Risk Attitudes and Political Participation

This article contributes to existing explanations of political participation by proposing that citizens’ attitudes towards risk predict participation. I argue that people who are risk accepting participate in political life because politics offers novelty and excitement. Analyses of two independent Internet surveys establish a positive, significant relationship between risk attitudes and general political participation. The analyses also suggest that the relationship between risk attitudes and action varies with the political act: people who are more risk accepting are more likely to participate in general political acts, but they are no more or less likely to turn out in elections. Further analyses suggest that two key mechanisms—novelty seeking and excitement seeking—underlie the relationship between risk attitudes and political participation.     

The Public/Private Cleavage in a Welfare State: Attitudes Toward Public Management Reform

This study contributes to the growing literature on differences in attitudes between public and private sector employees, particularly with respect to their receptivity or resistance to public management reforms. We begin by asking the question: to what degree does perceived self-interest play a role in accounting for attitudes toward public management reforms such as downsizing, privatization, and public spending? Using attitudinal data from Sweden, a social welfare state with a large public bureaucracy, a tension is observed both among public employees in different levels of government and between public and private sector employees. In the context of public management reforms, national government employees emerge as more right-leaning politically and more supportive of public management reforms than those working in local government. The analysis finds, particularly among national government employees, that while interest as measured here is strongly related to attitudes toward reform, status as a public employee and status as a public bureaucrat are not as significant as other components of interest in accounting for attitudes toward public management reform.     

Housing and the Welfare State in Norway

This article discusses housing and the welfare state in Norway in 1980 and 2005 by applying Esping‐Andersen's theories of welfare state regimes to this sector. How should Norwegian housing policy be understood in light of Esping‐Andersen's conceptual framework, and what is the impact of post‐industrial change? In 1980, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by social‐democratic traits such as market regulation, substantial public expenditure and universal subsidies for both renters and a large owner‐occupied housing sector. The effects of post‐industrial changes, including deregulation of the credit and housing markets, marked a major turn in housing policy and the housing market in Norway. By 2005, Norwegian housing policy was mainly characterised by traits that are typical of a liberal welfare regime: market economics, low public expenditure and subsidies for small, targeted groups, while other segments of the Norwegian welfare state remain characterised by social‐democratic traits. Esping‐Andersen's claim that the effect of post‐industrial transformation was different in different welfare regimes is thus not supported by the case of the Norwegian housing sector.     

Divided by the Market,Divided by the State: Distribution,Redistribution and Welfare Attitudes in 47 Countries

This article examines the impact of income inequality and welfare state context on the extent to which the rich and poor share similar attitudes towards redistribution. It asks whether and how differences in attitudes, particularly those between income groups, are shaped by inequality and redistributive efforts. Based on a multi‐level analysis of individual survey data across 47 countries at three points in time, the article shows that such an interaction of individual characteristics and the macro‐context indeed matters considerably. While material self‐interest, unsurprisingly, explains part of the individual differences, the analysis also shows, for the first time, that both high inequality and strongly redistributive policies divide public opinion along the lines of socioeconomic position. Put differently, while market inequality may be associated with less cohesive attitudes, a highly redistributive welfare state does not seem to foster agreement among the public, either. These findings have important policy implications for advanced welfare states, including a renewed emphasis on ‘predistribution’ (i.e., policies that influence the primary distribution of income) in order to avoid the scenario of intensified redistributive conflicts.     

State Participation in Interstate Compacts

When problems straddle state boundaries, interstate cooperationis often needed in order to resolve those problems. Participationin interstate compacts, a form of cooperative activity, variesconsiderably from state to state. Compact participation generallytends to be higher among states likely to experience interdependence,as indicated by the geographical proximity of their state capitalsto each other. Patterns of adoption vary, however, dependingon the subject matter of the compact.     

An African American Welfare State

Histories of the American welfare state have been white histories, in part because scholars have presumed that welfare state institutions are benevolent and exist to assist those in need. But if we take seriously work that instead focuses upon the degree to which welfare state regimes affect citizens' freedom to survive apart from dependence on the labor market or upon a male breadwinner, along with scholarship that highlights the malign functions of relief, then explicitly repressive institutions become legitimately within the purview of welfare state analysis. This article makes the formative case that slavery, Jim Crow, and the prison might be considered welfare state institutions, given their impact upon the material well-being of so many Americans. Because these institutions have most affected blacks, we might have reason to distinguish between a white welfare state and an African American welfare state, and reject the notion that we can coherently speak of the welfare state.