Papers by Kees van Kersbergen
Acta Politica
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Survival of the European Welfare State
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European Political Science, 2006
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The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe
Christian democracy is the heir to the Catholic confessional parties that emerged in the late nin... more Christian democracy is the heir to the Catholic confessional parties that emerged in the late nineteenth century. It is a Western European phenomenon promoting a particular social policy, aimed at the moderation of social conflicts especially between social classes. With a distinctive ideology and by appealing to religion and religious values, Christian democracy became broadly attractive to all sections of the electorate. Christian democracy was also a key driver of international cooperation and integration, and particularly influential in the formation of the European Union. Yet the overall picture of Christian democratic parties in recent decades has been one of decline. Secularization plays an obvious role here. That said, there is still some room for political movements to respond actively and strategically to changes in their environment. The chapter concludes by discussing some future options for these parties.
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The Changing Political Economies of Small West European Countries, 2012
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If there was ever a momentum for welfare state reform in the form of scaling back programs, it is... more If there was ever a momentum for welfare state reform in the form of scaling back programs, it is the (aftermath) of the financial crisis of 2008/2009; all theoretical perspectives within comparative welfare state research predict reform under this circumstance. Does this also happen? In this paper, we suggest that -at least so far -it does not. Focusing on a selection of advanced democracies (UK, US, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden), we find that these countries face similar problems (like rising unemployment) and that their response to these problems is rather similar, too. The latter is surprising given the theoretical expectation of variation across types of welfare state regimes. Theoretically puzzling as well is that, instead of retrenchment, these responses are typically (temporary) expansions. We propose that the public support for the welfare state is one of the main reasons for the lack of retrenchment. The two-way effect of public opinion and policy, with public...
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Party Politics, 2020
This article contributes to the literature on party appeals to social groups by introducing a new... more This article contributes to the literature on party appeals to social groups by introducing a new dataset on group and policy appeals in Scandinavia (2009–2015). In addition to coding to what social groups parties appeal, we collected information on what policies parties offer for the groups they mention and what goals and instruments they specify for such policies. The latter advance makes it possible to present new insights on the extent to which group appeals are actually substantial and meaningful. We find that left, centre and right parties appeal to broad demographic categories rather than class. There are almost no appeals to the middle class, although the frequent reference to a category ‘all’ can be interpreted as a functional equivalent for middle-class appeals. Finally, parties clearly still make substantial policy proposals and address concrete policy problems, but with only small differences in such appeals across the left–right spectrum.
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The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2020
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The Politics of Problem-Solving in Postwar Democracies, 1997
In the daily practice of politics and government in capitalist democracies there are probably no ... more In the daily practice of politics and government in capitalist democracies there are probably no seeds of turmoil more persistent than those that stem from socioeconomic conflicts of interests. In other words, all nations characterised by the mix of capitalist market relations and a democratic polity are predominantly engaged in the politics and policies of socioeconomic problem-solving. Nonetheless, some nations manage such contention and associated struggles more constructively than others, in terms of both policies pursued and policy performance.
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Social Policy Review 16Analysis and debate in social policy, 2004, 2004
... social rights and obligations), active labour market policies (social inclusion), and an ... ... more ... social rights and obligations), active labour market policies (social inclusion), and an ... 177 Christian democracy, social democracy institutional coordination between social protection and employment ... Christian democrats kept defending their own heritage, but the increasing ...
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Development, Opportunities, and Reform
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Journal of Social Policy, 2019
This article explores the moral politics of the welfare state and the social conflicts that under... more This article explores the moral politics of the welfare state and the social conflicts that underlie them. We argue that existing research on the moralism of redistributive and social policy preferences is overly one-dimensional, with a longstanding concentration on attitudes toward welfare state beneficiaries. To widen our understanding of the phenomenon, we introduce the concept of motive attribution: that is, how people answer the question “what drives others to take the positions that they hold?” Doing so allows us to shift the subject of moralistic attitudes, with a move toward uncovering what citizens think of those who hold a given social policy stance. The article then lays out a first systematic overview of motive attributions using an original dataset built from nationally representative surveys conducted in ten Western democracies. Comparing responses across these countries, we draw out important cross-national differences in ascribed motives, including within welfare sta...
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Papers by Kees van Kersbergen