Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-r2nwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-06T06:22:13.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Makes People Worry about the Welfare State? A Three-Country Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Achim Goerres ,
Rune Karlsen  and
Staffan Kumlin
Achim Goerres
Affiliation:
University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Political Science
Rune Karlsen*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication; Institute for Social Research, Oslo
Staffan Kumlin
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Department of Political Science; Institute for Social Research, Oslo
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Welfare states are exposed to a host of cost-inducing ‘reform pressures’. An experiment implemented in Germany, Norway and Sweden tests how various reform pressure frames affect perceptions about the future financial sustainability of the welfare state. Such perceptions have been shown to moderate electoral punishment for welfare reform, but little is known about their origins. Hypotheses are formulated in dialogue with newer research on welfare state change, as well as with older theory expecting more stability in policy and attitudes (the ‘new politics’ framework). Research drawing on ‘deservingness theory’ is also consulted. The results suggest large variations in impact across treatments. The most influential path to effective pressure framing is to ‘zoom in’ on specific economic pressures linked to undeserving groups (above all immigration, but also to some extent low employment). Conversely, a message emphasizing pressure linked to a very deserving group (population aging) had little effect. A second conceivable path to pressure framing entails ‘zooming out’ – making messages span a diverse and more broadly threatening set of challenges. This possibility, however, received weaker support.

Keywords

welfare statepublic opinionframingreform pressurewelfare state sustainabilityblame avoidance
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 1519 - 1537
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aalberg, T, Shanto, I and Messing, S (2012) Who is a ‘deserving’ immigrant? an experimental study of Norwegian attitudes. Scandinavian Political Studies 35 (2):97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armingeon, K and Giger, N (2008) Conditional punishment: a comparative analysis of the electoral consequences of welfare state retrenchment in OECD nations, 1980–2003. West European Politics 31 (3):558–580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arndt, C (2014) The electoral consequences of reforming a Bismarckian Welfare State. In Kumlin S and Stadelmann-Steffen I, (eds), How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting, and Attitudes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 132–155.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, FR et al. (2009) Punctuated equilibrium in comparative perspective. American Journal of Political Science 53 (3):603–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bay, A-H, Hatland, A, Hellevik, T and Koren, C, (eds) (2010) De norske trygdene, [The Norwegian Social Security]. Oslo: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Bay, A-H, Finseraas, H and Pedersen, AW (2016) Welfare nationalism and popular support for raising the child allowance: evidence from a Norwegian survey experiment. Scandinavian Political Studies 39 (4):482–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bay, A-H and Pedersen, AW (2006) The limits of social solidarity: basic income, immigration and the legitimacy of the universal welfare state. Acta Sociologica 49 (4):419–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beramendi, P et al. (eds) (2015) The Politics of Advanced Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonoli, G (2005) The politics of new social policies: providing coverage against new social risks in mature welfare states. Policy and Politics 33 (3):431–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonoli, G (2012) Blame avoidance and credit claiming revisited. In Bonoli G and Natali D, (eds), The Politics of the New Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brochmann, G and Grødem, AS (2013) Migration and welfare sustainability. The case of Norway. In Brochmann G and Jurado E, (eds), Europe’s Immigration Challenge. Reconciling Work, Welfare and Mobility. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 59–76.Google Scholar
Brooks, C (2011) Framing theory, welfare attitudes, and the United States case. In Svallfors S, (ed.), Constested Welfare States: Welfare Attitudes in Europe and Beyond, edited by Stefan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 193–221.Google Scholar
Cappelen, C and Midtbø, T (2016) Intra-EU labour migration and support for the Norwegian welfare state. European Sociological Review 32 (6):691–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chong, D and Druckman, JN (2007) Framing theory. Annual Review of Political Science 10, 103–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, RH (2001) The social construction of an imperative: why welfare reform happened in Denmark and the Netherlands but not in Germany. World Politics 53, 463–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, A (1972) Up and down with ecology: the issue–attention cycle. Public Interest 28, 38–46.Google Scholar
Druckman, JN et al. (eds) (2011) Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmelund-Præstekær, C and Emmenegger, P (2013) Strategic re-framing as a vote winner: why vote-seeking governments pursue unpopular reforms. Scandinavian Political Studies 36 (1):23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Entman, RM (1993) Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication 43 (4):51–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esmark, A and Schoop, SR (2017) Deserving social benefits? Political framing and media framing of ‘deservingness’ in two welfare reforms in Denmark. Journal of European Social Policy 27 (5):417–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrera, M (2008) The European welfare state: golden achievements, silver prospects. West European Politics 31 (1–2):82–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fietkau, S and Hansen, KM (2018) How perceptions of immigrants trigger feelings of economic and cultural threats in two welfare states. European Union Politics 19 (1):119–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giger, N (2011) The Risk of Social Policy: The Electoral Consequences of Welfare State Retrenchment and Social Policy Performance in OECD Countries. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giger, N and Nelson, N (2013) The welfare state or the economy? Preferences, constituencies, and strategies for retrenchment. European Sociological Review 29 (5):1083–1094.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goerres, Achim, Karlsen, Rune and Kumlin, Staffan (2018) Replication data for: What Makes People Worry About the Welfare State? A Three Country Experiment, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/F05CTI, Harvard Dataverse, V1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goerres, A and Tepe, M (2012) Doing it for the kids? The determinants of attitudes towards public childcare in unified Germany. Journal of Social Policy 41 (2):349–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goerres, A and Vanhuysse, P (2012) Mapping the field: comparative generational politics and policies in ageing democracies. In Vanhuysse P and Goerres A, (eds), Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies: Comparative Studies of Politics and Policies. London: Routledge, pp. 1–22.Google Scholar
Hemerijck, A (2013) Changing Welfare States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hjorth, F (2016) Who benefits? Welfare chauvinism and national stereotypes. European Union Politics 17 (1):3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hood, C (2007) What happens when transparency meets blame avoidance. Public Management Review 9 (2):191–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A (2016) Policy making for the long term in advanced democracies. Annual Review of Political Science 19, 433–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jakobsson, N and Kumlin, S (2017) Election campaigns, government partisanship, and the welfare state. European Political Science Review 9 (2):183–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, C and Naumann, E (2016) Increasing pressures and support for public healthcare in Europe. Health Policy 120, 698–705.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jerit, J and Barabas, J (2006) Bankrupt rhetoric: how misleading information affects knowledge about social security. Public Opinion Quarterly 70 (3):278–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kangas, OE, Niemelä, M and Varjonen, S (2014) When and why do ideas matter? The Influence of Framing on Opinion Formation and Policy Change. European Political Science Review 6 (1):73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korpi, W and Palme, J (2003) New politics and class politics in the context of austerity and globalization: welfare state regress in 18 countries, 1975–95. American Political Science Review 97, 425–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuipers, S (2006) The Crisis Imperative: Crisis Rhetoric and Welfare State Reform in Belgium and the Netherlands in the Early 1990s. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumlin, S (2007) Overloaded or undermined? European welfare states in the face of performance dissatisfaction. In Svallfors S, (ed.), The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages, and Orientations. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 80–116.Google Scholar
Levi, M (1997) Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, JD (2010) Welfare retrenchment. In Castles FG et al. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 552–569.Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, MS and Stegmaier, M (2007) Economic models of voting. In Dalton RJ and Klingemann H-D, (eds), Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 518–537.Google Scholar
Lindbom, A (2007) Obfuscating retrenchment: Swedish welfare policy in the 1990s. Journal of Public Policy 27 (2):129–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindbom, A (2014) Waking up the giant: hospital closures and electoral punishment in Sweden. In Kumlin S and Stadelmann-Steffen I, (eds), How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, Voting, and Attitudes, edited by Staffan and Isabelle. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 156–180.Google Scholar
Mau, S (2003) The Moral Economy of Welfare States: Britain and Germany Compared. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Morel, N, Palier, B and Palme, J (eds) (2012) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State?. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Naumann, E (2014) Raising the retirement age: retrenchment, feedback, and attitudes. In Kumlin S and Stadelmann-Steffen I, (eds), How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation, and Attitudes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 223–243.Google Scholar
Naumann, E (2017) Do increasing reform pressures change welfare state attitudes? An experimental study on population ageing, pension reform preferences, political knowledge, and ideology. Ageing and Society 37 (2):266–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naumann, E and Stoetzer, LF (2018) Immigration and support for redistribution: survey experiments in three European countries. West European Politics 41 (1):80–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NOU (2011) Velferd og migrasjon. Den norske modellens framtid. [Welfare and Migration. The Future of the Norwegian Model]. Stockholm: NOU.Google Scholar
Oscarsson, H and Holmberg, S (2013) Nya svenska väljare [New Swedish Voters]. Stockholm: Norstedts Juridik.Google Scholar
Palier, B (ed.) (2010) A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palier, B and Martin, C (2007) Editorial introduction: from ‘a frozen landscape’ to structural reforms: the sequential transformation of Bismarckian Welfare systems. Social Policy & Administration 41 (6):535–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, MB et al. (2010) Deservingness versus values in public opinion on welfare: the automaticity of the deservingness heuristic. European Journal of Political Research 50, 24–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, M et al. (2012) Who deserves help? Evolutionary psychology, social emotions, and public opinion about welfare. Political Psychology 33 (3):395–418.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pierson, P (1996) The new politics of the welfare state. World Politics 48 (2):143–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P (ed.) (2001) The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roosma, F, Gelissen, J and van Oorschot, W (2013) The multidimensionality of welfare state attitudes: a European cross-national study. Social Indicators Research 113, 235–255.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rothstein, B (1998) Just Institutions Matter. The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, VA (2002) Does discourse matter in the politics of welfare state adjustment? Comparative Political Studies 35 (2):168–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scruggs, L (2008) Social rights, welfare generosity, and inequality. In Beramendi P and Anderson CJ (eds), Democracy, Inequality, and Representation. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, pp. 62–90.Google Scholar
Shaffer, JP (1995) Multiple hypothesis testing. Annual Review of Psychology 46 (1):561–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slothuus, R (2007) Framing deservingness to win support for welfare state retrenchment. Scandinavian Political Studies 30 (3):323–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroka, SN and Wlezien, C (2010) Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soss, J and Schram, S (2007) A public transformed? Welfare reform as policy feedback. American Political Science Review 101 (1):111–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starke, P (2008) Radical Welfare State Retrechment. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiller, S (2010) Ideational Leadership in German Welfare State Reform: How Politicians and Policy Ideas Transform Resilient Institutions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, DE (1963) Spatial models of party competition. American Political Science Review 57, 368–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svallfors, S (2012) Welfare states and welfare attitudes. In Svallfors S (ed.), Contested Welfare States: Welfare Attitudes in Europe and Beyond. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Taber, CS and Lodge, M (2006) Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50 (3):755–769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P (ed.) (2001) Welfare States under Pressure. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Tyler, TR et al. (1997) Social Justice in a Diverse Society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
van Kersbergen, K, Vis, B and Hemerijck, A (2014) The great recession and welfare state reform: is retrenchment really the only game left in town? Social Policy & Administration 48 (7):883–904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Oorschot, W (2000) Who should get what, and why? On deservingness criteria and the conditionality of solidarity among the Public. Policy and Politics 28 (1):33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Oorschot, W (2006) Making the difference in social europe: deservingness perceptions among citizens of European Welfare States. Journal of European Social Policy 16 (1):23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Oorschot, W et al. (eds) (2017) The Social Legitimacy of Social Welfare: Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.Google Scholar
Vis, B (2016) Taking stock of the comparative literature on the role of blame avoidance strategies in social policy reform. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 18 (2):122–137.Google Scholar
Wenzelburger, G and Hörisch, F (2016) Framing effects and comparative social policy reform: comparing blame avoidance evidence from two experiments. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 18 (2):157–175.Google Scholar
Zaller, JR (1992) The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohlnhöfer, R (2015) A coalition whose time had already passed...the economic and social polices of the second Merkel government. In D’Ottavio G and Saalfeld T (eds), Germany after the 2013 Elections: Breaking the Mould of Post-Unification Politics?. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 13–30.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Goerres et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/F05CTI
Link
Supplementary material: File

Goerres et al. supplementary material

Appendix

Download Goerres et al. supplementary material(File)
File 52.1 KB