The Effects of Needs for Security and Certainty on Economic Beliefs: The Role of Political Engagement and the Welfare State Model

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062097762
Author(s):  
Gabriela Czarnek ◽  
Małgorzata Kossowska

We suggest that the effects of needs for security and certainty (NSC) on economic beliefs result from potentially competing dispositional (political engagement) and contextual (the country-level political narrative around the welfare state) influences. An analysis of data from the 2016 European Social Survey ( N = 40,870) showed that at low levels of political engagement, NSC is associated with left-wing beliefs. However, at high levels of political engagement, the NSC effects are conditional on a country’s welfare state model: NSC is related to right-wing beliefs in Liberal, Continental, and Southern types, but the effects are nonsignificant in the Nordic type and the reverse under the Eastern type. Analysis of 2018 round of the same survey ( N = 45,575) corroborated the main findings (except the Southern type for which NSC effects were nonsignificant). This study advances knowledge on the psychological roots of economic beliefs and contributes to the understanding of people’s political choices.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela Czarnek ◽  
Małgorzata Kossowska

We suggest that the effects of needs for security and certainty (NSC) on economic beliefs result from potentially competing dispositional (political engagement) and contextual (the country-level political narrative around the welfare state) influences. An analysis of data from the 2016 European Social Survey (N = 40,870) showed that at low levels of political engagement, NSC is associated with left-wing beliefs. However, at high levels of political engagement, the NSC effects are conditional on a country’s welfare state model: NSC is related to right-wing beliefs in Liberal, Continental, and Southern types, but the effects are non-significant in the Nordic type and the reverse under the Eastern type. Analysis of 2018 round of the same survey (N = 45,575) corroborated the main findings (except the Southern type for which NSC effects were non-significant). This study advances knowledge on the psychological roots of economic beliefs and contributes to understanding of people’s political choices.


2013 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Edoardo Bressan

In Italy, from the 1930s until the end of the century, the relationship between the Catholic world and the development of the Social state becomes a very relevant theme. Social thought and Catholic historiography issues witness a European civilisation crisis, by highlighting problems of poverty and historical forms of assistance. Furthermore, by following the 1931 Pope Pius XI encyclical Quadragesimo anno these issues interacted with fascist corporativism. After 1945, other key experiences arose, as the discussion on social security as the conclusion of the whole public assistance debate shown. These themes are reported in the Bologna social week works in 1949 and in Fanfani's and La Pira's positions, which present several correspondences with British and French worlds, such as Christian socialism, Reinhold Niebuhr's thought and Maritain's remarks. The 1948 Republican Constitution adopts the Welfare State model assumptions, and it is in those very years that the problem of a system based on a universal outlook arose. Afterwards, governments of coalition led by centre and left-wing parties fostered social security through welfare and health reforms until the '80s. While this model falls into crisis, and new social actors begin to be involved in a context of subsidiarity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Toikko ◽  
Teemu Rantanen

AbstractThis study examines the relationship between the welfare state models and social political attitudes. The data are based on the sixth round of the European Social Survey. The study revealed a mechanism of how the relationship between concrete and abstract attitudes differs between the welfare states. In the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic welfare states the relationship is a positive one, which indicates that the welfare state has a broad support among citizens. In the Continental, Eastern and Southern welfare states the relationship is a negative one. This means that the less satisfied citizens are with governmental measures, the more positive their attitudes are regarding protecting citizens against poverty. Also the study showed that the welfare state model directly influences citizens’ concrete attitudes and indirectly influences abstract poverty attitudes. In this sense, the welfare state model is seen more as an attitudinal perception than an actual social policy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Parolin ◽  
Linus Siöland

Debate around a universal basic income (UBI) tends to focus on the economic and social implications of the policy proposal. Less clear, however, are the factors influencing support for a UBI. Using the 2016 European Social Survey, we investigate how trade union membership and left political ideology (central to power resources theory) and attitudes towards immigrants’ access to welfare benefits (central to welfare state chauvinism) affect individual support for a UBI. We also investigate how country-level differences in levels of social spending moderate individual-level UBI support. Results from multi-level models suggest that a broader coalition of UBI supporters can generally be found in countries where social spending is low. Specifically, we find that welfare state chauvinism is more likely to be associated with negative attitudes towards a UBI in countries with high levels of spending, but has only a weak association with UBI support in low-spending countries. Similarly, political ideology is more consequential in explaining UBI support in countries with higher levels of spending. These tensions form a demand–capacity paradox: the countries which are presumably least equipped to implement a UBI see the most broad-based support for the policy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Fosse

Norway is part of the so-called social democratic welfare state model, which is characterized by its emphasis on solidarity and redistribution among social groups. The concepts of upstream and downstream policy measures may be useful to characterize different approaches to public health policies: upstream measures would be structural measures, in line with the social democratic welfare state model, while downstream measures would be more targeted at individuals or groups at some sort of risk. The aim of this article is to analyze national policies in Norway and how these may be characterized in terms of upstream and downstream factors. Health promotion and public health policies have been high on the Norwegian political agenda for two decades. However, the national policy emphasis has shifted between strategies aimed at individuals and structural strategies—that is, between downstream and upstream measures. Until 2003, policies included mainly downstream measures, but since then a policy shift has taken place and current policy includes an emphasis on upstream measures. This policy was strengthened after a left-wing coalition came into government in 2005. It may be argued that the present policy represents a revitalization of universal and structural measures, in line with the social democratic welfare state model.


2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Brito Vieira ◽  
Filipe Carreira da Silva ◽  
Cícero Roberto Pereira

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Degen ◽  
Theresa Kuhn ◽  
Wouter van der Brug

In the context of large-scale migration within and into Europe, the question of whether and under which conditions immigrants should be granted access to social benefits in the country of destination is of high political relevance. A large body of research has studied natives’ attitudes towards giving immigrants access to the welfare state, while research on attitudes of immigrants themselves is scarce. Focusing on the impact of self-interest, we compare immigrants and native citizens in their attitudes towards granting immigrants access to the welfare state. We identify three mechanisms through which self-interest can influence these attitudes: immigrant origin, socio-economic status and – for first-generation immigrants only – incorporation into the host society. We test our expectations using cross-national data from the European Social Survey round 2008. The findings suggest that self-interest is indeed one of the factors that motivate attitudes towards welfare state restrictiveness among natives and immigrants, but also point at relevant exceptions to this pattern.


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