Governing for the Long Term: Democracy and the Politics of Investment
Cambridge University Press, 3/31/2011
EAN 9780521195850, ISBN10: 0521195853
Hardcover, 320 pages, 23.6 x 16.5 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
In Governing for the Long Term, Alan M. Jacobs investigates the conditions under which elected governments invest in long-term social benefits at short-term social cost. Jacobs contends that, along the path to adoption, investment-oriented policies must surmount three distinct hurdles to future-oriented state action: a problem of electoral risk, rooted in the scarcity of voter attention; a problem of prediction, deriving from the complexity of long-term policy effects; and a problem of institutional capacity, arising from interest groups' preferences for distributive gains over intertemporal bargains. Testing this argument through a four-country historical analysis of pension policymaking, the book illuminates crucial differences between the causal logics of distributive and intertemporal politics and makes a case for bringing trade-offs over time to the center of the study of policymaking.
Part I. Problem and Theory
1. The politics of when
2. Theorizing intertemporal policy choice
Part II. Programmatic Origins
Intertemporal Choice in Pension Design
3. Investing in the state
the origins of German pensions, 1889
4. The politics of mistrust
the origins of British pensions, 1925
5. Investments as political constraint
the origins of US pensions, 1935
6. Investing for the short term
the origins of Canadian pensions, 1965
Part III. Programmatic Change
Intertemporal Choice in Pension Reform
7. Investment as last resort
reforming US pensions, 1977 and 1983
8. Shifting the long-run burden
reforming British pensions, 1986
9. Committing to investment
reforming Canadian pensions, 1998
10. Constrained by uncertainty
reforming German pensions, 1989 and 2001
Part IV. Conclusion
11. Understanding the politics of the long term.