(When) Do Egalitarian Parties Enact Equality-Enhancing Policies?

• In Event: Group Appeals

Abstract

Redistributive rhetoric is prevalent in politics and especially campaigns. But do parties deliver equality-enhancing policies once in office? We argue that parties are in general policy seeking, but then opt only for the equality-enhancing policies that inflict less concentrated costs on their voters and on themselves. Factoring in the credit-taking opportunities in governments and the varying socio-economic profiles of parties’ electorates, we expect that even egalitarians only selectively pursue equality enhancing reforms. We assess whether cabinets live up to the equality ideals that parties evoke in election programs and why, relying on new data on economic equality positions obtained through crowd-coding of 850,000 party statements from 12 countries, 1970-2020. We link the pro-equality positions of government parties with data on equality-enhancing policies implemented by them. The analysis focuses on three equality-enhancing policies: (a) minimum wages (pre-distribution), (b) the generosity of unemployment benefits (insurance and welfare), and (c) top marginal income tax rates (fiscal redistribution). We also combine our new data on party positions with data on the structure of government coalitions and the socio-economic makeup of government parties’ voters, focusing on average voter affluence and education. This allows us to analyse how specific coalition setups and voter groups render equality policies more or less likely. Using country-level panel data and fixed effects models, we are able to show that the promise of equality (often) remains unfulfilled. Government parties with pro-equality positions pursue welfare state compensation (for the middle class) and pre-distribution via minimum wages (for the poor). But even they rarely pursue substantive fiscal redistribution (from the rich) – a key instrument to fight inequality. To better understand these findings, we assess the political rationales underlying the (non)findings and argue that egalitarian parties choose the policy path of least electoral resistance. Further analyses shed light on why these findings only partly unveil a positive relationship between egalitarian rhetoric and equality-enhancing policies. We show that parties are more likely to actually pursue their egalitarian positions when the respective policies inflict less economic damage on their voters. Equality is pursued less as parties’ voter bases become more affluent and educated. What is more, coalition constellations in which one partner is more likely than the other(s) to successfully claim credit for egalitarian policies are associated with policies that conform less to egalitarian rhetoric. This suggests that parties follow the path of least resistance, carefully weighing the electoral gains and losses of equality-enhancing policies.

Authors

• Alexander Horn, University of Konstanz

• Leo Ahrens, University of Konstanz