Opening the Window for Reform

Under what conditions are governments within established democratic political systems willing and able to launch ambitious reform programs? In other words, what conjunctural factors generally serve to open the “window” for reform? The central argument of this article is that extraordinary policy-making generally becomes possible only when a macro-window is opened by a government's achievement of an impressive mandate and/or by the onset of a severe socioeconomic crisis. The mandate-reform hypothesis is tested with data from Britain, France, and the United States, then the significance of both mandates and crises is demonstrated through an analysis of eight “reform government” case studies ranging from the New Deal to Thatcher's Britain.