Partisan Influence on Policy Preferences in Retrenching the Welfare State

While citizens typically favor welfare policies, the electoral consequences of retrenching the welfare state are often minimal for parties implementing the reforms. Using two structural reforms in Finland as a natural quasi-experiment, we show that voters' policy preferences shift in response to welfare reform measures initiated by their preferred parties. In December 2020, the Finnish center-left government enacted two reforms: one reducing social protection by removing entitlements for laid-off older workers to receive income-based unemployment benefits, and the other increasing social spending by extending the compulsory education age from 16 to 18. Using a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the government actions, the results indicate that government voters became considerably more supportive of both reforms, despite their initial low support for welfare retrenchment and its contradiction with the established ideological profile of their parties. Moreover, the shift in voters' policy preferences was substantively greater compared to their opposition counterparts and not affected by ideology and economic self-interest. Hence, voters' policy preferences show dynamic adaptability to match the party line, thereby reducing grounds for holding the parties accountable.