Partisan Politics and Feedback Effects: Comparing Defamilialization by Center-Right Parties across Six Familistic Countries

Abstract

Against their traditional ideologies, some center-right parties in Western Europe have shifted from defending familistic institutions to enacting defamilialization policies. The literature has explored how the misfit between changing postindustrial contexts and familistic institutions generates functional and electoral pressures that directly trigger this change. In contrast, this article argues that this transformation depends on successful reforms by previous center-left governments. Traditional electoral constituencies and partisan-rooted policy ideas change slowly, leading to initial center-right resistance. However, eventual defamilialization by progressive actors creates feedback effects, such as new mass and employer constituencies and policy learning, influencing conservative actors to change their stance. This argument is supported by comparing six familistic welfare states over four decades using novel and multiple data sources. While defamilialization preceded center-right change in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, interministerial compromises in Austria and government instability in Italy prevented left-led transformative reforms, maintaining the center-right in a familistic position.