure in all countries, particularly in those where out-of-pocket expenditure is the highest. Key messages • A country’s welfare regime significantly impacts the likelihood and magnitude of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure for cancer patients in their last year of life. • Increasing public funding for cancer care may help reduce the financial burden on patients and their families, particularly in countries with high out-of-pocket expenditure.

Cross-country comparison analysis of individual and institutional factors of anomie and online offending

This article addresses the gap in the literature by empirically assessing a cross-national comparison of institutional anomie theory (IAT) and self-reported cyberoffending. We used survey data from Finland, Hungary, and the United States to examine the relationship between institutional anomie and cybercrime. Each country represents different types of societies, which makes them interesting cases for cross-national comparison. With Hungary representing a conservative welfare regime, Finland a social democratic welfare regime, and the United States a liberal welfare regime, we predict that the more political regimes intervene in economic relations and support non-economic institutions, the less applicable IAT's variables will be in predicting cybercrime perpetration. In line with these predictions, binomial regression models suggest that IAT works best in the United States, where individualism, achievement, and fetishism of money increased the indices of cybercrime offending. IAT variables were less useful in predicting cybercrime offending in the other nations. Yet, also in line with our prediction, family has a strong external control function in Finland, protecting participants from cybercrime offending. However, no IAT indexes achieved statistical significance in Hungary, where a work-based welfare system suppresses family-related values. Education has a mixed effect on cybercrime offending. Thus, IAT is valuable for understanding cybercrime offending; however, it should be examined in more countries with social institutions and individual value systems different from that of the United States.

The Swedish business elite and the gift explosion of 1947

ABSTRACT In 1948, the social democratic government of Sweden imposed new wealth transfer taxes including an estate tax. Events have been characterised as the definite breakdown of the co-operation between social democracy and organised business. This article attacks the topic from the perspective of the reproduction of the business elite through the inheritance and the gift. The tax reform triggered an epidemic of generosity. In 1947, gift tax revenue was 20 times higher than the annual averages before and after. We have studied the individual actors of the Swedish business elite as donors and concluded that 76 couples of the business elite transferred 25.2 msek to above all their children. The joint political campaign of organised business against the reform raised 24.8 msek. The result complicates and questions previous assumptions concerning the motives of the business elite for protesting against the tax reform.

Policy diffusion across political ideologies: explaining Denmark’s desire to externalise asylum

In 2021, the Danish Social Democratic government tabled a bill allowing asylum seekers to be transferred to another country to process claims and provide protection. Witnessing a Social Democratic government embracing this highly controversial idea, even though less than a handful of right-wing governments outside Europe had previously outsourced asylum, is puzzling. Policy diffusion theory is used to explain the underlying mechanism and analyse the justification strategies. In the face of public attention focused on the refugee protection crisis between 2014 and 2016, the Social Democrats embraced the idea of externalising asylum in order to be recognised as responsive problem solvers. Essentially, they employed three strategies to justify the policy and to mask its origin and its inconsistency with the party’s ideology: (1) referring to policy advisors as the original source of the idea; (2) reframing externalisation as a humanitarian project; and (3) shifting the narrative about Social Democratic identity.

Welfare stigma in a social democratic welfare regime during a decade of national public debate: production, contestation and continuities

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to investigate how welfare stigma is produced and counteracted in the public sphere in a social democratic welfare regime. The Norwegian case represents a generous welfare state that historically has been thought to lessen and avoid stigma connected to welfare benefits. While studies have identified a hardening anti-welfare consensus and stigma production in liberal welfare regimes, we know less about how the connection between welfare benefits, stigma production and resistance has played out in the recent developments in the social democratic welfare regime context. Public debates give access to a dynamic political battleground where different actors participate, and we analyse six welfare-related national debates covered in Norwegian newspapers between 2010 and 2019. We identify key stakeholders, symbolic boundaries used to distinguish deserving from undeserving recipients, and we discuss the outcomes and wider functions of these debates. The debates contain moral aspects of welfare and allegations of fraud by recipients in general as well as by targeted groups such as Somali single mothers, refugees and young adults. We find that stigmatizing framings known from other national contexts also enter the Norwegian debates and illustrate how welfare stigma production plays a role in promoting more selective welfare policies.

Government Capacity: Evidence from Nepal

Autonomous local governments are essential for maintaining stable economic and social development mechanisms and democratic regimes. The prime objective of the article is to examine the impact of pressure-capacity variables on local governance. Two sources of data, such as NPHC 2021 and LISA are used. Overall local government of Nepal has still weak performance as only 38 percent of total municipals have secured good ranking status. Based on PCP framework, total score of 10 composite indicators generated by LISA and some population management related characteristics (e.g., sex ratio, population density, literacy, household size, and two food coping strategy related variables) have been examined using multiple regression to understand interrelationship response and explanatory variables. The statistical analysis shows that there is a string relationship between pressure and capacity variables. Individually, three population related variables such as sex ratio, literacy and household size are positively correlated with total score of 10 indicators with low coefficient of determination. In addition to strengthening existing gender status, educational level and population growth, more socioeconomic and environment related variables as explanatory variables are necessary to link government capacity and its performance in Nepal.

Justice at the End of War

This paper aims to critically analyse two conflicting ethical orientations that dominate the debate on the issue of justice in the post-war phase: minimalism and maximalism. The former approach narrows down the scope of the third aspect of just war theory, known as jus post bellum (justice after war), to the restoration of peace and the prevention of future hostilities. In contrast, the latter emphasizes the importance of achieving political objectives via military triumph and the use of force. Furthermore, it underscores the need for conscientious state-building after a military triumph in order to guarantee the welfare of individuals and the effectiveness of the justly established state. In line with Immanuel Kant's philosophy, it argues for minimalism by giving importance to upholding the rights of civilians and prisoners of war while striving to achieve enduring peace. In addition, it analyzes the fundamental concepts of Orend's maximalist approach to peace accords. These principles give priority to social justice, equality, human rights, democratic government, and social and economic progress. Orend's criteria for a fair peace settlement after a morally justified conflict include the vindication of rights, proportionality, discrimination, punishment, compensation, and rehabilitation. It also discusses the justifiability of regime change in this context. In line with Walzer, it contends that instances in which a new regime will be significantly better compared to the old one should be the only ones in which regime change is appropriate.

Autonomy and paternalism – framing Swedish COVID-19 restriction policy

ABSTRACT Sweden became an outlier among the Nordic countries in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Nordic countries have historically shared a social democratic welfare state regime, with strong cooperation and harmonization of social policies, their responses to the pandemic showcased fundamental differences to that of Sweden. In particular, Sweden’s prioritization of individual civil liberties over social rights diverged from the more coercive approaches of Finland and Norway, which placed greater emphasis on public health and social welfare. This study examines the media framing surrounding the contrasting Swedish approach and highlights the dichotomy between statist individualism/autonomy and welfare paternalism/interdependence that has been an inherent part of the Swedish welfare state framing. Employing interpretive policy analysis, the study explores the media narratives used by policy actors to frame their pandemic response in terms of individual autonomy and governmental paternalism. We identified two contrasting perspectives on governance regarding the COVID-19 policy strategy. One framing perspective backed the strategy, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding individual autonomy and minimizing central control. The other viewpoint demanded a lockdown and criticized the Swedish response as too lenient. This deviated from usual Swedish political alignments and created a polarized and lively debate around the core values of individual autonomy, agency, and central governmental paternalism.

Converging economies of care? Immigrant women workers across 17 countries and four care regimes.

This study analyses 17 care economies using 2016 Luxembourg Income Study data to contribute to extant debate regarding the ongoing utility of care regimes as a classificatory schema for cross-national comparison. Examining similarities and differences in the provision of low-status work in health, education, social work, and domestic services - the 'care economy' - the data reveal devaluation of the labour done by immigrant women care workers, net of national and regime-level variation. In addition, numerous similarities across liberal, corporatist, social democratic, and central and eastern European care regimes emerge, in terms of the overrepresentation of immigrant women in low status care work, and the disproportionate financial penalties these workers incur. Together, findings suggest that notwithstanding national and policy-specific differences, there has been considerable convergence across economies of care towards a 'migrant in the market' model of employment. Such large-scale evidence of this trend calls into question the ongoing efficacy of care regimes for national comparisons of migrant care work under conditions of neoliberal globalization.

Food Insecurity and Social Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Welfare State Regimes in 19 Countries.

We sought to determine whether a country's social policy configuration-its welfare state regime-is associated with food insecurity risk. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 2017 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization individual-level food insecurity survey data from 19 countries (the most recent data available prior to COVID-19). Countries were categorized into three welfare state regimes: liberal (e.g., the United States), corporatist (e.g., Germany), or social democratic (e.g., Norway). Food insecurity probability, calibrated to an international reference standard, was calculated using a Rasch model. We used linear regression to compare food insecurity probability across regime types, adjusting for per-capita gross domestic product, age, gender, education, and household composition. There were 19,008 participants. The mean food insecurity probability was 0.067 (SD: 0.217). In adjusted analyses and compared with liberal regimes, food insecurity probability was lower in corporatist (risk difference: -0.039, 95% CI -0.066 to -0.011, p = .006) and social democratic regimes (risk difference: -0.037, 95% CI -0.062 to -0.012, p = .004). Social policy configuration is strongly associated with food insecurity risk. Social policy changes may help lower food insecurity risk in countries with high risk.

Why Active State Measures Have Dominated Regional Policies in Norway by Governments of all Colours: A Historical Review and Comparison with Sweden

This article compares regional policies in Norway to regional policies in Sweden. The article suggests that geographical and geopolitical factors are the main factors that have influenced regional policies. The article points out that the government in Sweden, immediately following WW2, also assumed the role of the active state. However, in contrast to Norway, its policies were disadvantageous to northern Sweden. Later, Swedish governments also implemented policies aimed at strengthening the economic and social conditions in the north. The article demonstrates that even bourgeois governments, who are traditionally ‘less-state-more-market’ oriented than social democratic governments, have used active state measures in their regional policies in Norway. The article points out that geographical and geopolitical factors represent interests that are shared by Norway’s centre and periphery and argues that these factors work as political guidelines that fundamentally influence the continuous use of active state policies by bourgeois governments. It concludes that this influence is stronger than bourgeois governments’ ideological foundations, Keynesian economics and the bureaucracy. Northern Sweden, in comparison, lacks the geographical and geopolitical factors of northern Norway, which explains why fewer active state measures have been used by governments in Sweden than in Norway.

Work-family trajectories across Europe: differences between social groups and welfare regimes.

Work and family trajectories develop and interact over the life course in complex ways. Previous studies drew a fragmented picture of these trajectories and had limited scope. We provide the most comprehensive study of early-to-midlife work-family trajectories to date. Using retrospective data from waves 3 and 7 of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we reconstructed work-family trajectories from age 15 to 49 among almost 80,000 individuals born between 1908 and 1967 across 28 countries. We applied multichannel sequence and cluster analysis to identify typical trajectories and multinomial logistic regression models to uncover their social composition. The results revealed six common trajectories. The dominant and therefore standard trajectory represents continuous full-time employment with having a partner and children. Women, the lower educated and persons from conservative and liberal welfare regimes are underrepresented in this trajectory, whereas men, higher educated people and those from social-democratic, Eastern European and Baltic welfare regimes are overrepresented. The other trajectories denote a deviation from the standard one, integrating a non-standard form of work with standard family formation or vice versa. Mothers in a stable relationship generally work part-time or not at all. When mostly in full-time employment, women are more likely to be divorced. Lower educated persons are less likely to have work-family trajectories characterized by full-time work and a non-standard family, yet more likely to be non-employed for large parts of their life with standard family formation. Younger cohorts are underrepresented in non-employment trajectories, but overrepresented in part-time employment trajectories along with a partner and children as well as full-time employment trajectories with divorce. Individuals from Southern European and liberal regimes are more likely to be non-working and self-employed partnered parents and those from social-democratic regimes are more likely to be full-time employed divorced parents. We also found pronounced gender differences in how educational level, birth cohort and welfare regime are associated with work-family trajectories from early to midlife. Our findings highlight the socially stratified nature of earlier-life work-family trajectories in Europe. Potential implications for inequalities in later life are discussed.

Social Welfare Policy in Post-Transition Chile: Social Democratic or Neoliberal?

Chile’s massive 2019 protests indicate a pronounced discrepancy between the country’s alleged establishment of social democracy and the public’s perception of pervasive inequity. To understand this discrepancy, this analysis evaluates the extent to which Chilean social welfare policy conforms to social democratic norms of promoting solidarity, equity, and universalism. Analysis of poverty reduction, pension, health care, and education policy demonstrates that Chile’s center-left governments succeeded in mitigating some of the more extreme elements of the social welfare policies inherited from the Pinochet regime. However, they failed to reverse their underlying logic, which reinforces stratification and inequity and undermines incentives for the cultivation of solidarity among the working and middle classes. As a result, social welfare policy in Chile continues to resemble the neoliberal welfare regime implemented by the Pinochet dictatorship while the establishment of a social democratic welfare regime remains an aspiration for present and future leftist governments to realize.

Last century's German citizens' dialogue on nuclear energy revisited: new lessons learnt?

Abstract. The German Site Selection Act for a Nuclear Repository of 2017 aims, among other objectives, to find a solution that is supported by a broad social consensus and can thus also be tolerated by those affected. Public participation is considered indispensable when planning and building a nuclear waste repository today. However, what is now even laid down by law has taken some time to emerge. The roots of today's guiding principles on public involvement lie first of all in the nuclear energy controversy of the 1970s and 1980s, which marked the first major societal conflict about technology in (West) Germany and, in terms of its consequences, has shaped the course of events up to the present day. Much of the experience with public engagement, its pitfalls and chances, has been largely forgotten. This paper seeks to address the present lack of knowledge about past government-funded public engagement on nuclear energy. It presents, for the first time, key findings from a 3-year interdisciplinary collaborative research project, funded by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), on Germany's first information and dialogue campaign on this topic, the “Citizens' Dialogue on Nuclear Energy” (“Bürgerdialog Kernenergie”), which ran from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s. This research is based on comprehensive archival work in numerous state and non-state archives across Germany, a vast array of published materials, and oral history interviews. The paper will discuss why the campaign was started, which (international) models it drew on, which instruments it relied on, and which obstacles and dilemmas it faced. It will present where and to what extent the campaign was able to achieve its goals and where – and why – it failed. The “Citizens' Dialogue” was initially nationwide in scope. From 1977 onwards, activities primarily focussed on the region around Gorleben, where West Germany's nuclear waste repository was initially planned to be located (this decision being finally revoked in 2020). The paper argues that the government-funded campaign was based on two assumptions, which shaped its structure. First, relying on the then conventional knowledge deficit model, governments and experts assumed that citizens needed to be better informed to accept the need for nuclear expansion and lose their supposedly irrational fears regarding nuclear safety. Second, social democratic governments in Europe viewed the involvement of citizens in debates about technology, quality of life and planning for the future as new democratic territory. Juxtaposing past and present experiences with government-funded public engagement, the paper seeks to extract and discuss lessons that may be drawn from the history of past public engagement for the search for a new repository site – in Germany and elsewhere.

Is Denmark a green entrepreneurial state?


 This article is based on digital methods research using the tools Hyphe, Gephi and CorText to map the relations between public Danish actors – from informal civil society groups and NGO’s to business and state actors - and their “matters of concern” (cf. Latour 2004) in the heated political situation around the development of green transition policies following the enactment of the Climate Act in 2019. The Act was, according to the newly elected social democratic government, the “most ambitious Climate Act in the world”. It included such political innovations as the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change, a group of 99 randomly selected citizens mandated to give recommendations to parliament, and a series of Climate Partnerships, business and industry collaborations tasked with developing recommendations and frameworks for the business community’s engagement in the green transition. The Climate Act was passed after massive popular pressure from the civic climate movement leading up to the election. Despite these efforts and the apparent political will to engage with multiple voices and interests, our network mapping shows that the business community, with an emphasis on “innovative and technological solutions”, were soon to become dominant in the network and align themselves more closely with the political system than the civil society actors were able to with their repeated calls for more radical and political action on climate change. 

Problems and possibilities for Swedish working-class literature in a neoliberal age

In recent decades, inequality has increased in Sweden. The increasing gaps are connected with policies that are often called neoliberal. How does working-class literature relate to these social problems and what literary possibilities does it open up? In this article I discuss these questions based on some literary examples from Swedish contemporary working-class literature. These literary examples have attracted much attention. My perspective is that I see working-class literature as literature with a distinct use value and a literature that has specific functions in the working-class literature context (Felski, 2008).
 Kristian Lundberg, Johan Jönson and Jenny Wrangborg all give personal accounts from workplaces. Such can be valuable. The problem with Lundberg and Jönson is that they tend to be introverted and egocentric. Especially Lundberg lacks the class perspective. Perhaps Lundberg’s Yarden (The Yard, 2009) should be described as confessional literature rather than working-class literature. With Susanna Alakoski the working-class is hidden behind the concept of poverty. The working-class as actor is absent. The labor movement as well. Instead, it is the middle class who appear as actor. Through the role of jester, Jönson makes class society visible. The role of jester could be seen as a specific rhetorical strategy and a literary device to create a distancing effect, or Verfremdungseffekt. Wrangborg connects to the legacy of early working-class literature with struggle poems. From within the workplace she describes work situations and experiences of class.
 Emil Boss takes a close look at language and concepts in a postpolitical age when old concepts have changed meaning. It is a crucial task for working-class literature to explain, interpret and examine old concepts that have changed meaning in a new political era, when the labor movement has lost contact with previous ideals and social democratic governments pursue rightwing politics, thus making it difficult to distinguish between left and right.

Feminist waves, global activism, and gender violence regimes: Genealogy and impact of a global wave

Global waves of activism are powerful social forces shaping - and shaped by- policy and politics worldwide. Such waves are constituted not by a single movement or campaign but rather comprise national, local and transnational organizations and networks of activists. We lack the conceptual underpinnings necessary to fully capture the impact of such a diffuse and complex phenomenon. This prevents scholars from fully grasping the ways that waves shape and are shaped by national and transnational campaigns and their interactions, the ways that core ideas become embedded in national and international institutions, and the ways that core ideas develop and change. In this paper, we propose understanding global feminism as a global wave as a way to develop some insight into these processes.We elaborate this concept and give a brief overview of the development of the global feminist wave, showing the ways that transnational networks serve as mechanisms for linking activists to global governance and also to activists in other countries, strengthening global civil society. These organizational forms contribute to the development of global feminism, a set of ideas that motivate action and become embedded in an evolving set of international norms. Though global feminism is sometimes associated with a particular set of ideas from second wave feminism of the 1960s and 70s, we argue that it has its roots in the abolitionist and suffrage movements of the late 1800s.The roots of global feminism in the struggles of racialized and colonized women illuminates its potential as a source for gender justice today.We sketch the way that the global feminist wave interacts with different kinds of regimes, showing how domestic regimes and global norms evolve together focussing on the issue of gender-based violence against women. We suggest that different regime types channel waves differently, with neoliberal regimes paradoxically producing more openness to global waves while social democratic regimes- particularly those with weak civil society- channel waves through established institutional channels. A stronger connection to global civil could advance gender justice for intersectionally-marginalized women. We illustrate this argument with a brief application to Canada.

Social-democratic imaginaries of transformations in conservative gender regimes

Social-democratic gender regimes are imagined in social politics and feminist scholarship in reference to Swedish social democracy. The mainstreaming of gender equality through all policy domains, but especially state provided social care sets Sweden apart as a model for gender equality policy in Europe and the world. Through an examination of the transformation of the German gender regime, this article questions whether state provided social care is the only or even the best possible way to shift unpaid care labor from women in the domestic sphere to public provision. In Germany and other conservative gender regimes, state financed and densely regulated welfare markets are carving a pathway to change which neither depends on state provision or competitive markets. The article utilizes institutional methodologies for studying change to analyze German welfare market policy impacts on the conservative gendered division of labor, to explore the alternative feminist imaginaries that may lead to more disruptive change, and how these changes might constitute a different variety of social-democratic gender regime. Through an original empirical analysis of recent policies to shift early child care, elder care, and domestic labor to paid work, the analysis shows that the German conservative gender regime is in transformation, though by layering new forms of paid care labor on to the unpaid (and underpaid) labor of women in the home. The same policies however, open the door for ‘real utopian’ alternatives, and a different logic of social democratic gender regime in Germany, rooted less in state provision as in Sweden, and more in local and mutualistic arrangements of caring and cooperation.

Electoral Competition between Social Democracy and the Populist Radical Right: How Welfare Regimes Shape Electoral Outcomes

This study examines how the growing competition over immigration and welfare between social democratic parties and populist radical right parties impacts electoral outcomes. The study argues that the historical legacies of the social democratic and conservative welfare regimes influence how voters respond to this competitive struggle. The findings support this argument. In the social democratic regime, populist radical right parties gain more support when they compete over welfare, although Nordic social democratic parties can mitigate this trend by appearing tough on immigration. However, populist radical right parties’ emphasis on welfare is the main source of electoral mobilization, particularly among voters with anti-immigration sentiments. In the conservative regime, the competitive dynamic is less connected to immigration, and populist radical right parties’ welfare discourse appeals primarily to economically vulnerable voters, while social democratic parties lose votes by taking a strict stance on immigration. These results have important implications and suggest that welfare regimes shape voting behaviour differently today than in previous eras.