ABSTRACT
The historical roots of unemployment in Western Europe can be traced back to the sixteenth century when the commercialization of agriculture displaced peasants from the countryside and began to dissolve traditional feudal systems of protection and obligation. Liberal and conservative governments have higher activity scores during high unemployment periods. For the conservative governments, the propensity to legislate is actually twice as great during high levels than during moderate levels of unemployment. Unemployment is politically relevant because it affects great numbers of people who may be easily mobilized to challenge governments. The take-off of public unemployment protection schemes cannot easily be related to general patterns of social and political development. Unemployment insurance generally tended to be introduced as the last of the four major social insurance schemes. In 1905 France pioneered as the first country to introduce a subsidized voluntary unemployment insurance scheme on the national level.
