Political Studies Review (PSR) provides a unique intellectual space for rigorous high-quality peer-reviewed original research across political science and the study of politics in related fields that aims at stimulating wide-ranging debate and cutting edge discussion of current disputes and issues in the discipline within the UK and internationally.
How can the realist utopian political theory that can reform capitalist society? “My article shows that realists don’t oppose utopianism in general, discusses the value of realist utopianism and considers why many political theorists misunderstand what realism demands” – says Dr Paul Raekstad.
What exactly links #political theory with radical forms of political change? – listen to Dr Paul Raekstad discussing his PSR article "Realism, Utopianism and Human Rights"
Paul Raekstad has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam, and will shortly be taking up a lectureship at the University of Edinburgh. His work focuses on envisioning and achieving free, democratic, and ecologically sustainable economic institutions.
âResearch suggests that, if current trends persist in Germany and France, there will be one retired person for every two working people by 2050. In Japan, we already reached a 2 to 1 ratio, and by 2050 it will eventually reach 1:1. This is, of course, unsustainable, unless we give extremely low pensions to retirees, or ask extremely high contributions from workersâ â claim Prof. Vincenzo Alfano and Prof. Pietro Maffettone. In this interview, they highlight major challenges related with modern pension systems, describe specifics of the Italian case, and sketch proposals to create a fairer pension system in the future. A fuller analysis of these issues can be found in Prof. Alfanoâs and Prof. Maffettoneâs PSR article: No Country for Old (Poor) Men: Fairness and Public Pensions.
Political Studies Review: What are the major functions of the welfare state? How would you define it?
Prof. Vincenzo Alfano, Prof. Pietro Maffettone: The welfare state is the product of a historical process. In part, it was dictated by the recognition that some of the risks that people faced in a market economy were predictable and widely dispersed (e.g. unemployment). At the same time, there was also a strong political element, namely, making market capitalism less exposed to revolutionary pressures and more able to compete, as a social model, with the Soviet block.
Does it work? Much will depend on the kind of benchmark one is inclined to use. Compared to a world without any kind of welfare state, one that features some kind of welfare state in an otherwise capitalist market economy is certainly progress. At the same time, the welfare state as an institution has also been prone to be abused and to inefficiency. Nonetheless, what we can say is that, as all kinds of human creations, the welfare state has costs and benefits and those need to be balanced.
Can a âpay-as-you-goâ (PAYG) system be efficient considering recent demographic trends? What are the major flaws?
Luckily enough, life expectancy greatly expanded in recent years, for most people, and in most countries, especially in Western ones and in many countries in East Asia. This means that we live longer, and this is great news. However, in many rich countries, fertility is going down dramatically (Italy and Japan are the poster child for this kind of predicament). These two trends, taken together, suggest that the working base, those who are supposed to pay pensions to those currently (at any point in time) retired, gets thinner and thinner, while the set of retirees grows. There is no need for complex actuarial calculations to understand that this trend is unsustainable. Actuarial calculations will tell us âwhenâ not âifâ.
The major political flaw in the system is that people are extremely averse to loss: it is extremely hard to withdraw existing benefits to a large class of citizens. Whatâs the upshot? Sadly, some pain to come, all other things being equal (for example, massive immigration might make other things not equal). Research suggests that, if current trends persist in Germany and France, there will be one retired person for every two working people by 2050. In Japan, we already reached a 2 to 1 ratio, and by 2050 it will eventually reach 1:1. This is, of course, unsustainable, unless we give extremely low pensions to retirees, or ask extremely high contributions from workers.
Would you say that âpersonal pension systemâ (PPS) is a good alternative to PAYG? Is intragenerational fairness possible using this system?
It is of course, a potential alternative, as you highlight in the question, but it is especially hard to ensure intragenerational fairness through this kind of system. We also need to recognize that most people in most countries, donât save enough over the course of their lives to actually derive a sustainable pension from their saving pool. Of course, what is a sustainable pension is debatable. But one thing seems clear, if we all had to rely on our efforts alone, then, we would have to strongly alter our lifestyles, and perhaps even the way in which picture some of the major financial decisions we take over the course of our lives. For example, homes would not be bought to pass them on to oneâs children, but to be able to survive after retirement by selling the asset.
What about the Italian case study? What are the major lessons we can learn from it?
Italy represents a good case study, since it has one of the oldest populations in the world, and thus all the pension-related issues are amplified in the Italian context. We can learn mainly two lessons: the first is that a pension reform that would make the system sustainable over time is hugely unpopular. All Italian politicians that shrunk pension benefits paid an important personal cost in terms of their popularity and their political careers.
The major political flaw in the system is that people are extremely averse to loss: it is extremely hard to withdraw existing benefits to a large class of citizens.
Yet, it is also important to highlight that pension system reform is not the kind of issue that a government can push back into the future indefinitely. At some point, the pressure on the public purse becomes too hard and tough decisions have to be made. In fact, many would argue that, at least for Italy, we have long passed that particular moment.
Who will benefit from the PPS system in Italy, and who will be negatively affected?
If we talk about people receiving a pension over their contribution, there would mainly be affected people who live on average less than the country-wide life-expectancy, thus people from the Southern regions, especially males. Of course, the other half of the coin is that women and Northenerns would be negatively affected. It is anyhow important to highlight that many people benefit of a pensione sociale, which despite the name is not actually a pension but a form of welfare for the elderly who are unable to claim a proper pension. These are mostly located in the South – the South being poorer and featuring a wider proportion of underground economic activity. Of course, a PPS reform that would change this âpensionâ would affect them dramatically.
What approach, or what changes to existing approaches should be considered to reduce negative outcomes of such a pension system?
Our idea is to define better the likelihood of reaching a certain age that each person has and to modulate the contribution over this variable. Pensions are paid as long as someone dies. The key variable here is how long one lives. We know that life expectancy depends on a number of factors, such as gender, residence, habits, marriage status, and so on. To base a pension system on a much more detailed estimation of oneâs expected lifespan, as the private system already does, is the first step toward a more (actuarially) fair pension system.
What are the key contributions your article brings to the field?
We offer a point of view that reverses the usual narrative on who âcontributes the mostâ. Often, richer regions in the country are seen as net contributors to welfare payments, while the poorer regions are seen as getting disproportionate benefits from this equalization. Yet, and this is what we have tried to show in our paper if we look at how long people benefit from a given welfare measure (something that is connected to life expectancy for pension), it turns out that the poorer regions, on average, contribute more than the richer regions. The sustainability of the pension system in Italy, to the extent that it is sustainable (not for long!), is aided not worsened by pension benefits granted to citizens of poorer (southern) regions.
Prof. Vincenzo Alfano – is Adjunct Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Humanities (University of Napoli Federico II) . He received his PHD from Parthenope University and cooperates with the Institute for the Mediterranean of the Italian National Research Council.
Prof. Pietro Maffetone – is Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Sciences (University of Napoli Federico II). He received his PhD from the LSE. Before joining Federico II he taught at the LSE and Durham University.
“MRP is a model-based technique, so if you have a really poor model of the opinion youâre examining, thatâs going to hurt you” â claims Prof. Hanretty. “Hopefully, everyone using MRP will have at least some substantive knowledge of the demographic and geographic determinants of public opinionâ â he adds. In this interview, the author explains complexities, the potential and flaws of multilevel regression and post-stratification. A fuller analysis of this emerging technique can be found in Prof. Hannertyâs PSR article.
Political Studies Review: How would you describe the basic idea behind multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) technique?
Chris Hanretty: There are two basic steps in MRP: (1) you learn about voter opinions from a large national sample, and in particular, the opinions of certain types of voters; (2) and you go look up other sources of information (often a census or something similar) to find out how many voters of each type there are in each area. If I know (on the basis of my national sample and some model) that 55-64-year-old men with a high school education are very likely to vote Conservative, and if I know how many such men there are in a particular seat, then that gets me part of the way to understanding how that seat as a whole will vote. I just need to repeat the exercise for all the different voter types implicit in my model.
Thatâs the idea in a nutshell. In practice, itâs more complicated, and often a lot of the added value comes not from knowing information about individual voter types, but information about the types of the area they live in. The single best predictor of Conservative vote share in a seat is the Conservative vote share in the last election. MRP really benefits from having these predictors alongside demographic predictors, but I lead with the demographic picture because thatâs much more intuitive.
You wrote that MRP has been developing for the past 15â20 years. It has made it possible to pose and answer questions related to public opinion in small areas that have not been possible before. How was this method popularised, and what influenced its development? Is it becoming a prevalent statistical technique?
I think Andrew Gelman at Columbia has been an outstanding popularizer of MRP. I think technical and software developments have always played their part. There are now a lot more packages which allow researchers to estimate multilevel models of the kind used in MRP.
The major benefit of MRP seems that it allows avoiding the need for surveys at a sub-regional level. Are there any other benefits?
For me, itâs hard to see past that benefit. If you want to know about constituency opinion in the UK, itâd be impossible to field a standard 1,000 person survey in all those seats. No company has that polling capacity. Maybe for some contexts â say, US states â you could think about conducting state polls and aggregating those. But then youâd have to think about varying dates of fieldwork, different weighting targets in those states â urgh, it makes me shudder to think of it.
What are the possible limitations of this method?
MRP is a model-based technique, so if you have a really poor model of the opinion youâre examining, thatâs going to hurt you. Hopefully, everyone using MRP will have at least some substantive knowledge of the demographic and geographic determinants of public opinion.
Maybe for some contexts â say, US states â you could think about conducting state polls and aggregating those. But then youâd have to think about varying dates of fieldwork, different weighting targets in those states â urgh, it makes me shudder to think of it.
Another limitation is that you might not always have the post-stratification data you need. You might want to create estimates just for adult citizens, but your national census office might only release breakdowns for the adult population. Thereâs often a tension between what you want to include in the model and whatâs available from official statistics.
What are other contributions your article brings to the field youâd like to highlight?
Iâm just happy to have some code out there which takes people through the whole process. Written descriptions of procedures in peer-reviewed journals are obviously important, but additional documented code is the cherry on the cake!
To what extent can you engage in political activity in the modern age without Internet access? Has Internet access become so important to daily functioning, that people are incapable of exercising basic civil rights when access goes down?The growing dependence on Internet access to fulfil basic civil functions is threatened by increasing personal and societal cyber vulnerability.
Ryan Shandler is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Haifa School of Political Sciences under the supervision of Professors Michael Gross and Daphna Canetti.
Ryan’s research focuses on Internet age theories of political participation and the socio-political effects of cyber-terrorism.
“In an apparently post-truth era, the social science scholar, by disposition and training committed to rational argumentation and the pursuit of truth, appeals as the ideal bulwark against excessive politicization of facts and expertise. In this article, we look to the experience of four prominent social scientists who have recently left the academy to enter politics with the aim of using their academic expertise to reshape policy. We use these cases to explore fundamental dilemmas derived from a close reading of Max Weberâs seminal vocation essays of a century ago. “- listen to a podcast by Dr John Boswell, Prof. Jack Corbett and Dr Jonathan Havercroft, based on a PSR article: Politics and Science as a Vocation: Can Academics Save us from Post-Truth Politics?
John Boswellis Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Southampton. His research and teaching interests centres around contemporary issues and themes in democratic governance and public policy. My research is generally qualitative and interpretive in nature, and I also have an interest in writing and teaching on methodological matters in this tradition.
Jack Corbett is Professor of Politics, Departmental Research Director at The University of Southampton. His research focuses on how actors manage the dilemmas of democratic governance.
Jonathan Havercroft is Associate Professor in International Political Theory within Politics & International Relations at the University of Southampton. His current research projects include work on the ethical dimensions of international norms, theories of political affect, and the role of agreement in democratic theory and practice.
Some researchers claim that âa key to accessible, interesting academic work is [a] conversational yet authoritative tone coupled with attention-getting titles, compelling openings, anecdotes and illustrations”[1]. We agree.
Our editorial team is committed to presenting and visualizing research data to boost dissemination and to reaching wider (including non-academic) audiences. We use different forms of communication to present research findings such as infographics and data animations. Some of our authors have also contributed to our excellent podcast series. But this time we would like to invite PSR authors to take part in our research-based interview project.
We believe that interviews are also a prominent form of research communication. It gives a space to discuss a research topic, article or research ideas in a less formal format.
To illustrate this idea, we have prepared some excellent examples:
If youâd decide to take part in this, hereâs how it works. We will provide you with around 5 questions based on your article, research aims or ideas. You can answer them in writing, or by recording your answers and add any visual/graphical material you want to use to explain your point. The idea is that answers should be relatively brief, and provide readers or listeners with a flavour of your research. As with all our activity, we will promote this through social media for maximum exposure.
The idea is that answers should be relatively brief, and provide readers or listeners with a flavour of your research.
The outcome will be informative and accessible (published at psr.brunel.ac.uk) and will encourage readers to engage further with your article and wider research.
“Against the background of a sense of crisis in the European Union and in international politics, European Union Member States have since 2016 increased their cooperation within the Common Security and Defence Policy, for example, establishing the European Defence Fund. Scholars have long pointed out that the European Union lacks the necessary âhardâ military power to influence international politics, subscribing to and constituting an image of the European Union as not masculine enough. We are critical of these accounts and develop a different argument” – says Dr Marijn Hoijtink. This podcast episode is based on a PSR article he co-authored with Dr Hanna L. Muehlenhoff: “The European Union as a Masculine Military Power: European Union Security and Defence Policy in âTimes of Crisisâ“
Dr Marijn Hoijtink is Assistant Professor in International Relations and International Security. Her research covers International Relations, critical security studies, and Science and Technology Studies, and focuses on the design, development, and global circulation of (new) security technologies and weapons.
Dr Hanna L. Muehlenhoff is Assistant Professor of European Studies with a focus on ‘Europe in the World’ at the Department of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her research studies the European Unionâs external relations from a feminist perspective, focusing on the EUâs womenâs and LGBTQ rights promotion in Turkey and the EUâs security and defence policy.
