ABSTRACT
Determining whether international economic integration in advanced economies increases worker insecurity is critical to competing explanations of welfare-state policymaking and the politics of globalization. An influential argument in the welfare-state literature is that increases in economic insecurity from globalization generate demands for more generous social insurance that compensates workers for a riskier environment (e.g. Boix forthcoming; Burgoon 2001; Cameron 1978; Garrett 1998; Hays et al. 2002; Rodrik 1997, 1998). The connection between globalization and welfare spending in this argument depends on the causal mechanism that international economic integration increases worker insecurity. Claims that no such link exists undermine this explanation for variation in welfare-state spending.
