Cleavage Salience and the Territorial Distribution of Social Policy Competences

Cleavage theorists and comparative welfare state scholars have argued that large-scale social divisions have shaped party systems and the size and character of the welfare state. However, the salience of social cleavages has fluctuated considerably over time. I argue that the historical sequencing of social cleavages has shaped not only the nature of social policies, but also their territorial distribution. In this article, I develop and test a theoretical framework for understanding the multilevel distribution of social policy competences by classifying social transfers and services as either a) historically-diffuse, b) geographically-bound, or c) contested. Historically-diffuse policies developed during nationalization and early welfare state development, when the class cleavage was salient, as a means of tying the working class to the state. These are likely to be the purview of national governments. In contrast, geographically-bound policies generally predate working class organization and push for welfare state expansion, and have little jurisdictional spillover. These are likely to be the responsibility of subnational governments. Finally, contested policies developed during periods of declining salience of the class cleavage—and increasing salience of the center-periphery cleavage. This left them open to political contestation by parties wishing to (de)centralize policy areas, who could try to appeal to regional solidarity during periods when nationally-diffuse working class solidarity was weaker. These policies exhibit the most spatial and temporal variation in their territorial distribution. I test this theory using both quantitative data on the territorial distribution of social benefit competencies and comparative historical analysis.