The hidden cost of consensus: How coordinated market economies insulate politics

Abstract

Previous research has argued that while elections motivate parties to respond to public sentiment, global economic ties reduce this responsiveness by redirecting elites from their electorates and toward market actors. In this study, we extend this work to examine the influence of globalization on party responsiveness across different forms of production-welfare regimes. Coordinated market economies (CMEs) accommodate economic interdependence by striking corporatist bargains between political elites, trade union representatives, and organized business. Although these consensual relations facilitate economic stability, they also insulate policymakers from voters. Analyses that pair public opinion and party positions across 18 advanced capitalist democracies from 1977 to 2009 show that while CMEs permit political elites a wide room to maneuver under economic globalization, political parties competing in these organized market economies do not respond to public opinion. This is the case regardless of level of exposure to world markets. In CMEs, party position-taking is uninfluenced by external factors (economic globalization) and domestic factors (public opinion) alike. By examining the consequences for party behavior, our results raise questions about the virtues of coordinated market capitalism for the health of representative democracy.