The Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes: How Welfare Regimes Influence Public Support

Why are people who live in liberal welfare regimes reluctant to support welfare policy? And conversely, why are people who live in social democratic welfare regimes so keen to support it? These core questions lie at the heart of this intriguing book. By examining how different welfare regimes influence public support for welfare policy, the book explores the institutional settings of different regimes and how each produces its own support. While previous studies in this field have failed to link the macro-structure of welfare regimes and the micro-structure of welfare attitudes, this book redresses this problem by combining welfare regime theory and literature on deservingness criteria alongside empirical evidence from national and cross-national data. While recent trends in welfare state development such as cuts in benefit levels and increased use of targeting, combined with increased immigration, might very well influence our perceptions of the deservingness of the needy, this book provides a strong, convincing and provoking argument that challenges the micro-foundation of present comparative welfare state theory. The result is an important work for all studying and working in the fields of public policy and social welfare.

Christian Albrekt Larsen is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has previously, together with Professor JÃ, rgen Goul Andersen, written on Nordic labour markets and welfare reforms (pension, early retirement, tax and labour market policy). The work has been published in two books and a number of international articles. He is currently involved in two large projects; respectively about the importance of the networks of long-term unemployed and the dynamics behind the transformation of the Danish welfare state.