Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy PDF
Preview Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy
POLITICAL PARTIES, GROWTH AND EQUALITY Given the increased openness of countries to international trade and financial flows, the general public and the scholarly literature have grown skeptical about the capacity of policymakers to affect economic performance. Challenging this view, Political Parties, Growth and Equality shows that an increasingly interde- pendent world economy and recent technological shocks have actually exacer- bated the dilemmas faced by governments in choosing among various policy objectives, such as generating jobs and reducing income inequality, thereby granting political parties and electoral politics a fundamental and growing role in the economy. To make growth and equality compatible, social democrats employ the public sector to raise the productivity of capital and labor. By con- trast, conservatives rely on the private provision of investment. Based on analysis of the economic policies of all OECD countries since the 1960s and in-depth examination of Britain and Spain in the 1980s, this book offers a new under- standing of how contemporary democracies work and reinvigorates the claim that they matter. CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS General Editor PETER LANGE Duke University Associate Editors ROBERT H. BATES Harvard University ELLENCOMISSO University of California, San Diego PETER HALL Harvard University JOELMIGDAL University of Washington HELEN MILNER Columbia University RONALD ROGO WSKI University of California, Los Angeles SIDNEY TARROW Cornell University OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES Catherine Boone, Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal, 1930- 1985 Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy Miriam Golden, Heroic Defeats: The Politics of Job Loss Frances Hagopian, Traditional Politics and Regime Change in Brazil J. 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Zuckerman, eds., Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, eds., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg Shugart, Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America (Continued on page 281) POLITICAL PARTIES, GROWTH AND EQUALITY Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy CARLES BOIX The Ohio State University H CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521584463 © Carles Boix 1998 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1998 A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Boix, Carles. Political parties, growth and equality : conservative and social democratic economic strategies in the world economy / Carles Boix. p. cm. — (Cambridge studies in comparative politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-58446-9 (hb) 0-521-58595-3 (pb) I. Political parties. 2. Economic policy. I. Title. II. Series. JF2011.b65 1998 324.2-dc21 97-27896 ISBN 978-0-521-58446-3 Hardback ISBN 978-0-521-58595-8 Paperback Transferred to digital printing 2010 Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter. A I'Alicia CONTENTS List of Tables and Figures page ix Preface xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Political Parties and the Structural Conditions of the Economy 16 3 Supply-Side Economic Strategies from a Comparative Perspective (I): Public Investment and the Formation of Human Capital 51 4 Supply-Side Economic Strategies from a Comparative Perspective (II): The Public Business Sector and Tax Strategies 82 5 The Social Democratic Project: Macroeconomic Stability and State Intervention in Spain 105 6 The Political and Electoral Dimensions of the PSOE’s Economic Strategy 130 7 Turning around the Postwar Consensus: Defining a Conservative Economic Framework in Britain 156 8 The Political and Electoral Dimensions of the Conservative Economic Strategy 180 9 Partisan Strategies and Electoral Coalitions 202 10 Conclusions 219 Notes 232 References 255 Index 271 vii
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