Public Attitudes

2021 ◽  
pp. 328-345
Author(s):  
Staffan Kumlin ◽  
Achim Goerres ◽  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Attitude Research ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
Citizens Attitudes ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter discusses developments in research on citizens’ attitudes towards the welfare state. The introduction briefly reminds the reader about older, and still vibrant, research traditions. From then on, however, the focus is on four distinct ‘new directions’ that became prominent recently and were only present on the fringe of the field a decade ago. One key development concerns conceptualizations and measures. A second, fast-growing literature deals with the consequences of ethnic diversity and immigration on welfare attitudes. A third literature examines whether demographic change has triggered intergenerational conflict in such attitudes. A fourth research programme concerns an increasing attention to the causes and effects of welfare state ‘performance evaluations’. Taken together, these subfields demonstrate how the broader field of welfare attitude research is responding to the significant welfare state challenges and changes documented elsewhere in this Handbook.

Is There a Progressive's Dilemma in Canada? Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith G. Banting
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Regime ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
To Come ◽  
Inclusive Form ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract. There is a widespread fear in many western nations that ethnic diversity is eroding support for the welfare state. This article examines such fears in the Canadian context. In-depth analysis of public attitudes finds remarkably little tension between ethnic diversity and public support for social programs in Canada. At first glance, then, the country seems to demonstrate the political viability of a multicultural welfare state. But this pattern reflects distinctive features of the institutional context within which public attitudes evolve. The Canadian policy regime has forestalled tension between diversity and redistribution by diverting adjustment pressures from the welfare state, absorbing some of them in other parts of the policy regime, and nurturing a more inclusive form of identity. These institutional buffers are thinning, however, potentially increasing the danger of greater tension between diversity and redistribution in the years to come.Résumé. On craint généralement dans de nombreux pays occidentaux que l'immigration et la diversité ethnique de plus en plus grande soient en train d'éroder l'appui accordé à l'État-providence. Cet article porte sur de telles inquiétudes au sein du Canada. Une analyse approfondie des attitudes du public dévoile qu'il existe remarquablement peu de tension entre la diversité ethnique et l'appui du public à l'endroit des programmes sociaux du Canada. À première vue, le pays semble donc démontrer la viabilité politique d'un État-providence multiculturel. Mais cette tendance reflète les traits distinctifs du contexte institutionnel au sein duquel évoluent les attitudes du public. Le régime de politiques canadiennes fait échec à la tension entre la diversité et la redistribution en soustrayant de l'État-providence diverses pressions d'ajustement et en favorisant une forme d'identité plus inclusive. Certains de ces mécanismes de tampon institutionnels disparaissent progressivement, ce qui peut accroître le danger d'une tension accrue entre la diversité et la redistribution dans les années à venir.

Attitudes to the Welfare State: A Systematic Review Approach to the Example of Ethnically Diverse Welfare States

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trude Sundberg
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

There has been a growing interest in and expansion of research on welfare attitudes and the legitimacy of welfare states as they face both internal and external pressures at social, political and economic levels. The number of cross-national surveys is steadily increasing and many studies examine developments in social provision and public attitudes towards welfare. However, there is a lack of a clear and comprehensive overview of knowledge about tendencies in support for the welfare state in light of these pressures. Moreover, there is a lack of understanding of what impacts variations in attitudes and the relationship between attitudes and other constructs such as perceptions, values and stereotypes, which all form part of support for the welfare state. The article reports on findings from a project using tools from the systematic review tradition in an innovative way to achieve a comprehensive and systematic overview of current knowledge. The article has three main contributions; firstly, it adds to our understanding of the relationship between attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, stereotypes and values, secondly, it adds to attitude theory and thus enhances our understanding of welfare attitudes and lastly it illustrates how it achieves the first two through applying adapted tools from the systematic review tradition. Systematic Review as a method originated in natural science and medicine, and the paper examines how it can be successfully transferred to issues in social science. The article argues in favour of emphasising the importance of differentiating and investigating what is known and not known by examining the relationship between immigration and support for the welfare state. Thus, an adapted systematic review is found to enhance our understanding of trends in welfare support by use of theoretically framed research synthesis.

Public Attitudes to Dependency and the Welfare State

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bradshaw ◽  
Emese Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The Welfare State

The Family, the Welfare State and Community Care: Political Rhetoric and Public Attitudes

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick West
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
New Right ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The Family ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Family State ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACTWithin the political arena, most sharply articulated by the new Right, the family and welfare state have been counterposed as ideological opposites with implications for the relative responsibility each should be accorded in respect of a policy of community care. On the basis of evidence from a survey conducted in three locations in Scotland, this paper examines the extent to which the ideological positions of Left and Right are reflected in public attitudes towards these issues. The results show that with the exception of certain groups of ‘ideologues’, individual citizens tend not to structure their attitudes in accordance with overarching ideologies, nor are their attitudes in any consistent way organized along partisan lines. In respect of the family/state polarity, there is only a faint echo of the broad rhetoric of political parties and on more concrete issues like care for dependent persons none at all. The overall picture supports the view that the family and welfare state as they are confronted by people in their everyday lives are much less ideological opposites than intermeshed in an overlapping complex of values, needs and interests.

Exploring Attitudes Towards the Welfare State: Students' Views in Eight Democracies

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLARA SABBAGH ◽  
PIETER VANHUYSSE
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Hierarchical Model ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Internal Attribution ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
External Attribution ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
The Welfare State

We explore the dimensionality of attitudes towards the welfare state among university students in eight countries representing four worlds of welfare: liberal, radical, conservative and social democratic. We use new data from cross-nationally comparable 25-item questionnaires to derive a two-level bi-factorial hierarchical model that specifies six different attitude facets. These facets are clustered into two distinct sets of attitudes: the ‘market-based frame’, which entails (a) individualism, (b) work ethic and (c) internal attribution of inequality and the ‘welfare-statist frame’, which entails (d) egalitarian redistribution, (e) broad scope of welfare and (f) external attribution of social inequality. In line with our expectations, respondents across different regime types structured their welfare state attitudes according to the six a priori defined types of attitudes and two sets of opposing attitudes. The study also found that the six facets are differently affected by regime type, which further corroborates our argument that the construct of welfare attitudes is complex and inherently multidimensional.

scholarly journals Waiting for Godot? Welfare Attitudes in Portugal before and after the Financial Crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Brito Vieira ◽  
Filipe Carreira da Silva ◽  
Cícero Roberto Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Attitudinal Change ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Waiting For Godot ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
The Welfare State

Do attitudes towards the welfare state change in response to economic crises? Addressing this question is sometimes difficult because of the lack of longitudinal data. This article deals with this empirical challenge using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey and from our own follow-up survey of Spring 2013 to track welfare attitudes at the brink and at the peak of the socio-economic crisis in one of the hardest hit countries: Portugal. The literature on social policy preferences predicts an increased polarisation in opinions towards the welfare state between different groups within society – in particular between labour market insiders and outsiders. However, the prediction has scarcely been tested empirically. A notoriously dualised country, Portugal provides a critical setting in which to test this hypothesis. The results show attitudinal change, and this varies according to labour market vulnerability. However, we observe no polarisation and advance alternative explanations for why this is so.

scholarly journals Beyond Positive and Negative: New Perspectives on Feedback Effects in Public Opinion on the Welfare State

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius R Busemeyer ◽  
Aurélien Abrassart ◽  
Roula Nezi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Dynamic Feedback ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Positive And Negative Feedback ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract The study of policy feedback on public attitudes and policy preferences has become a growing area of research in recent years. Scholars in the tradition of Pierson usually argue that positive, self-reinforcing feedback effects dominate (that is, attitudes are commensurate with existing institutions), whereas the public thermostat model developed by Wlezien and Soroka expects negative, self-undermining feedback. Moving beyond the blunt distinction between positive and negative feedback, this article develops and proposes a more fine-grained typology of feedback effects that distinguishes between accelerating, self-reinforcing and self-undermining, specific and general, as well as long- and short-term dynamic feedback. The authors apply this typology in an analysis of public opinion on government spending in different areas of the welfare state for twenty-one OECD countries, employing a pseudo-panel approach. The empirical analysis confirms the usefulness of this typology since it shows that different types of feedback effects can be observed empirically.

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