Abstract
The concept of “politically limited pluralism” (PLP) was developed well before the onset of the fiscal and economic crisis for describing the common denominator of the “European” Welfare Systems [Hegelich and Schubert (The handbook of European welfare systems. Routledge, 2009)]. This contribution examines to what extent the concept is fruitful also in times of severe crisis. The following considerations are based on the Eurostat COFOG-dataset. The results show that and how far PLP is a convincing theoretical concept. Moreover, parallels to punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) can be discovered.
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Notes
- 1.
For an analysis of European labour politics with PLP and some critical remarks see Schulze Buschoff (2011).
- 2.
To analyse these differences might be an innovative way, too.
- 3.
Ferreiro et al. give a good overview of the distributions of the main COFOG classifications (Ferreiro et al. 2013, p. 809). Here it can be seen that social protection is the function with the highest share of total public expenditures, but it has the highest level of diversity—measured by the IQR—as well.
- 4.
Measurement is million euros without inflation adjustment.
- 5.
Neither we nor Wagschal and Wenzelburger implied statistical tests, due to the small number of cases, especially if separated into four categories. Nevertheless, it would be a very interesting task to test the punctuated equilibrium thesis—which would fit with PLP assumptions—against the “three worlds of welfare” hypothesis.
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Hegelich, S. (2016). Politically Limited Pluralism: How European Welfare Systems Deal with the Crisis. In: Schubert, K., de Villota, P., Kuhlmann, J. (eds) Challenges to European Welfare Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07680-5_35
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