Class, Attitudes and the Welfare State: Sweden in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

One of the most important arenas for contemporary class politics is the welfare state. In this article, attitudes towards welfare policies among different classes in Sweden are compared with other Western countries and over time. In the first part of the article, attitudes towards state intervention among different classes are compared across four Western countries: Sweden, Germany, Britain and the USA. The data come from the  survey on "The Role of Government" conducted within the International Social Survey Programme. In the second part of the article, more detailed national data sets are used in order to track developments within Sweden from the early  s until  . Attitudes towards welfare spending, financing of welfare policies and service delivery are used to track developments of class differences in attitudes over time. It is concluded (a) that class differences are particularly large in Sweden, and (b) that changes over time indicate stability in overall class differences, combined with changes in attitudes among non-manual employees. The implications of the results for recent arguments about the restructuring of class relations and the impact of welfare policies on stratification are discussed.One of the most important arenas for contemporary class politics is the welfare state. The welfare state redistributes resources and life chances, and regulates risks stemming from market dependency. In this way, it intervenes in various ways in the processes that connect class position with social outcomes. Through social insurance, which safeguards against market dependency, and through financing and delivery of public welfare services, welfare policies change the relation between class, resources and risks.

The politics of opting out: explaining educational financing and popular support for public spending

“…The distinction between education policy preferences and actual choices over educations is important, however. New scholarship in comparative political economy and welfare state research has started to identify the most important individual and institutional determinants of education policy preferences (Ansell 2010: Chapter 4;Busemeyer 2012;Busemeyer et al 2009;Busemeyer/Jensen 2012), building on an earlier literature that studied the feedback effects of existing welfare state institutions on preferences (Andreß/Heien 2001;Blekesaune/Quadagno 2003;Jaeger 2006Jaeger , 2009Svallfors 1997Svallfors , 2004Svallfors , 2010. Although the empirical evidence is mixed, the general expectation of this literature is that institutions create positive feedback effects, contributing the long--term political sustainability of existing institutional arrangements.…”

Assessment of Measurement Equivalence with Cross-National and Longitudinal Surveys in Political Science

“…Using this module enables us to illustrate equivalence assessment also across time points and not only across countries. In order to simplify the illustration, from the various studies that have used the scale, we have chosen to replicate Svallfors' (2004;see also 2006) studies that compare four countries from the 1996 survey: The US (N ¼ 1,332), Britain (N ¼ 989), Germany (West) (N ¼ 2,361) and Sweden (N ¼ 1,238). Theoretically, Svallfors analysed these four countries since they exhibit differences in the design of their welfare regimes.…”

“…Furthermore, allowing so many items to load on a single concept risks mixing up several dimensions, whereas some researchers may be interested in treating these dimensions separately. Thus, we decided to modify the eight-item scale used by Svallfors (2004Svallfors ( , 2006 by dropping items that require the aforementioned modifications. This procedure led to a new scale that used only four items: 'Providing a job for everyone who wants one' (V36); 'Providing health care for the sick' (V38); 'Providing a decent standard of living for the old' (V39); and 'Providing a decent standard of living for the unemployed' (V41).…”

“…This module was conducted four times between 1985 and 2006 and across several countries, and its data was used in several studies (e.g., Anderson and Tverdova, 2003;Evans, 2007;Blekesaune and Quadagno, 2003;Lipsmeyer and Nordstrom, 2003;Papadakis and Bean, 1993). We decided to replicate the study of Svallfors (2004Svallfors ( , 2006 and examined the cross-country equivalence in Britain, Germany (West), Sweden and the US, and, in addition, the longitudinal equivalence of the attitudes towards the welfare policies scale in Britain. 2 By doing this, we will try to provide an answer to the question to what extent the scale is comparable across the four countries (space) and over time in Britain.…”

The Consequences of the global financial crisis: the rhetoric of reform and regulation

“…Finally, the countries with a medium-level of coordination tend to have a medium amount of financial deficit (defined as greater than 4.5 percent but less than 9 percent) and are expected to require three years of consolidation: these include countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, as well as Australia and Canada (OECD, 2008: Economic Outlook 85, 231). This is not to say that taxes are universally loved in these countries, but the distribution of the taxes-with reliance on a broader base and fewer loopholes-means that individuals tolerate the costs and benefits of a large public sector more readily and public support for the welfare state remains very high (Svallfors, 2004).…”