Social Democracy and Rational Choice

This book addresses these questions in theory and in practice, using the Nordic countries as its' case study. Henry Milner presents an institutionalist analysis of social-democratic regimes which seek distributive justice as well as optimal economic performance. He shows that the dual aims are not incompatible and can indeed be complementary. Milner develops a rational-choice based framework to analyse economic, political and cultural institutions. He argues that attempts to attain a combination of distributive justice and optimal economic performance are most commonly thwarted by inbuilt opportunities for individuals to free-ride, and he examines arrangements which can make such free-riding less attractive. This framework is applied in contrasting institutions in corporatist/social-democratic societies and laissez-faire orientated societies such as the United States. The book surveys developments in the Nordic countries in the 1990s, addressing the question of whether they have undermined corporatist and social-democratic principles. In this light Henry Milner investigates the challenge posed to Nordic institutional arrangements by integration into the European Union. Social Democracy and Rational Choice will appeal to readers interested in comparative institutional and policy analysis, and in particular to those concerned with the future of the welfare state and the latest developments in the Nordic countries.