Research

We re-analyze four major explanations of redistribution including the Meltzer-Richard model, power resources theory, Iversen-Soskice’s political institutions explanation, and Lupu and Ponstusson’s skewness theory. For each of these, we reconsider the causal chain and test their assumptions using a comprehensive, original dataset on working-age income-inequality consisting of 589 country-years for affluent democracies in the period 1963-2019. We find that partisan governments are directly related to redistribution and have a strong effect on the generosity of social policy. Lupu and Pontusson’s skew measure has no effect on redistribution in models with controls but does have a positive effect on generosity of social policy. Finally, we find that the mean-to median income ratio has a consistent, negative, and highly significant effect on redistribution, directly refuting the very premise of the Meltzer-Richard model. 

Can privatization and de-regulation interfere with electoral accountability? The expansion of markets at the expense of government management and regulation since the 1980s has often been framed by policy makers as a means for improving social welfare. Yet, even when reforms yield unsatisfactory outcomes, policy reversals via de-liberalizing reforms remain exceedingly rare. In this paper, I suggest that this dynamic is partially explained by the framing effects of liberalization. By submerging the state, policy outcomes become synonymized primarily with the behavior of market actors rather than the political sphere. Put differently, liberalization qualifies our expectations from government and thereby improves perceptions of incumbent performance. To test whether liberalization reduces electoral accountability, I leveraged data from an original survey experiment in which respondents were asked to assess the performance of incumbent politicians in light of a service area of declining quality. The results indicate that privatization improved general satisfaction with incumbents, as well as their perceived electoral fortunes. The same cannot be said with respect to deregulation which is a more implicit form of economic liberalization. These findings imply that certain liberalization reforms pose a unique risk for creating a democratic deficit since they make unfavorable outcomes less susceptible to public demands. Moreover, this study demonstrates the potential for incumbents to strategically leverage liberalization reforms in order to minimize their exposure to disadvantageous policy domains. In the next two sections, I develop a theory of liberalization and accountability, and then explained the experimental design and sample. After presenting the main results, the paper reflects on the future of democratic accountability at the age of liberalization.

How does social mobility affect support for inclusive policies? This article argues that people who experienced upward (downward) mobility have stronger (weaker) beliefs in meritocracy and, in turn, be less (more) supportive of targeted egalitarian policies. Individuals who ascend to a higher social status that surpasses their parental background will be more inclined to embrace conservative or right leaning values, which aligns with increasing their likelihood of espousing a meritocratic worldview. Moreover, people who believe in meritocracy tend to underestimate the role of external assistance to mitigate inequalities. Thus, we expect people who experienced upward mobility to attribute the responsibility for social inequities to the personal or cultural failings of underprivilege groups and as result, to oppose affirmative action. We test this argument using a novel framework to trace the causal path with an original survey conducted in the United States and an experimental survey in Chile. 

Fragmented citizenship has been a concept describing a deficit in the rights granted to citizens, which may be subject to fluctuations. This paper suggests that the expansion of citizenship is connected to an ideational shift while fragmentation occurs when institutional structures and core values inhibit change in certain areas. The case under discussion is the status of homosexuals in Israel. The country has been described as a gay-friendly society where homosexuals enjoy a plethora of socio-economic rights on the one hand, but are denied marital rights on the other. Expansion of citizenship was made possible owing to a gradual process of liberalization and growing institutional receptivity. This however, did not conclude with the full social inclusion of Israeli homosexuals but rather with citizenship fragmentation. Granting full citizenship rights would have been incompatible with Jewish national core values backed by the institutional autonomy utilized by resistant veto actors.

Can privatization depoliticize former areas of state intervention? Experimental evidence suggests that market reforms are especially resilient to policy reversals due to their ability to shape individuals’ perceptions of incumbents (SoRelle 2022, Machtei n.d.). Absent of a corresponding change to the properties of the service or the information environment, such a dynamic would imply that market reforms alter the issue frame used for evaluating candidates (Chong and Druckman, 2007; Druckman, 2004). That is, reduced accountability following domestic liberalization may be a function of reforms removing policy domains from the dominant political discourse and framing their respective services or goods as market choices. Using subnational data from the United Kingdom’s 'Right to Buy' reform, I show that privatizing government assets (in this case, public housing) has a depoliticizing effects which can make such reforms particularly resilient to reasserting state intervention.

Do private education markets exacerbate educational inequalities? Private markets are expected to increase efficiency through market competition. However, there is reason to suspect that certain privatized social services will fail to attract sufficient competition to improve their desired social outcome. After evaluating the political ramification of privatization and controlling for policy outcomes in the previous chapters, I now turn to examine the latter. In particular, I focus on private education markets which have been one of the most noteworthy and polemic forms of welfare privatization. The literature on private education often examines personal performance, relies on varying empirical frames and consequentially, provides contradictory insights. Given the rising correlation between skill and income in the postindustrial era, the main objective of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of education delivery strategies through a distributive lens. Rather than treating privatization as a binary, I suggest that education outcomes are determined by the legal framework provided by the state and by the nature of competitions as determined by market actors. To test my hypotheses, I leverage school and individual level data and conducted field work to examine the distinct private education markets of Chile and Norway.