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- Knotz, Carlo Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Coalitions and Compensation: The Case of Unemployment Benefit Duration
- 2015
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Ingår i: Comparative Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1552-3829 .- 0010-4140. ; 48:5, s. 586-615
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines unemployment benefit reforms in twenty-five advanced democracies between the middle of the 1980s and the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. The paper’s main argument is that the type of government – coalition or single-party – has an effect on whether cutbacks in social benefits are combined with compensating measures that mitigate the negative effects of the cuts. We show empirically that when cuts in unemployment benefit duration were made by coalition governments, spending on training programs tended to increase, but when cuts in duration were made by single-party governments, training spending tended to decrease. This pattern suggests that coalition governments, but not single-party governments, use compensation mechanisms to build political support for labor market reforms.
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| 2. |
- Knotz, Carlo Michael
(författare)
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Getting Tough on Unemployment : Essays on the politics of unemployment benefit reform in affluent democracies
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The advanced democracies of Europe, North America, and Australasia have gotten tough on unemployment. Since the mid- to late-1970s, they started to put greater pressure on the unemployed by reducing the time for which unemployment benefits were paid, by imposing stricter job-search requirements, by extending the range of jobs considered suitable for claimants, and by tightening the penalties for non-compliance with these rules. This dissertation addresses several important gaps in the existing research on the politics of these ‘demanding’ reforms. It overcomes a key limitation of previous research, the lack of systematic comparative data, by drawing on two novel datasets on demanding unemployment benefit reforms. Four essays provide novel insights about the changes that have been introduced, about the determinants of voter attitudes, and about the roles of economic conditions and the type of government. The first paper shows that, while the unemployed are indeed under greater pressure to seek and accept work, this has not led to a complete erosion of claimant rights. Not only are many rules and provisions now formulated more precisely, making enforcement more predictable, but some protective provisions have actually been strengthened. The second paper shows that tighter sanctions are introduced in order to address the concerns of voters about overspending on social protection in austere times. The third paper shows that politically weak governments tend to compensate those who are hurt by demanding reforms by expanding labor market training programs, while this is not the case for governments who are in a stronger position. The fourth and final paper shows that the attitudes of voters toward demanding reforms are driven by different considerations, depending on whether such reforms are being introduced or not.
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| 3. |
- Knotz, Carlo Michael
(författare)
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Measuring the 'New Balance of Rights and Responsibilities' in Labor Market Policy A quantitative overview of activation strategies in 20 OECD countries
- 2012
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Labor market policies have been re-configured during the ´activation turn' in labor market policy-making in the 1990s. This included restricting behavioral requirements for job seekers and benefit claimants, but also improving services (e.g. better placement services). In a nutshell, the `rights and responsibilities' of jobseekers and labor market participants were re-balanced. To date, there is only scarce data that could capture this in a quantitative way. This paper sets out to fill this gap. Using a number of quantitative indicators for 20 core OECD countries, it is shown what instruments countries use and how they balance instruments that either enforce labor market participation or enable to participate. It is shown that countries are overall rather similar with regard to the degree of enforcement (responsibilities), but differ with regard to the support (rights) they offer. Despite similarities and regime cross-cutting differences, three `worlds of activation' can be distinguished.
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