TY - JOUR
T1 - Preferences for growth strategies in advanced democracies
T2 - A new ‘representation gap’?
AU - Baccaro, Lucio
AU - Bremer, Björn
AU - Neimanns, Erik
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors. European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research.
PY - 2024/5/10
Y1 - 2024/5/10
N2 - While research on the economic characteristics of growth models across countries is now extensive, research on their politics is in its infancy, even though governments routinely pursue different strategies to generate growth. In particular, we lack evidence on (1) whether citizens have coherent preferences towards growth strategies, (2) what growth strategies citizens prefer and (3) what shapes their preferences. We address these questions through a new survey of public opinion in Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, which exemplify different economic models. We find that preferences for growth strategies are consistent with other policy preferences and are meaningfully structured by class, retirement status, and to a lesser extent, sector of employment. At the same time, differences across class and sector are small, and a large majority of respondents across countries favour wage-led growth. This hints at a possible ‘representation gap’ since this growth strategy is in crisis everywhere.
AB - While research on the economic characteristics of growth models across countries is now extensive, research on their politics is in its infancy, even though governments routinely pursue different strategies to generate growth. In particular, we lack evidence on (1) whether citizens have coherent preferences towards growth strategies, (2) what growth strategies citizens prefer and (3) what shapes their preferences. We address these questions through a new survey of public opinion in Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, which exemplify different economic models. We find that preferences for growth strategies are consistent with other policy preferences and are meaningfully structured by class, retirement status, and to a lesser extent, sector of employment. At the same time, differences across class and sector are small, and a large majority of respondents across countries favour wage-led growth. This hints at a possible ‘representation gap’ since this growth strategy is in crisis everywhere.
KW - comparative capitalism
KW - economic growth
KW - growth models
KW - macroeconomic policies
KW - public opinion
KW - unequal representation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85192775801&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1475-6765.12686
DO - 10.1111/1475-6765.12686
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85192775801
SN - 0304-4130
JO - European Journal of Political Research
JF - European Journal of Political Research
ER -