"Strong" vs. "weak" governments and the challenge of economic reforms (C03)

• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2010 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 139943784

We focus on governments and their willingness, capacity, and strategies to introduce economic reforms and investigate whether partisan preferences, the internal organization and power distribution in cabinet and parliament, as well as macroeconomic conditions foster or hinder the introduction of reform measures. Empirically, the project studies reform making in 22 Western and Eastern European countries over 30 years (1980-2010). For that purpose, we have built an unprecedented comparative reforms dataset, which contains more than 9,000 important government reform measures (from Economist Intelligence Unit and OECD country reports) and more than 8,000 reform ambitions (policy promises from government declarations) in the social, labor, taxation and economic policy areas.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 884: Political Economy of Reforms
• International Connection: Canada
• Applicant Institution: Universität Mannheim
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Hanna Bäck
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Benjamin N. Nyblade