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The Retreat of the Interventionist State in Advanced Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2017

Reimut Zohlnhöfer ,
Fabian Engler  and
Kathrin Dümig
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Abstract

Why have advanced democracies experienced a retreat of the interventionist state since 1980? This article provides evidence that in all relevant policy indicators (spending, subsidies, state-owned enterprises, regulation, capital taxation) government intervention has been scaled back across the OECD. An overview of the results of 130 quantitative studies analysing at least one of these indicators is provided. Focusing on five main explanatory variables – globalization, Europeanization, learning and emulation, socio-economic problems, and political parties – only limited agreement in the literature is found. The reasons for this disagreement are discussed. Ways forward are suggested for the theoretical models on which studies are based, how the dependent variable is chosen, the empirical approaches that may be applied, and how quantitative research and comparative case studies may be combined.

Keywords

government spendingprivatizationtaxationliberalizationsubsidiesglobalizationpolicy diffusionpartisan theory

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Type
Review Articles
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 535 - 562
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Germany (email: reimut.zohlnhoefer@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de); Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Germany (email: fabian.engler@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de); Ministry of Economic Affairs, Lower Saxony, Germany (email: kathrin.duemig@web.de). Online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi: 10.1017/S0007123416000454.

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