The effects of welfare state universalism on migrant integration

This paper investigates how and why welfare state universalism can shape the integration of migrants into the national community. Universalism is broadly regarded as central to the integrative and solidarity-building potential of welfare states, but we argue that the traditional approach to understanding the concept is fraught with inconsistencies. Rather than comparing welfare states using the classical universalist/selectivist dichotomy, we suggest that they should be thought of as embodying various 'packages' of universalist traits – all of which are unified by their connection to a core, self-sustaining logic of solidarity. A comparison of Canadian and Danish universalism allows us to draw out how (indiscriminate/selectivist) 'community perks' traits and (inclusive/exclusive) 'community scope' ones may interact in unexpected ways. This, in turn, helps us better understand how and why 'classically universalist' Denmark is facing threats to solidarity and migrant integration that are much more intense than those found in 'classically selectivist' Canada

Motive attribution and the moral politics of the welfare state

This article explores the moral politics of the welfare state and the social conflicts that underlie them. We argue that existing research on the moralism of redistributive and social policy preferences is overly one-dimensional, with a longstanding concentration on attitudes toward welfare state beneficiaries. To widen our understanding of the phenomenon, we introduce the concept of motive attribution: that is, how people answer the question “what drives others to take the positions that they hold?” Doing so allows us to shift the subject of moralistic attitudes, with a move toward uncovering what citizens think of those who hold a given social policy stance. The article then lays out a first systematic overview of motive attributions using an original dataset built from nationally representative surveys conducted in ten Western democracies. Comparing responses across these countries, we draw out important cross-national differences in ascribed motives, including within welfare state regime types

Political parties and social groups: New perspectives and data on group and policy appeals

This article contributes to the literature on party appeals to social groups by introducing a new dataset on group and policy appeals in Scandinavia (2009–2015). In addition to coding to what social groups parties appeal, we collected information on what policies parties offer for the groups they mention and what goals and instruments they specify for such policies. The latter advance makes it possible to present new insights on the extent to which group appeals are actually substantial and meaningful. We find that left, centre, and right parties appeal to broad demographic categories rather than class. There are almost no appeals to the middle class, although the frequent reference to a category ‘all’ can be interpreted as a functional equivalent for middle class appeals. Finally, parties clearly still make substantial policy proposals and address concrete policy problems, but with only small differences in such appeals across the left-right spectrum

The illusion of class in welfare state politics?

Social class, with its potentially pivotal influence on both policy-making and electoral outcomes tied to the welfare state, is a frequent fixture in academic and political discussions about social policy. Yet these discussions presuppose that class identity is in fact tied up with distinct attitudes toward the welfare state. Using original data from ten surveys fielded in the United States and Western Europe, we investigate the relationship between class and general stances toward the welfare state as a whole, with the goal of determining whether class affects how individuals understand and relate to the welfare state. Our findings suggest that, although class markers are tied to objective and subjective positional considerations about one's place in the society, they nevertheless do not seem to shape stances toward the welfare state. What is more, this is equally true across the various welfare state types, as we find no evidence that so-called ‘middle-class welfare states’ engender more positive middle-class attitudes than other regimes. Based on our analysis, we propose that researchers would do better to focus on household income rather than class; while income may not be a perfect predictor of attitudes toward the welfare state, it is a markedly better one than class

Yardsticks of inequality: Preferences for redistribution in advanced democracies

This article explores how preferences for redistribution among voters are affected by the structure of inequality. There are strong theoretical reasons to believe that some voter segments matter more than others, not least the so-called median-income voter, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to directly analysing distinct income groups’ redistributive preferences. In addition, while much of the previous literature has focused on broad levels of inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, it is likely that individuals respond to different types of inequality in different ways. To rectify this gap, we use data from the European Social Survey and Eurostat to examine the interactive effect of income deciles and various measures of inequality. Results suggest that inequality especially affects the middle-income groups – that is, the assumed median-income voters. Moreover, not all inequality matters equally: it is inequality vis-à-vis those around the 80th percentile that shapes redistributive preferences

Workfare and attitudes toward the unemployed: new evidence on policy feedback from 1990 to 2018

To what extent, and under what conditions, have workfare reforms shaped public opinion toward the unemployed? This article unpacks the punitive and enabling dimensions of the workfare turn and examines how changes to the rights and obligations of the unemployed have influenced related policy preferences. To do so, it presents a novel dataset on these reforms across a diverse set of welfare states and investigates potential feedback effects by combining our data with four waves of survey data from Europe and North America. Results suggest that while enabling measures generate more lenient attitudes toward the unemployed, punitive measures have no clear effect on public opinion – but they do accentuate the gap between the preferences of high- and low-income individuals. This leads us to conclude that the trend towards punitive and enabling measures since the 1980s has not broadly undermined solidarity with the unemployed, though it has increased income-based polarisation. </p

The paternalist politics of punitive and enabling workfare: evidence from a new dataset on workfare reforms in 16 countries, 1980-2015

Does neoliberalism lie behind the increased use of social policy to control and incentivize labour market behaviour? We argue that this assumed connection is theoretically weak and empirically inaccurate, and we point to an alternative explanation centred on government paternalism. Using a new comparative dataset on workfare reforms, we first describe how the overall balance of punitive and enabling demands placed on the unemployed has changed across 16 countries between 1980 and 2015. We observe a growing number of workfare reforms, modestly tilted towards the punitive side – but without a broad shift towards punitive workfare. We then assess the drivers of policy intervention, finding that government paternalism, rather than neoliberalism, helps us to understand which governments enact enabling and punitive measures. In line with our broader argument, we suggest that this reflects the moral (rather than economic) foundations of social policy

The paternalist politics of punitive and enabling workfare: evidence from a new dataset on workfare reforms in 16 countries, 1980-2015

Does neoliberalism lie behind the increased use of social policy to control and incentivize labour market behaviour? We argue that this assumed connection is theoretically weak and empirically inaccurate, and we point to an alternative explanation centred on government paternalism. Using a new comparative dataset on workfare reforms, we first describe how the overall balance of punitive and enabling demands placed on the unemployed has changed across 16 countries between 1980 and 2015. We observe a growing number of workfare reforms, modestly tilted towards the punitive side – but without a broad shift towards punitive workfare. We then assess the drivers of policy intervention, finding that government paternalism, rather than neoliberalism, helps us to understand which governments enact enabling and punitive measures. In line with our broader argument, we suggest that this reflects the moral (rather than economic) foundations of social policy