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The welfare state is a key institution to sustain our modern way of life, support our economies and ensure human rights. Yet welfare states are under siege from a number of rising challenges that require imminent reforms. Crucial to the politics of welfare state is public opinion. How supportive citizens are to the welfare state and different alternatives for reform shape the way the welfare state have developed and also the prospects of future reform.
Current welfare states are facing numerous pressures which make imminent need for reform. Such pressures include, but are not limited to, changing socio-demographic trends with ageing populations and plunging birth-rates; uncertain labour market transformations propelled by the digitalisation and automatization of work, which are all currently being accompanied by the unprecedented crisis of covid-19 and its lasting socio-economic impacts. Current welfare institutions are unequipped to tackle these changes, which render the need for reform and updating increasingly evident.
But what are the public’s demands for welfare reform? Which policy alternatives do they prefer and why? What aspects or policies is public opinion more or less favourable to, and why is this the case? Which are the coalitions of support for different types of welfare reform? In this course we look at how public opinion is a key actor influencing welfare state development, and also look at the origins of preferences of mass opinion towards the welfare state. How do the individual-level determinants and contextual factors shape the demand for welfare reform? Which theories explain these preferences? How can we measure these preferences more efficiently and which are the key methodological approaches and challenges to these questions?
Students of this course will learn the importance of public opinion to the politics of welfare reform. They will also learn the determinants and the origins of public demands for welfare reform and understand how to capture public opinion towards reform, key insights from existing work, and remaining challenges.
Learning outcomes:-
- Distinguish between welfare state, social policy, and redistribution
- Understand the influence of public opinion in the politics of welfare state
- Understand the determinants of welfare and social policy attitudes
- o Understand the different theories and explanations
- o Understand the different methodological approaches and limitations to the study of public opinion and welfare state
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| Literatur |
- Baldwin, Peter (1992): The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare State, 1875-1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Busemeyer, M., Garritzman, J., Neimanns, E., 2020. A Loud but Noisy Signal? Public Opinion and Education Reform in Western Europe
- Esping, Andersen Gøsta (1990): The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Policy Press
- Giger, Nathalie and Moira Nelson (2013): The Welfare State or the Economy? Preference, Constituencies, and Strategies for Retrenchment. European Sociological Review 29(5): 1083-1094.
- Giger, Nathalie, Jan Rosset and Julian Bernauer (2012): The poor political representation of the poor in a comparative perspective. Representation 48(1), 47-61
- Gingrich, Jane and Silja Häusermann (2015): The decline of the working class vote, the reconfiguration of the welfare support coalition and consequences for the welfare state. Journal of European Social Policy 25, 50-75.
- Korpi, Walter and Joakim Palme (1998): The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality, and Poverty in the Western Countries. American Sociological Review. 63(5), 661-687
- Roosma, Femke, and Wim van Oorschot. 2019. “Public Opinion on Basic Income: Mapping European Support for a Radical Alternative for Welfare Provision.” Journal of European Social Policy: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958928719882827.
- Rueda, D., and Stegmueller, D., 2019. Who Wants What?: Redistribution Preferences in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
- Svallfors, S., 2012. Contested Welfare States: Welfare Attitudes in Europe and Beyond.
- Van Oorschot, W., Roosma, F., Meuleman, B., Reeskens, T., 2017. The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare. Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness
- Vlandas, T., and Schwander, H., 2020. The Left and universal basic income: the role of ideology in individual support. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy.
- Vlandas, Tim. 2020. “The Political Economy of Individual-Level Support for Basic Income in Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy.
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