What Caused the Rise of Conservatism: A French View
提出一个解释保守主义经济政策兴起的理论，认为选民对经济冲击持久性的认知变化导致政策选择从干预转向自由放任，而不需要假设选民或政党偏好的根本改变。
Conservatism Daniel Cohen Existing theories of political cycles fail to provide an adequate explanation for the widespread shift to conservative economic policies. On one view, political parties merely court the ‘median voter’; but this theory is incomplete because it fails to explain why the median voter has become conservative. Other theories differentiate parties by their ideologies, but they wholly fail to explain where changes of ideology come from. This author proposes an explanation that does not need to rely on changes in the underlying preferences of voters or parties, but in which changing economic conditions lead to different policy choices. Thus, while ends remain unchanged, the means to achieve these ends may vary over time. The distinction between right and left is still portrayed by the classical trade-off between economic efficiency and equity. In order to promote equity, the government can always redistribute wealth. But in order to preserve economic efficiency, wealth redistribution should not be expected to be repeated systematically. Hence, the median voter will prefer a laissez-faire to an interventionist government when the economy is understood to be affected by a persistent disturbance, and the converse when disturbances are temporary. Thus, the shift to conservatism is seen as the result of the (sometimes belated) realization by the electorate that the shocks of the 1970s were long-lasting. Current forecasts that unemployment in Europe is unlikely to fall suggest the continuation of conservative policies, irrespective of whether they are implemented by the right or the left.