Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
in isolation, either approach fails to account for the observable patterns of
variation in this relationship. There is an obvious, yet largely unresolved, ten-
sion between theorizing institutions as a cause of redistribution and inequality,
and theorizing redistributive conflicts as the driver behind the selection of insti-
tutions themselves. This tension lies at the heart of the relationship between
political institutions and social outcomes. Focusing on the specific issue of
redistribution in political unions, this topic's contributions bridge these two
streams of work, ultimately yielding a better understanding of the institutional
underpinnings of redistribution and inequality. In what follows I outline the
topic's main contributions.
The topic brings to the fore the role of economic geography and territorial
politics in shaping public insurance systems and distributive outcomes. For a
long time the median voter theory of redistribution (Meltzer and Richard
1981
)
dominated the field. Though elegant and simple, the median voter approach
proved too straight a jacket to understand empirical patterns of public insur-
ance systems and redistribution. As a result, the field set out to address its limi-
tations by focusing on how partisanship and institutions shape public insurance
systems (Iversen
2006
). The dominant assumption throughout though is that
economies and polities are both monolithic entities: one economy, one govern-
ment, one nation. This does not reflect a commitment to ignore reality but a
pressing need to simplify dimensions other than those of theoretical interest.
The necessary consequence, however, is the underdevelopment of theoretical
and empirical work on the role of economic geography and territorial politics
in the politics of redistribution.
26
By developing a theory of how economic
geography, political representation, and mobility interact to shape fiscal struc-
tures and distributive outcomes in political unions this topic contributes to fill
this gap.
In addition, such a theory helps bring politics into the literature on endoge-
nous fiscal institutions. Largely in the hand of economists so far, earlier models
of endogenous fiscal institutions are devoid of politics. With very few excep-
tions (O'Neill
2005
, Weingast
2006
), politics either disappears in the idyllic
world of welfare economics or falls, again, victim of the constraining charm of
the median voter. Unsurprisingly, existing accounts consistently overlook one
crucial step, namely, the interplay between the distribution of preferences that
emerges from economic geography and the existing set of rules and procedures
governing the relations between different levels of government. For instance,
Bolton and Roland's (
1997
) account of the breakup of nations, is far too
anchored in the median voter theorem to incorporate the impact of the insti-
tutional complexities of different political unions. Political representation as a
mechanism of aggregation of preferences is simply assumed away. By exploring
26
Useful empirical efforts against this trend are Ferrera's (
2005
) study of the role of European
Integration as a source of change in European social systems and Obinger, Leibfried and Castles'
(2005) collection of case studies of the interplay between federalism and social policy.
