Governing for the Long Term
Democracy and the Politics of Investment
Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, International, Foreign Legal Systems, Business & Finance
| Author: | Alan M. Jacobs | ISBN: | 9781139063142 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | Publication: | March 28, 2011 |
| Imprint: | Cambridge University Press | Language: | English |
| Author: | Alan M. Jacobs |
| ISBN: | 9781139063142 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Publication: | March 28, 2011 |
| Imprint: | Cambridge University Press |
| Language: | English |
In Governing for the Long Term, Alan M. Jacobs investigates the conditions under which elected governments invest in long-term social benefits at short-term social cost. Jacobs contends that, along the path to adoption, investment-oriented policies must surmount three distinct hurdles to future-oriented state action: a problem of electoral risk, rooted in the scarcity of voter attention; a problem of prediction, deriving from the complexity of long-term policy effects; and a problem of institutional capacity, arising from interest groups' preferences for distributive gains over intertemporal bargains. Testing this argument through a four-country historical analysis of pension policymaking, the book illuminates crucial differences between the causal logics of distributive and intertemporal politics and makes a case for bringing trade-offs over time to the center of the study of policymaking.
In Governing for the Long Term, Alan M. Jacobs investigates the conditions under which elected governments invest in long-term social benefits at short-term social cost. Jacobs contends that, along the path to adoption, investment-oriented policies must surmount three distinct hurdles to future-oriented state action: a problem of electoral risk, rooted in the scarcity of voter attention; a problem of prediction, deriving from the complexity of long-term policy effects; and a problem of institutional capacity, arising from interest groups' preferences for distributive gains over intertemporal bargains. Testing this argument through a four-country historical analysis of pension policymaking, the book illuminates crucial differences between the causal logics of distributive and intertemporal politics and makes a case for bringing trade-offs over time to the center of the study of policymaking.
