福利国家政党何时会推行不符合传统党派路线的福利改革?--党派政治和前景理论的解释

When do Parties Pursue Welfare Reforms off Traditional Partisan Lines:An Account Based on Partisan Politics and Prospect Theory

后工业时代的社会变迁给西方福利国家制度带来了巨大挑战,福利改革在近十年中受到了西方公共政策学界越来越多的讨论。研究利用多元回归和模糊集定性比较分析,将党派理论和前景理论整合到福利改革的现有研究框架中,讨论了福利国家中左右翼政党分别在什么情况下会推行传统上与其党派路线相反的福利改革。研究发现:一方面,社会福利的支持者往往更偏好左翼政党,这暗示了左翼坚持其传统的扩张性福利政策的理性动机。另一方面,扩张性福利改革有两条发生路径。一是为回应其支持者的社会福利需求,大多数左翼权力主导的政府均推行了扩张性社会政策;但个别情况下受到“第三条道路”限制,左翼政府推出了与左翼传统相反的紧缩性福利改革。二是当执政党政治地位提高且政府任内的不良经济状况带来选票流失预期时,政府社会福利开支的扩张也会发生,这表明右翼和中间派政府为回应选民的不满情绪而采取了不符合右翼传统的扩张性福利改革。

As the challenges in post-industria society called for retrenchment of the welfare state,welfare reform has drawn increasing scholarly attention in the public policy literature.The present study examined when left-wing and right-wing parties in welfare states pursued welfare reforms that deviated from their traditional lines,and tried to incorporate the partisan theory and prospect theory into the existing theoretical framework of welfare reform research.Employing mixed methods of multiple regression modelling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA)to investigate the research questions,the analyses yielded meaningful findings.First,the supporters of social welfare tended to hold a leftist preference;this indicated a rational motive that drove the left-wing parties to insist on their traditionally expansionary social policy.Second,there were two separate routes through which expansionary welfare reform occurred.One was that the governments with strong left power adopted the expansionary social policy in response to the constituencies’demands for social welfare;in some cases it was restricted by“the third way”,and through this way,leftist governments promoted welfare retrenchment that went off their traditional partisan lines.Through another route,the governments would only like to expand the expenditure on social welfare when the political power of incumbent parties increased and meanwhile they faced a deteriorating socio-economic situation which brought about a foreseeable loss of electoral support-this typified a way for the right-wing and centrist governments to respond to the dissatisfaction of voters by embracing welfare reforms off their traditional partisan lines.