When political parties make policy decisions they are influenced by the competition they face from other parties. This book examines how party competition and party systems affect reforms of social protection. Featuring a historical comparison of Italy and Germany post-1945, the book shows how a high number of parties and ideological polarisation lead to fragmented and unequal social benefits.

Utilising a comparative approach, the author brings together two important issues in welfare state research that have been insufficiently investigated. Firstly, the complex influence of party competition on social policy-making, and second, how some social groups enjoy better social protection than others. Moving beyond the two countries of the case study, the book proposes an innovative framework for studying segmentation of social protection and applies this framework to a wider set of 15 advanced welfare states. Overall, this book draws together different strands of research on political parties and on welfare states, and introduces a new argument on how party politics shapes social policy.

An invaluable text on the political economy of the welfare state, Politics of Segmentation will be of interest to scholars of political economy, social policy and comparative politics.

• Politics of Segmentation Party competition and social protection in Europe 7
• Copyright 8
• Contents 9
• List of figures 11
• List of tables 12
• Acknowledgements 14
• List of abbreviations 16
• PART I Introduction 19
  • 1 Party competition and social protection 21
  • 2 Comparing Italy and Germany 37
• PART II Policy segmentation across countries and time 47
  • 3 Segmentation of unemployment benefits in advanced welfare states today 49
  • 4 Italy and Germany: policy divergence after the Second World War 62
  • 5 Italy and Germany: changing trends during welfare state restructuring 82
• PART III The impact of party competition 99