Cobbler stick to your last? Social democrats’ electoral returns from labour market policy

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Serval ID
serval:BIB_01EFB2B3DD19
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Cobbler stick to your last? Social democrats’ electoral returns from labour market policy
Journal
Journal of Social Policy
Author(s)
Fossati Flavia, Trein Philipp
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2021
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
50
Number
1
Pages
188 - 208
Language
english
Abstract
In this article, we examine how labour market policy interventions, notably short-time work (STW), affect voting behaviour in times of electoral downturn. We use the 2009 German general elections as an example. This is a particularly interesting case because the grand coalition of Christian democrats (CDU/CSU) and social democrats (SPD) was up for re-election against the backdrop of a major recession following the 2007/08 financial crisis and extensively used STW policies to counteract rising unemployment. Interestingly, STW policy and unemployment vary considerably between regions. We exploit this variance to create a unique dataset that combines regional information on STW policy and unemployment in 299 German electoral constituencies with individual data from the post-election survey. Our results show that especially the SPD profited from high STW rates at constituency level on election day, but this policy was insufficient to preclude the major losses social democrats suffered during the election. More generally, our results indicate that classic labour market policy can generate electoral support for social democratic parties, even as a “junior partner” in a grand coalition. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether such support is sufficient for electoral victories.
Keywords
Short-time work, Conservative parties, Incumbent, Economic Crisis, Grand coalition, Mainstream left
Create date
23/03/2020 17:32
Last modification date
06/11/2023 7:10
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