Political Resources and the Growth of Welfare in Affluent Capitalist Democracies, 1960-1982

Explanations of welfare effort in affluent postwar democracies are partially integrated within a "political resource" framework. Political resource models of welfare effort fare well when tested with pooled time-series data for 1960-82. Use of governmental authority by the left, use of disruption by the working class and the petty burgeois, and use of lobbying, voting, and/or entitlement rights by the elderly and the unemployed constitute means of political action. Among more diffusely available "infraresources," state revenue expansion, economic growth, and inflation appear to buoy welfre expansion, as do left corporatism and "bureaucratic paternalism." Some mediating effects of economic epoch and state structure are explored.