Growth Models and the Role of Government Coalition Making

Erik Neimanns

Over the last decades, comparative political economy has paid limited attention to the political determinants of macroeconomic policy. However, emerging research on growth models in the post-Keynesian era demonstrates how different emphases on exports or aggregate demand are associated with distinct patterns of social inequality and economic instability. Focusing on individual voters’ preferences towards macroeconomic policies and on the role of government partisanship, the project examines the room for maneuver political parties have in shaping growth models. Do individuals who are economically disadvantaged under a given growth model demand change in macroeconomic policies, and do these preferences translate into voting behavior? To what extent are the macroeconomic preferences of economically disadvantaged individuals represented in government policy-making, and to what extent do the political-economic constraints imposed by liberalized market economies bind governments to maintain the status quo? The project uses a quantitative research design applying regression analyses of macroeconomic indicators, partisan composition of governments, voting behavior, and individual-level preferences towards macroeconomic policies for the industrialized Western countries from the 1970s onwards.