POSC
141: PUBLIC POLICY IN INDUSTRIALIZED DEMOCRACIES
Fall, 2003-2004
Duane Swank
Office 468/419
WWP
Office Hours: MW
2:30-4:00; Friday 10:00-2:00
Phone: 8-6211
E-mail: duane.swank@marquette.edu
INTRODUCTION
The
purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the cross‑national study
of public policies in the developed democracies of North America, Europe, and
Australasia. Substantively, the course will focus on two questions (and
arguably ones fundamentally important to the study of politics, economics, and
society). First, we will examine the question of why national governments of
the affluent, market-oriented democracies so often respond quite differently to
what are in essence similar policy problems (e.g., caring for the elderly,
providing health care, fighting unemployment and promoting economic growth,
protecting consumers and the environment). Second, we will seek to understand
why some countries are apparently much more successful than others in tackling
certain policy problems. In considering these fundamental questions, we will
focus to an extent on the political roots of differences in policies and
performance: how and why does the power of labor, business, and other organized
interests shape the development of public policies; how and why do political
institutions influence the character of national policy; how and why do ideas,
ideology, and cultural factors influence the nature of government intervention
in society and economy. Second, we will devote some time to analyzing how
fundamental changes in domestic social and economic structure (e.g., the aging
crisis, the emergence of the postindustrial economy) and globalization of the
economy influence contemporary patterns of public policy.
Because
of the vast range of topics that could be covered in a course such as this, two
limitations on the subject matter will be imposed. First, we will focus
primarily on the rich democracies (North America, Western Europe, Japan,
Australia and New Zealand). We will consider the less developed or newly
emergent capitalist democracies (e.g.,
on domestic politics and social and
economic policies.
As
to specifics, we will concentrate on the following topics:
Part I: Introduction: Markets or Governments, or Why Do We
Have Governments in the First Place?
Part II: The Social Security and Health of Nations:
Development and Crisis of the Social Welfare State
Part III: Retrenching the Welfare State: Can Social Programs
be Cut?
Part IV: Human Capital: An Overview of Education Policy in
Advanced Democracies.
Part V: The Politics of the Economy: Growth and Jobs.
Part VI: Globalization and Domestic Policies: Diminished
Democracy?
READINGS
A
large portion of the course’s reading assignments will come from four books.
These are available for purchase at the university bookstore. The remainder of the
readings will come largely in the form of class handout material (most from the
book-in-progress, Duane Swank, Public Policy in Developed Democracies:
Achieving Equity and Efficiency in a Global Economy)
Jessica Adolino
and Charles Blake. Comparing Public Policies: Issues and Choices in Six
Industrialized Countries. CQ Press, 2001.
Laurene Graig. Health
of Nations: An International Perspective on US Health Care Reform. (3rd Edition). CQ Press, 1999.
Paul
Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State: Reagan, Thatcher, and the
Politics of Retrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
David
Vogel. Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental
Regulation in a Global Economy.
GRADING
Grades
will be based on three exams — two hourly exams and a final — and a research
paper. Each of the exams will consist of a series of essay questions covering
required readings and class materials; you will be asked to select three
questions for the hourly exams and four
POSC141: Public Policy in Industrialized
Democracies Duane
Swank
questions for the final from a larger list of
questions. (The final exam will stress material since the second hourly exam.)
The research paper will address one of two core questions: (1) why have nations
adopted different policies in response to a specific, commonly experienced
policy problem or (2) why have nations varied in their success in combating a
specific, commonly experienced policy problem. A paper prospectus
describing the policy problem; outlining the research focus, time frame, and
countries, and including a preliminary bibliography, is due October 22.
The final paper is due December 5. (I will provide more details
on this assignment in a special handout.) Class attendance is required, subject
of course to a limited number of absences for sickness, family commitments, and
the like; students are expected to actively participate in class. The
elements of the final grade are weighted as follows:
Hourly Exam I: 20 % Hourly
Exam II: 20
%
Paper Prospectus: 10 % Final
Paper 25
%
Final Exam: 25 %
READING
ASSIGNMENTS
Part I:
Introduction: Markets of Governments?
August 25:
Course Introduction
-
syllabus distribution, course overview (no required
reading)
August 27: No
Class (reading day - instructor at Annual Meeting of the APSA)
-
Class HO Reading: “The Rationales for Government Intervention”
-
Chapter 1 in Adolino and Blake
September 1:
Labor Day Holiday
September 3:
Perspectives on Markets and Government
-
begin Chapters 2 and 3 in Adolino and Blake
Recommended
for future reading: Charles Wolf, Markets or
Governments: Choosing Between Imperfect Alternatives. (Wolf’s book
provides a good introduction to “theories of market failures” as rationales for
the public sector intervention in the private market and society. It also
offers a “theory of government
failure” that embodies quite a bit of contemporary neoconservative thinking on
why big government might be as bad as feeble markets in meeting society’s
needs. For a critical perspective on these neoconservative ideas, and on Reaganism and Thatcherism specifically, see Peter Self, Government
by the Market: The Politics of Public Choice
(Westview Press, 1993). For a classic on markets versus governments in meeting
societies needs, see Charles Lindblom, Politics
verses Markets (Basic Books, 1977).
September 8:
Government Responses to Public Policy Problems: The Policy Process and Theories
of Policy Making.
-
Finish Chapters 2 and 3 of Adolino and Blake
Part II: The Social Security and Health of
Nations
September 10:
How Did We Get Here? The Development and Crisis of the Social Welfare State
- Class HO Reading: “The Origins of Cross-National
Variations in Social Security and Welfare”
-
Ch. 9, “Social Policy,” in Adolino and Blake
There
are many excellent treatments of the development of social insurance and
welfare programs. Perhaps most
useful are: Esping-Andersen’s Three Worlds of
Welfare Capitalism (London: Polity Press, 1990); John Myles, Old
Age and the Welfare State (University of Kansas Press, 1989); Peter
Flora and Arnold Heidenheimer, The Development
of Welfare States in Europe and America (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1981),
Peter Baldwin, The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Basis of the
European Welfare State (New York: Cambridge U. Press, 1990), John
Williamson and Fred Pampel Old-Age Security in
Comparative Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), and
Alex Hicks, Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1999).
September 15-29:
More on Development and Crisis: A Case Study on the Health of Nations
-
September 15: Introduction
-
Ch. 1 in Graig
-
Ch. 8 in Adolino and Blake
-
September 17: The Development and Crisis of the US Health Care System
-
Ch. 2 in Graig
-
September 22: National Social Insurance in Continental Europe
-
Ch. 3 in Craig (and Ch. 4 strongly recommended)
-
September 24: The National Health System in Britain (with comparisons to
Canada)
-
Chs. 7 (UK) and 6 (Canada) in Graig
-
September 29: The Future of Security and Health in the Rich Democracies
-
Ch. 8 in Graig
POSC141: Public Policy in Industrialized
Democracies Duane
Swank
For
an encompassing overview of how contemporary demographic changes, health care
costs, and economic performance problems (e.g., unemployment) places pressures
on the ability of governments to fund social protection in Europe and all the
developed democracies, see among many other recent excellent treatments, Vic
George and Peter Taylor-Gooby, European Welfare
Policy (Policy Press). For more details on the demographic “crisis” of
the welfare state, see OECD, Maintaining Prosperity in an Ageing Society
(OECD, 1998); Peter G Peterson, Gray Dawn (NY: Times Books,
1999).
October 1: Who
Gets What? Distributional Consequences of Social Policies
-
Class HO reading: “Who Gets What: Material Inequalities and Redistribution
For
more data, bibliography, and analysis of income inequality and poverty in the
advanced market-oriented democracies are the OECD’s, Income Distribution
in OECD Countries (Paris, OECD, 1995) and Michael Förster,
“Trends and Driving Factors in Income Distribution and Poverty in the OECD Area.”
Labour
Market and Social Policy - Occasional Paper #42 (Paris, OECD, 2000).
October 6: Hourly
Exam I
Part III: Dismantling the Welfare State?
October 8-20:
The Politics of Welfare State Retrenchment
-
October 8: Chs. 1 and (begin 2) of Pierson, Dismantling
the Welfare State
-
October 13: Chs. (Finish) 2 and 3 of Pierson, Dismantling
the Welfare State
-
October 15: Chs. 4-5 of l
Pierson, Dismantling
the Welfare State
-
October 20: Chs. 6-7 of Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State
For
additional analysis of the politics and economics of “dismantling the welfare
state,” see Gosta Esping-Andersen
ed., Welfare States in Transition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1996), Evelyne Huber and John Stephens, The
Development and Crisis of the Welfare State (Chicago University Press,
2001), and Paul Pierson, ed. The New Politics of the
Welfare State (
Part IV: Human Capital: An Overview of
Educational Policy in Advanced Democracies.
October 22/27:
The Politics of Education Policy
-
Ch. 10, “Education Policy,” in Adolino and Blake
-
Class HO Reading: “An Overview of Educational Policy Problems and Reforms”
October 22: Paper
prospectus due
POSC141: Public Policy in Industrialized
Democracies Duane
Swank
Many
of the debates and political conflicts in education policy revolve around the
issues of comprehensive versus tripartite (or otherwise selective) school
systems and market-based “choice” systems versus public school systems.
Particularly useful surveys of these issues are, repectively,
Achim Leschinsky and Karl
Ulrich Mayer, eds., The Comprehensive School Experiment Revisted: Evidence from Western Europe (Frankurt am Main: Verlag Peter
Lang, 1990) and OECD, School: A Matter of Choice (Paris: OECD,
1994) and Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd, When
Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000).
For bibliography and analysis of education, human capital, and
economic performance, see OECD, The Well-being of Nations (
Part V: The Politics of the Economy: Growth
and Jobs
October 29:
Contemporary Problems of Economic Performance and Economic Policies
-
Class HO Reading: “Economic
Performance Problems and Policies in the Advanced Market Economies”
-
Ch. 7 in Adolino and Blake (Ch. 6 recommended)
Recommended:
Good, non-technical introductions to the economic performance problems of the
advanced market-economies since the mid-1970s can be found in Hui-Liang Tsai, Energy Shocks and the World Economy
(New York: Prentice Hall, 1989), OECD, The Jobs Study, Volumes I-V
(Paris: OECD, 1994-96), and the OECD’s periodical, Economic Outlook.
For more on economic theory, policies, and politics of the economy, see Robert Franzese, Macroeconomic Policies in the Developed
Democracies (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
November 3:
“Varieties of Capitalism:” How Different Economic Systems Cope
..”
-
Class HO Reading: “Managing Economic Performance in Competing Models..”
Good
supplemental discussions of the structure and policies of liberal market
economies, sector-coordinated market economies, and social corporatist systems
can be found in (the somewhat advanced) Colin Crouch and Wolfgang Streek, The Political Economy of Contemporary
Capitalism (Sage, 1997), Herbert Kitschelt,
Gary Marks, Peter Lange, and John Stephens, Change and Continuity in
Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 1999), and Peter
Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism (NY: Oxford University
Press 2001).
November 5:
Second Hourly Exam
Part VI: Globalization and Domestic Policies:
Diminished Democracy?
November 10:
Globalization and the Welfare State
-
Class HO Reading: International Economic Integration and Domestic Policy
Autonomy
-
Duane Swank, “Social Democratic Welfare States in a Global Economy: Scandinavia
in Comparative Perspective,” In Rober Geyer,
Christine Ingrebritsen, and Jonathon Moses, eds., Globalization,
Europeanization, and the End of Scandinavian Social Democracy? (Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 1999). (LR)
November
12-December 3: Internationalization, Regional Integration, and Environmental
Protection
- November 12: - Ch.
11, “Environmental Policy,” in Adolino and Blake
- November 17 - Ch. 1 in Vogel, Trading
Up (begin Chs. 2-3)
- November 19: - Chs. 2- 3 in Vogel, Trading Up
- November 24 - Chs. 4-5 in Vogel, Trading Up
- November 26 -
first day of Thanksgiving Holiday break
- December 1: - Chs. 6-8 in Vogel, Trading Up
The
literature on globalization and domestic policies is large. For conventional
statements of the globalization thesis that democratic governments are losing
their ability to pursue their preferred policies, see Richard McKenzie and
Dwight Lee, Quicksilver Capital: How the Rapid Movement of Wealth Has
Changed the World (Free Press, 1991), Ramesh Mishra, Globalization and the Welfare State
(Edward Elgar 1999), William Grieder,
One World, Ready or Not (Simon and Schuster, 1997). For
accessible and critical reflections on the globalization thesis, see George Soros, On Globalization (.....) and Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents
(NY: W.W. Norton, 2002). Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache,
States Against Markets: The Limits of
Globalization (Routledge, 1996) and Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization
in Question (Polity Press, 1996). On the process of Europeanization and
domestic policy, see Paul Pierson and Stephan Leibfried,
European Social Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1996). For
extensive treatments of many issues connected to the domestic impacts of
globalization, see Robert Keohane and Helen Milner
eds., Internationalization and Domestic Politics (New York;
Cambridge University Press, 1996), Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, National Diversity and Global Capitalism
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), and Duane Swank, Global
Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States
(NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
December 3:
Summing Up
Research
Papers Due
(December 5)
Final
Exam (Monday, December
8,