Mickael Melki

When Democratization Turns into an “Empty Promise”. Evidence from the Birth of the Welfare State

The emergence of social insurance programs in Europe at the end of the 19th century laid the foundations of the welfare state. This coincided with an unprecedented wave of democratization, including the expansion of the voting franchise and the formation of political parties. We provide new evidence supporting that a stable party system, by extending governments’ time horizon and enhancing coordination capacity, is a crucial condition for suffrage expansion to lead to large-scale redistributive programs. We exploit the staggered lifting of economic restrictions on the male franchise in Western European countries, as well as a novel dataset on party stability since the early 19th century. Our findings shed light on an important puzzle regarding the absence of systematic redistribution observed after democratization.