Explaining Success and Failure in Welfare Policy Changes in Europe: Governance, Trust and Legitimacy

CPS Research Fellow Attila Bartha has recently published an article in the International Journal of Arts & Sciences.

The global financial crisis and the subsequent Euro area debt crisis have led to new political challenges for the European Union, especially in the domain of welfare policies. This paper analyzes the effects of political institutions and societal preferences on the crisis management reactions of political elites in the more vulnerable EU member states. It explores two typical mechanisms diverting the democratic procedures from their usual stream, mainly in Southern and Central-Eastern European countries: an increasing delegation of power to non-elected economic policy experts and the strengthening of populist political leaders. The causal explanation reveals that the most important factors of the legitimacy of the political elites' crisis management reactions are the trust of citizens in political institutions, the intensity of political polarization and the attitudes of citizens towards welfare entitlements.

Keywords: Legitimacy, Polarization, Politics of crisis management, Trust in political institutions, Welfare policy.

Available at: http://universitypublications.net/ijas/0604/pdf/T3N382.pdf

International Journal of Arts and Sciences (CD) (ISSN: 1944-6934) 6: (4) pp. 287-302. (2013)