Stefano Ronchi | European University Institute (original) (raw)

Articles by Stefano Ronchi

South European Society and Politics, 2019

Although austerity carried the day in crisis-ridden Southern Europe, expansionary welfare measure... more Although austerity carried the day in crisis-ridden Southern Europe, expansionary welfare measures also emerged alongside retrenchment in countries where left-leaning coalitions were in government and anti-establishment parties on the rise. By focusing on the case of Italy (2013–2018), this article investigates the political dynamics that favoured expansionary welfare measures under austerity. We triangulate qualitative and quantitative evidence and show that, constrained by EU conditionality abroad, the reform agenda of the Italian centre-left first sought the support of middle- and upper-class constituencies at home. However, the deteriorating social situation, the divide that emerged within the centre-left under the leadership of Matteo Renzi, and the rise of the pro-welfare Five Star Movement reshuffled the social policy priorities of the centre-left.

Journal of Social Policy, 2018

The social investment approach has been advocated as a blueprint for recasting European welfare s... more The social investment approach has been advocated as a blueprint for recasting European welfare states since the years of the Lisbon Strategy. After the Euro crisis squeezed the fiscal space available for welfare recalibration, the question has been raised as to whether social investment could withstand the economic turmoil. Relying on a new welfare expenditure dataset constructed from various Eurostat sources, this article looks at the budgetary recalibration of 27 EU welfare states from the launch of the Lisbon Strategy to the aftermath of the Euro crisis (2000 to 2014). It compares the financial efforts that governments have put into social investment- and social protection-oriented policies, highlighting the different trajectories taken by EU welfare states at the crisis crossroads. Four scenarios for welfare recalibration are put forward, based on the social investment perspective and its critiques. The results show that the overall progress made by social investment in welfare budgets since 2000 came to a halt with the outbreak of the crisis. Bleaker scenarios materialised, whereas EU welfare states pursued retrenchment rather than investment, or had to face harsher budgetary trade-offs, expanding social investment to the detriment of social protection.

Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while som... more Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while some studies find corruption to be positively related to turnout, others report a negative relationship. This article argues that the relevant question is not whether corruption has a positive or negative effect on turnout, but for whom. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on the likelihood to vote depends on individuals’ employment sector. Public employees have different incentives to vote in corrupt settings since their jobs often depend on the political success of the government of the day. Hence, while corruption dampens turnout among ordinary citizens, public employees are more likely to vote in highly corrupt countries. Analysis of World Values Survey data from 44 countries, shows that the differential in voting propensity between public employees and other citizens gets larger as corruption increases, partially confirming our expectations.

Papers by Stefano Ronchi

International Political Science Review

Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while som... more Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while some studies find corruption to be positively related to turnout, others report a negative relationship. This article argues that the relevant question is not whether corruption has a positive or negative effect on turnout, but for whom. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on the likelihood to vote depends on individuals’ employment sector. Public employees have different incentives to vote in corrupt settings since their jobs often depend on the political success of the government of the day. Hence, while corruption dampens turnout among ordinary citizens, public employees are more likely to vote in highly corrupt countries. Analysis of World Values Survey data from 44 countries, shows that the differential in voting propensity between public employees and other citizens gets larger as corruption increases, partially confirming our expectations.

GK SOCLIFE Working Paper Series, WP 17- 2016, 2016

The social investment perspective has become a reference framework for comparative welfare state ... more The social investment perspective has become a reference framework for comparative welfare state analysis, and a powerful idea influencing the European social dimension since the Lisbon Strategy. A number of empirical studies in the field have focused on the budgetary side of welfare state change, tracking the dynamics of “new” social investment versus “old” social protection spending. Still, many data limitations (e.g. scarce country/years coverage) and the prevailing use of rough spending-over-the-GDP indicators have hindered the progress of our empirical knowledge over social investment in Europe. This working paper presents a new data set and methodology for the comparative analysis of welfare state budgets from the perspective of social investment. Based on various Eurostat data sources, the Social Investment Welfare Expenditure data set (SIWE) includes social spending data finely disaggregated into welfare functions for 29 countries (EU-28 less Croatia, plus Norway and Switzerland), and covers years from 1995 to 2014. Building on previous contributions, I develop a new methodology for measuring “budgetary welfare effort” (BWE), that
is, the effort effectively put by governments on selected welfare programmes, net of the interferences due to economic and demographic oscillations. I also construct two composite BWE indices that allow to directly compare the whole social investment and social protection dimensions of welfare state budgets. This provides researchers with a fresh tool for empirical analyses of the dynamics, causes and consequences of welfare state change from the perspective of social investment. The SIWE data set can be requested from the author’s web page.

South European Society and Politics, 2019

Although austerity carried the day in crisis-ridden Southern Europe, expansionary welfare measure... more Although austerity carried the day in crisis-ridden Southern Europe, expansionary welfare measures also emerged alongside retrenchment in countries where left-leaning coalitions were in government and anti-establishment parties on the rise. By focusing on the case of Italy (2013–2018), this article investigates the political dynamics that favoured expansionary welfare measures under austerity. We triangulate qualitative and quantitative evidence and show that, constrained by EU conditionality abroad, the reform agenda of the Italian centre-left first sought the support of middle- and upper-class constituencies at home. However, the deteriorating social situation, the divide that emerged within the centre-left under the leadership of Matteo Renzi, and the rise of the pro-welfare Five Star Movement reshuffled the social policy priorities of the centre-left.

Journal of Social Policy, 2018

The social investment approach has been advocated as a blueprint for recasting European welfare s... more The social investment approach has been advocated as a blueprint for recasting European welfare states since the years of the Lisbon Strategy. After the Euro crisis squeezed the fiscal space available for welfare recalibration, the question has been raised as to whether social investment could withstand the economic turmoil. Relying on a new welfare expenditure dataset constructed from various Eurostat sources, this article looks at the budgetary recalibration of 27 EU welfare states from the launch of the Lisbon Strategy to the aftermath of the Euro crisis (2000 to 2014). It compares the financial efforts that governments have put into social investment- and social protection-oriented policies, highlighting the different trajectories taken by EU welfare states at the crisis crossroads. Four scenarios for welfare recalibration are put forward, based on the social investment perspective and its critiques. The results show that the overall progress made by social investment in welfare budgets since 2000 came to a halt with the outbreak of the crisis. Bleaker scenarios materialised, whereas EU welfare states pursued retrenchment rather than investment, or had to face harsher budgetary trade-offs, expanding social investment to the detriment of social protection.

Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while som... more Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while some studies find corruption to be positively related to turnout, others report a negative relationship. This article argues that the relevant question is not whether corruption has a positive or negative effect on turnout, but for whom. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on the likelihood to vote depends on individuals’ employment sector. Public employees have different incentives to vote in corrupt settings since their jobs often depend on the political success of the government of the day. Hence, while corruption dampens turnout among ordinary citizens, public employees are more likely to vote in highly corrupt countries. Analysis of World Values Survey data from 44 countries, shows that the differential in voting propensity between public employees and other citizens gets larger as corruption increases, partially confirming our expectations.

International Political Science Review

Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while som... more Research on the link between turnout and corruption has produced inconclusive evidence: while some studies find corruption to be positively related to turnout, others report a negative relationship. This article argues that the relevant question is not whether corruption has a positive or negative effect on turnout, but for whom. We hypothesize that the effect of corruption on the likelihood to vote depends on individuals’ employment sector. Public employees have different incentives to vote in corrupt settings since their jobs often depend on the political success of the government of the day. Hence, while corruption dampens turnout among ordinary citizens, public employees are more likely to vote in highly corrupt countries. Analysis of World Values Survey data from 44 countries, shows that the differential in voting propensity between public employees and other citizens gets larger as corruption increases, partially confirming our expectations.

GK SOCLIFE Working Paper Series, WP 17- 2016, 2016

The social investment perspective has become a reference framework for comparative welfare state ... more The social investment perspective has become a reference framework for comparative welfare state analysis, and a powerful idea influencing the European social dimension since the Lisbon Strategy. A number of empirical studies in the field have focused on the budgetary side of welfare state change, tracking the dynamics of “new” social investment versus “old” social protection spending. Still, many data limitations (e.g. scarce country/years coverage) and the prevailing use of rough spending-over-the-GDP indicators have hindered the progress of our empirical knowledge over social investment in Europe. This working paper presents a new data set and methodology for the comparative analysis of welfare state budgets from the perspective of social investment. Based on various Eurostat data sources, the Social Investment Welfare Expenditure data set (SIWE) includes social spending data finely disaggregated into welfare functions for 29 countries (EU-28 less Croatia, plus Norway and Switzerland), and covers years from 1995 to 2014. Building on previous contributions, I develop a new methodology for measuring “budgetary welfare effort” (BWE), that
is, the effort effectively put by governments on selected welfare programmes, net of the interferences due to economic and demographic oscillations. I also construct two composite BWE indices that allow to directly compare the whole social investment and social protection dimensions of welfare state budgets. This provides researchers with a fresh tool for empirical analyses of the dynamics, causes and consequences of welfare state change from the perspective of social investment. The SIWE data set can be requested from the author’s web page.