Last month, CU Âé¶čÓ°Ôș Political Science Professor Sven Steinmo gave his first TED talk outlining the disparities between Baby Boomers and the generations that came after. to watch and support Dr. Steinmo!

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Sven Steinmo, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș

Published: 2019

“NĂ©o-institutionnalisme historique” in Laurie Boussaguet, Sophie Jacquot, and Pauline Ravinet (eds.), Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, VOL. 4., Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, pp. 382-390, (2019), ISBN 9782724625110

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Sven Steinmo, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș; Sven Hort, Södertörn University

Published: 2019 

“Who is that guy?” in Sven Engstrom and Sven Hort (eds.), Om Bo Rothstein, Aktiv Forlag, Lund, Sweden, 2019, pp. 67-73.

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Sven Steinmo, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș; Kim-Lee Tuxhorn, University of Calgary; John D'Attoma, University of Exeter

Published: February 4, 2019

Abstract: 

Do liberals and conservatives who trust the government have more similar preferences regarding the federal budget than liberals and conservatives who do not? Prior research has shown that the ideological gap over spending increases and tax cuts narrows at high levels of trust in government. We extend this literature by examining whether the dampening effect of trust operates when more difficult budgetary decisions (spending cuts and tax increases) have to be made. Although related, a tax increase demands greater material and ideological sacrifice from individuals than tax cuts. The same logic can be applied to support for spending cuts. We test the trust-as-heuristic hypothesis using measures of revealed budgetary preferences from a population-based survey containing an embedded budget simulation. Our findings show that trusting liberals and conservatives share similar preferences toward spending cuts and tax increases, adding an important empirical addendum to a theory based on sacrificial costs.

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Sven Steinmo, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș 

Published: 2020

Abstract: 

This essay argues that in order to understand how institutions shape political choices and history we should go further toward understanding the interactive relationships between institutions and the cognitive mind. The article explores the significant body of research and literature developing in social and evolutionary psychology, cognitive science and decision theory. This literature has gone beyond the observation humans are not the individual utility maximizers stylized in early institutionalist theorizing. A massive body of experimental and empirical research clearly demonstrates, for example, that a) individuals only rarely have stable and hierarchical preferences, b) are generally quite unlikely to go through the cognitive effort implied in a ‘rational’ choice decision matrix, c) humans are efficient decision makers, but we have remarkable capacities to post-hoc justify choices and restructure our memories so that we can view our decisions as coherent. In the end the paper argues that public administration scholars need to adopt a non-reductionist approach to studying human motivation.

Click to read more!

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Sven Steinmo, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș; Fred Pampel, Âé¶čÓ°Ôș;  Guilia Andrighetto, European University Institute and Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies.

Published: March 2019

Abstract: 

Tax evasion is a problem everywhere, but it is a much bigger policy problem in some countries than it is in others. The Italian government estimates that it loses more than 27 percent of total tax revenue to evasion, whereas the Swedish government estimates their “tax gap” to be less than 9 percent. What explains this variation? We test for the importance of culturally based attitudes and institutionally structured rules for taxes and benefits through a unique set of cross-national experiments and attitudinal surveys done in multiple locations across Italy, the UK, the United States, and Sweden. Participants in each location were presented with identical conditions based on institutional variations (tax rates, redistribution regimes, benefits) and asked to complete a survey afterward concerning their attitudes toward a number of social and political issues. A mixed-model analysis of the 2,537 subjects in our study reveals consistent influence of institutional scenarios and three attitude scales measuring pro-redistributive ideology, fiscal responsibility, and perceived government competence. Country effects, however, are more mixed and inconsistent.

Click to read more. 

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This means that the book is available online, for free, as a downloadable PDF! 

More information on the book can be found .

More books by Dr. Steinmo can be found here.

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Professor Steinmo recently returned to the University of Colorado after working in Florence, Italy since 2007.  We asked him how this international experience influenced him as a teacher and a scholar.  â€œI have been lucky to have lived in several countries over my lifetime,” Steinmo told us. â€œI honestly believe that every one of those experiences, whether in Japan, Norway, Sweden, Britain, or Italy, has helped me better understand other societies, and also my own country, the United States.  In many ways it was living abroad that made me want to study politics in the first place.”  

His curiosity about the politics of North Sea oil led him to apply to graduate programs in the US.  He was offered a position in the PhD program at the University of California-Berkeley with a scholarship grant which he describes as “a one-year contract at Berkeley” to study the political economy of North Sea oil.  At the end of that year, he was invited to apply to the PhD program.   

While working on his PhD, he saw a position advertised at the University of Colorado and he jumped on the chance to move to Colorado.  â€œI wasn’t even close to finishing my doctorate at that time. But my wife and I always wanted to live in this amazing state,” he said.  â€œI never regretted it. Despite the fact that I’ve lived in lot of different places since then.  Colorado has always been, Home.”

Professor Steinmo’s academic work has ranged quite broadly over the years. He’s studied health policy, education policy, taxation, evolutionary theory and political economy more generally. His most recent book, The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan, and the United States, explores the way globalization has affected different types of democratic capitalist countries. 

“Back in the late 1990s it was widely argued that globalization was supposed to create a “race to the bottom” he explained, “but if you looked at what was actually going on in different countries, you quickly saw that the so called ‘race’ was simply not happening.”

He decided to investigate why and learned that globalization was causing pressures and change, but it had different implications and consequences for different countries. “The argument that globalization will cause the same outcome in every country is absurd. But that was the argument I and other scholars were making at the time.” Instead of seeing countries and their systems as inanimate objects that responded to pressures as in physics, Steinmo came to see political and economic systems in evolutionary terms. â€œPolitics is not like Newtonian physics,” he argues. “Choices made today shape the choices that are available tomorrow. Political and economic systems are dynamic - and in my view, they evolve.”

While in Europe, he grew increasingly interested in the relationship between political institutions and political cultures over time.  This led him to delve into experimental research and what is sometimes called ‘behavioral economics.’  â€œThrough the experiments we conducted across Europe and the US, I came to better understand how our institutions shape and structure not only the choices citizens face, but also their beliefs and expectations about their governments and politics generally,” he said.  His most recent book The Leap of Faith, (Oxford University Press, 2018) elaborates this argument and explores why people in some countries are more trusting and supportive of their government than people in other countries. 

While Italy was fabulous, Colorado was too great of a place for Steinmo to stay away permanently. “I came back because I just love this area. The mountains, climate, and ease of living make Colorado an amazing place and it is a privilege to live here.”

Now that he is back at CU, he is focusing his research and energies on the next generation.

“I am writing a book now called The Greediest Generation: Why the Boomers are Screwing Themselves, Their Children, and The Planet.”“I started studying tax and social welfare policy and I realized that my generation is squeezing the welfare state so that we get all the benefits and the younger generations pay the taxes. I wanted to know why.”

The book argues that redistribution today is less about economic class and more a conflict between the generations.  â€œSimply put, young people are paying more in than they will ever receive back
 even while their parents and grandparents are cutting their taxes and increasing their social benefits. It’s just not fair.” He argues.  â€œI want young people to be as angry as I am about how my generation is pulling the rug out from underneath their own children.” 

Currently Steinmo’s favorite class to teach is PSCI 4173: Alternative World Futures.  The course explores how technology is shaping the world today and how Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Genetic Engineering are determining the future.

“I wanted to teach students about the job market that they are about to enter which is completely different from the job market I entered,” he said, observing that the United States and world are undergoing a new Industrial Revolution. 

“Be open minded, don’t just take classes in your major.  Learn about coding, computers and Artificial Intelligence as well. These things will likely affect your world more than political science theories.”   

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Professor Sven Steinmo had a letter to the editor published in The New York Times. The letter is on the article "“." Steinmo states the article, "points out what may be the single most important part of the Republican plan to undermine Americans’ trust in government."

 to read!

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