The Long-Term Electoral Consequences of Unpopular Reforms: Why Welfare State Retrenchment Really Is a Losing Game for Leftist Parties

In the discussion about the electoral malaise of the Left and whether unpopular reforms are to blame, the focus thus far has been on the short-term consequences of retrenchment. We track the electoral performance of parties over five elections, arguing that the asymmetric long-term electoral costs of retrenchment for leftist and rightist governments constitute the real tragedy of social democratic responsibility. Leftist cabinets suffer permanent electoral damage from retrenchment since the support for the welfare state among leftist voters is less conditional than among rightist voters, whose support depends more on the perceived costs of welfare. This, we argue, is why rightist parties yield the economic fruits of their reform labour, whereas leftist parties struggle to claim credit for a positive economic legacy. Descriptive and causal analyses based on new data on the long-term electoral consequences of retrenchment for 200 governments in 18 countries support this argumentation.