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Abstract
Maureen Eger
While the politics of globalization and welfare state retrenchment have garnered much attention in recent years, scholarly research on public support for welfare state expenditure is relatively sparse. Particularly lacking is a comparative analysis of support for social welfare spending across a number of states that assesses the effects of international migration and particular institutional arrangements on public opinion. Therefore, this dissertation endeavors to answer two different but related questions: Do immigration and rapid changes in the ethnic make-up of countries negatively affect citizens’ attitudes about the generosity or universality of social welfare benefits? Does ethnic heterogeneity affect all people in a relatively uniform way, as suggested by evolutionary biology and social psychology, or will institutional arrangements have an intervening effect on this relationship? In this dissertation, I offer a critique of previous explanations of support for the welfare state and show that the majority of these approaches assume that popular attitudes are either functions of economic position or regime type. Moreover, these approaches assume attitudes are relatively static and immune to broader societal change. Then, drawing from social psychology and institutional theory, I derive two hypotheses about the effects of ethnic heterogeneity and institutional arrangements on popular attitudes. To assess the relative impact of individual-level variables, immigration rates, as well as political and economic institutions on public opinion, my dissertation includes in-depth case studies of Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States as well as a comparative analysis of 13 countries. I employ hierarchical linear models to glean the effects of both individual- and state-level variables on support for the welfare state. Results provide support for both hypotheses; I find that ethnic diversity has a negative effect on support at both the regional and country levels, while institutions—including ones that promote integration—have a positive effect on support for the welfare state. |
