Political Budget Cycles and Social Security Budget Increases in the Republic of Ireland, 1923-2005
MRPA Paper No. 5359
40 Pages Posted: 22 Oct 2007 Last revised: 13 Jan 2011
Date Written: June 26, 2007
Abstract
This paper examines social security increases in Ireland as a case study of the existence of political budget cycles in European countries. Ireland is an appropriate country to examine, first because it has a system of proportional representation and some studies suggest that proportional electoral systems are associated with expansions of welfare spending both before and after elections. Second, it is generally recognised that Irish political parties occupy the middle ground in terms of political ideology. Again studies would suggest that an absence of a strong ideological commitment to particular policies may make political budget cycles more likely. Utilising the distinctive nature of the public expenditure process in relation to welfare budget increases, this paper examines the issue of whether or not a political budget cycle can be seen in Ireland in relation to social security expenditure. It draws a number of conclusions as to the existence and incidence of political budget cycles in an Irish context and also looks at whether political budget cycles have succeeded in their apparent objective i.e. securing election for the relevant political party.
Keywords: political budget cycles, welfare state, social security, Ireland
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Political Budget Cycles in New Versus Established Democracies
By Adi Brender and Allan Drazen
-
Political Budget Cycles in New Versus Established Democracies
By Adi Brender and Allan Drazen
-
Political Business Cycles and Expenditure Policies in Developing Countries
-
Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting
By Akhmed Akhmedov, Alexei Ravichev, ...
-
Fiscal Transparency, Political Parties, and Debt in OECD Countries
By David Dreyer Lassen and James E. Alt
-
Conditional Political Budget Cycles
By Min Shi and Jakob Svensson
-
By Adi Brender and Allan Drazen