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Economics

Welfare State Retrenchment and the Politics of Blame Avoidance

Quick fact

Institutional design matters: welfare states with fragmented power structures, such as those with strong bicameralism or federalism, are often more resilient to retrenchment because they offer more veto points, whereas centralized systems allow bolder but still strategically disguised cuts.

Why this is interesting

You might assume that cutting welfare programs would be politically suicidal, yet governments do it all the time. How do they escape the electoral backlash?