Dr Tim Vlandas

Dr Tim Vlandas is Associate Professor of Comparative Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and a Fellow of St Antony’s College. He is also the current Course Director for Comparative Social Policy. Prior to joining the University of Oxford in September 2018 he was an Associate Professor in Comparative Political Economy at the University of Reading and a Research Officer at the LSE. After an initial training in Economics and Development Economics, Tim specialised in the Political Economy of welfare state policies in Europe during his PhD at the LSE, which was fully funded in recognition for academic merit and research potential. He has won both teaching and research prizes, including a class teaching prize at the LSE, a doctoral researcher prize awarded by the European Network for Social Policy Analysis and an award for the best paper on European Politics and Society by the American Political Science Association.
Using a comparative political economy approach, his research explores the political and economic determinants and consequences of social and economic policies in Europe. He is currently working on four projects. First, Tim is finishing a book (joint with Mark Thatcher) on Western policies towards Sovereign Wealth Funds' investments (under contract with Oxford University Press). The second project investigates how changes in economic performance and welfare state institutions alter the policy preferences and voting behaviour of different parts of the electorate, and how this in turn shapes the economic policy choices of governments. Third, joint research with Daphne Halikiopoulou examines how economic insecurity and social policies shape support for far-right parties among different social groups in Europe. Finally, Tim is analysing the determinants of individual support for a Universal Basic Income in different European countries.
His research has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, the Socio-Economic Review, the Journal of European Social Policy, Politics & Society, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Comparative European Politics, the European Journal of Industrial Relations, Political Quarterly, the Review of European Economic Policy, French Politics, the Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism, and LSE ‘Europe in Question’ working paper series.
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When economic and cultural interests align: The anti-immigration voter coalitions driving far right party success in Europe
November 2020|Journal article|European Political Science Review© European Consortium for Political Research 2020. This article contests the view that the strong positive correlation between anti-immigration attitudes and far right party success necessarily constitutes evidence in support of the cultural grievance thesis. We argue that the success of far right parties depends on their ability to mobilize a coalition of interests between their core supporters, that is voters with cultural grievances over immigration and the often larger group of voters with economic grievances over immigration. Using individual level data from eight rounds of the European Social Survey, our empirical analysis shows that while cultural concerns over immigration are a stronger predictor of far right party support, those who are concerned with the impact of immigration on the economy are important to the far right in numerical terms. Taken together, our findings suggest that economic grievances over immigration remain pivotal within the context of the transnational cleavage. -
The Left and universal basic income: the role of ideology in individual support
October 2020|Journal article|Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Few studies to date have analysed individual support for universal basic income (UBI). This article theorizes and explores empirically the relationship between different strands of left ideology and support for UBI across European countries. We delineate three types of concerns about capitalism: “Labourist Left” worry about <jats:italic>exploitation</jats:italic>; “Libertarian Left” about <jats:italic>repression</jats:italic> and “Social Investment Left” about <jats:italic>inefficiencies</jats:italic>. Contrary to expectations we derive from political theory and welfare state literature, our results based on data from the European Social Survey suggest that having high concerns about exploitation is positively correlated with support for UBI, whereas repression concerns are negatively correlated with support. In line with our hypothesis about social investment ideology, left-leaning individuals with efficiency concerns are more likely to support UBI. Our findings call for more detailed surveys as well as further research on the different ideologies within the Left and how these relate to variation in support for UBI, which crucially shapes the potential political coalition behind the introduction of UBI.</jats:p> -
The political consequences of labour market dualization: Labour market status, occupational unemployment and policy preferences
April 2020|Journal article|Political Science Research and Methods -
Labour Market Liberalization and the Rise of Dualism in Europe as the Interplay between Government, Trade Unions and the Economy
January 2020|Journal article|Social Policy and Administration: an international journal of policy and research -
The Political Economy of Individual Level Support for the Basic Income in Europe
January 2020|Journal article|Journal of European Social Policy -
‘Birds of a feather’? Assessing the prevalence of anti-immigration attitudes among the far right electorate
January 2020|Journal article|Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article focuses on the prevalence of anti-immigration attitudes among the far-right electorate. Drawing on the distinction between the predictive power of immigration concerns, and the question of how widespread these concerns are among the far-right voter pool, we proceed in two steps. First, we assess the extent to which anti-immigration attitudes are a necessary condition for voting far-right; and second, we examine whether far-right voters with different levels of anti-immigration attitudes exhibit similar individual and attitudinal characteristics. Using data from the 8th wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) we find that, surprisingly, anti-immigration attitudes are not a necessary condition for voting for the far-right as approximately one third of far-right voters have no concerns over immigration. We further show that far-right voters with different levels of immigration concerns have different profiles when it comes to other predictors of the far right-vote including ideological affinity, attachment to the EU and government satisfaction. Our contribution is significant as we suggest that there are different routes to voting for the far right by groups with different grievances, including non- immigration related. -
The Politics of the Basic Income Guarantee: Analysing Individual Support in Europe
June 2019|Journal article|Basic Income Studies© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2019. This article analyses individual level support for a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) using the European Social Survey. At the country level, support is highest in South and Central Eastern Europe, but variation does not otherwise seem to follow established differences between varieties of capitalisms or welfare state regimes. At the individual level, findings are broadly in line with the expectations of the political economy literature. Left-leaning individuals facing high labour market risk and/or on low incomes are more supportive of a BIG, whereas current union members are less likely to support a BIG, consistent with the insider-outsider literature. However, when controlling for confounding variables, union membership is not statistically significant, suggesting that it is not membership per se, but the characteristics of unionised workers that make them less supportive. In many countries, a coalition between centrist and left-leaning individuals therefore seems most promising, but its political feasibility depends on whether enough union members are favourable to a BIG and on the level of opposition from high income and/or conservative parts of the electorate. -
What is new and what is nationalist about Europe's new nationalism? Explaining the rise of the far right in Europe
April 2019|Journal article|NATIONS AND NATIONALISMcultural nationalism, economic nationalism, European Union, European identity, Europe, far right, radical right, populist right, immigration, migration -
Does unemployment matter? Economic insecurity, labour market policies and the far-right vote in Europe
May 2018|Journal article|European Political Science© 2018 European Consortium for Political Research What is the impact of unemployment on far-right party support? This article develops a framework that links unemployment to far-right party support, while taking into account both the heterogeneity of the workforce and the role of labour market policies. More specifically, we focus on unemployment as a driver of economic insecurity and examine its effect on outsider and insider labour market groups. We identify the extent to which two labour market policies—unemployment benefits and Employment Protection Legislation (EPL)—mediate the effect of unemployment on economic insecurity, thus limiting the impact of unemployment on far-right party support. We carry out a large N analysis on a sample of 14 Western and 10 Eastern European countries between 1991 and 2013. We find that unemployment only leads to higher far-right support when unemployment benefits replacement rates are low. The results with regard to the mediating effect of EPL are more complex as EPL only mediates the impact of unemployment when we take into account the share of foreign-born population in the country. -
Coordination, inclusiveness and wage inequality between median- and bottom-income workers
May 2018|Journal article|COMPARATIVE EUROPEAN POLITICSvarieties of capitalism, labour market institutions, wage inequality, wage coordination, welfare state, union density -
The Politics of Universal Basic Income (UBI)
March 2018|Internet publicationI examine potential political support for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) – an idea with a long lineage that cuts across ideological lines. I conclude that a UBI could potentially find backing from a coalition between centrist and left-leaning individuals, ideally with additional support from trade unions. <a href=""></a> -
Grey power and the Economy: Aging and Inflation Across Advanced Economies
March 2018|Journal article|COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIESinflation, aging, grey power, economic policy, independent central banks, economic orthodoxy -
LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series
The politics of disinflation
December 2017|Working paper|LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper SeriesWhat explains the shift from the moderate to high inflation rates of the Golden Age of post -war capitalism to the low inflation regime of monetarism in the 1970s and 1980s? Conventional views emphasise the rise of monetarism as a new economic paradigm that convinced policy makers to delegate monetary policy to conservative and independent central banks – a view that comes in many variants, from constructivist to orthodox economics. In contrast to these arguments, we introduce electoral and party politics into the debate. This paper models and examines the shifts in the inflationary preferences of the median voter and their translation into party politics and economic policies. As the median voter accumulates nominal assets against a background of de facto and de jure increasing job security and rising wages, her preferences on macro-economic policies shift from concerns about employment-friendly to inflation-averse policies. Social democratic parties, who are pivotal players in this regard because of their ‘natural’ preference for high employment over low inflation, are thus forced to adopt anti-inflation policies as well to remain electorally viable. We show that the employment situation of the average worker improved in every respect during the 1960s and 1970s, that most of the population became inflation averse during the 1970s and 1980s, and that social democratic parties were forced to adopt more economically orthodox party manifestos. We then analyse the shift to a low inflation regime in a series of country case studies. -
Voting to leave: Economic insecurity and the Brexit vote
July 2017|Chapter|The Routledge Handbook of Euroscepticism -
Labour market developments and policy responses during and after the crisis in France
April 2017|Journal article|French Politics© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. There is a large literature arguing that countries with high employment protection legislation (EPL) have worse labour market performance. Yet, the overall impact of the crisis on France's labour market was comparatively limited. To solve this puzzle, this paper makes four points. First, it shows that France's labour market problems have not historically been about high EPL. Second, the crisis in France was not as acute as in the Euro area. Third, the costs of the crisis were concentrated on certain labour market groups. Finally, the government introduced several labour market policies in response to the crisis and labour market dualisation increased despite falling policy dualism. While deregulation seems - if anything - to have made matters worse, the government also introduced short-time work schemes, prolonged unemployment benefits and extended active labour market policies. Overall, this paper advances our understanding of labour market performance and policies in France during the crisis.
Tim Vlandas is interested in supervising DPhil students who intend to work on any of the following broad themes in comparative political economy and social policy:
- The politics of macroeconomic policy, in particular the relationship between social policies, economic voting and changes in economic policies over time;
- The political determinants and consequences of different labour market policies such as minimum wage regulations, unemployment benefits, employment protection legislation, and active labour market policies;
- The changing politics of austerity and welfare state reforms during economic and political crises;
- The political economy of the Universal Basic Income
For more information about Tim’s background and research, please visit his website, his research gate page and his google citations page.