Governing for the Long Term Democracy and the Politics of Investment [Paperback]

This book asks how elected politicians choose between providing policy benefits in the present and investing in the future.This book examines how democratic governments manage long-term policy challenges. The book seeks to understand how elected officials make trade-offs between the present and the future as they confront such challenges. Why do governments sometimes choose to impose costs on their constituents today to invest in solutions to long-term problems, but at other times leave future problems for their successors to address? To answer this question, the book develops a theory of intertemporal policy choice, then analyzes how governments in four countries have managed long-term challenges to their pension systems.This book examines how democratic governments manage long-term policy challenges. The book seeks to understand how elected officials make trade-offs between the present and the future as they confront such challenges. Why do governments sometimes choose to impose costs on their constituents today to invest in solutions to long-term problems, but at other times leave future problems for their successors to address? To answer this question, the book develops a theory of intertemporal policy choice, then analyzes how governments in four countries have managed long-term challenges to their pension systems.While political analysis has commonly focused on the distributive problem of who gets what, many of the hardest choices facing modern societies are dilemmas of timing. If governments want to reduce public debt, slow climate change, or shore up pension systems, they must typically inflict immediate pain on citizens for gains that will only arrive over the long run. In Governing for the Long Term, Alan M. Jacobs investigates the conditions under which elected governments invest in long-term social benefits at short-term social cost. Jacobs contends that, along the path to adoption, investment-oriented policies must surmount three distinct hurdles tolÓ