Partisan government in social and labour market policy reform: A systematic review of 60 years of research

Although partisanship is considered a key driver of welfare state reform, its extent and direction of impact remains subject to debate. When purely viewed from a left–right ideological perspective, previous findings can be compartmentalised into classical partisanship, reverse partisanship, and no partisan impact. This study systematically reviews 266 macro-comparative studies published from 1963 to 2023 on social and labour market policy (LMP) reforms, finding that 48% support classical partisanship, 35% find no partisan impact, and 7% indicate reverse partisanship. A subsequent meta-analysis of 489 partisan estimates from 85 studies on active and passive LMPs reveals that null results dominate at the model-level and increase over time. Furthermore, meta-regressions confirm that social rights measures and bidirectional partisan variables, which capture both ends of the left-right spectrum, yield significantly more consistent results than expenditure-based or unidirectional partisan measures. These findings highlight the need for more refined conceptualisation and measurement of both the welfare state and political ideology in comparative social policy research. Future research should strive to emancipate itself from conventional models and instead apply empirical strategies that are capable of identifying dynamics stipulated in modern theoretical frameworks.