the relatively high level it was at in 1970, government ideology would have shifted to the
right, not the left, by the 1990s.
The final series, represented by the short dashes, displays the predicted ideology of
the elected governments if unemployment had remained unchanged at its initial level for the
entire period. Unemployment in France rose fairly steadily between 1970 and the mid-
1980s, retreated slightly after that, and then rose even higher in the middle and late 1990s.
Had unemployment not increased, government ideology in France would have moved even
further to the left than it did.
In the United Kingdom, the story is very similar. Earnings inequality in the United
Kingdom fell from a ratio of 3.42 in 1973 to 2.87 in 1977, and then increased back to
roughly the same levels as the early 1970s by the late 1990s. Had inequality not declined in
the mid-1970s the model predicts that government ideology would not have shifted to the
left and would have become even more conservative in the early 1980s. Unemployment in
the UK peaked during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. The model predicts
that had these recessions not occurred, government ideology in the UK would have been
substantially more left wing during the early 1980s, but would not have been much different
from the actual ideology levels in the 1990s.
31
Convention