Political Parties’ Preferences about the Volume of Social Spending and its Distribution between Programs and Age Groups: a Comparative Study of France, Spain and the UK

• Ares, Cristina ^[1] ; Losada, Antón ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

     Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

     Santiago de Compostela, España

     
• Localización: Cuadernos de Gobierno y Administración Pública, ISSN 2341-3808, Vol. 7, Nº. 2, 2020, págs. 85-98
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.5209/cgap.68179
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Preferencias de los partidos políticos acerca del volumen de gasto social y su distribución entre programas y grupos etarios: un estudio comparado de España, Francia y el Reino Unido
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
• Resumen
  • español

    La transformación del Estado de bienestar no es una respuesta estandarizada a la globalización o un producto secundario de las políticas de la Unión Europea, sino “lo que los partidos consiguen” (Burgoon, 2006). Los diferentes regímenes y culturas de bienestar contribuyen al mantenimiento de respuestas nacionales diferenciadas a la integración global y regional en términos de sus sistemas públicos de bienestar. Pero variables de nivel meso, como la ideología de los partidos, pueden asimismo tener impacto no solo en el volumen total de gasto en políticas de bienestar sino también en su distribución entre programas y grupos de beneficiarios. Este artículo presenta un nuevo esquema de clasificación y procedimiento para obtener datos comparables sobre las preferencias de los partidos parlamentarios en materia de gasto social. Se aplica en tres elecciones generales de España, Francia y el Reino Unido para mostrar sus posibilidades de empleo. En los partidos parlamentarios resultantes de estos comicios, la ideología está relacionada con las preferencias sobre la distribución del gasto social entre programas y beneficiarios, incluida la respuesta al envejecimiento de la población, así como la racionalidad de los recortes en la financiación del sistema público de bienestar.

  • English

    The transformation of the Welfare State is not a standardized response to globalization or a by-product of European Union policies, but rather ‘what parties make of it’ (Burgoon, 2006). Different welfare regimes and welfare cultures contribute to the maintenance of diverse national responses to global and regional integration in terms of their public welfare systems, but there are also meso-level variables, such as parties’ ideologies, that may have an impact on the volume and distribution of welfare expenditure. This article presents a new scheme and procedure to code party manifesto statements in favor of social spending and retrenchment; it applies them in Britain, France and Spain in order to show the possibilities of the new data. The preliminary results indicate that ideologies are linked to parties’ preferences regarding the distribution of social spending between programs, the emphasis on different age groups as beneficiaries of welfare expenditure, and the rationale for social cuts.

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