Socio-Economic Review 1:411-437 (2003)
© 2003 Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics
Small states, big success: party politics and governing the economy in Denmark and The Netherlands from 1973 to 2000
Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Bartholins Allé, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Correspondence: cgp{at}ps.au.dk
First receipt September 2002; final manuscript received June 2003
In recent years, a wave of publications within comparative political economy has focused on patterns of adjustments of the political economies of advanced industrial countries to such recent conditions as globalization and the effects of these adjustments with regard to macroeconomic outcomes. This article argues that a way to enhance the understanding of adjustment patterns and consequently macroeconomic outcomes is to focus on party politics and its consequences for the emergence of broad political agreement around a coherent socioeconomic policy, including controversial reforms of the welfare state and the labor market. Party politics has two aspects: namely, the strategies of political parties ‘owning’ the welfare state issue, i.e. Social Democratic parties and in some countries Christian Democratic parties, and the polarization of the party system, especially the strategies of extreme wing parties. The relevance of the argument is shown by analyzing socioeconomic policy making and macroeconomic outcomes in Denmark and The Netherlands since 1973.
Key Words: JEL classification: H5 National expenditures and related policies • I38 Government programmes, provision and effects of welfare programmes