Midwest paper, Part 3.

Part 3: Social spending stability and political veto players

In the final part of the paper, I argue that a theoretically appropriate test of the veto players argument requires a dependent variable that measures the amount of spending change–social spending stability. Social spending stability is constructed as the absolute value of the annual change in social spending.

To measure the number and dispersion of veto players, I use a measure of political constraints developed by a professor named Henisz. This measure represents the theoretical argument made by Tsebelis.

And…..it turns out, when you use the theoretically appropriate measure, increases in the number and dispersion of veto players results in more social spending stability.

Obvious, right. Well, somewhat, but it also explains why the other results (using the level of spending) are inconsistent.

So that’s it. I just gotta finish writing it.