** Please note: Those planning to attend events in this series should read the paper that will be posted on the CES website before the seminar.**
Speaker:
Ellen Immergut – Professor of Political Science, European University Institute
Discussant:
Katja Möhring – Assistant Professor for Sociology of the Welfare State, University of Mannheim, Germany; Visiting Scholar, CES, Harvard University
This paper investigates the impact of electoral competition on parties' willingness to recalibrate public pension programs. We argue that as electoral competition becomes more intense, electoral incentives require parties to emphasize vote maximization be more than their traditional policy goals. For left-of-center governments this means targeting progressive socio-cultural professionals over their traditional blue-collar clientele, while right-of center governments should focus on appeals to culturally conservative working class voters over their fiscally conservative core constituency.