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This article explores the association of German attitudes toward social welfare and immigration, and how regional and political factors affect that relationship. The data was retrieved from Round 8 of the European Social Survey, which includes 2,852 German participants. Quantitative methodology was used to study' the hypotheses. Analyses demonstrate that attitudes on immigration and social welfare are associated. However, the regional factor of Eastern and Western Germany' and political self-placement shape the population concerning the relationship between social welfare and immigration. The immigration issue diverges the views of both the leftists and Western Germans to social welfare more than the rightists and Eastern Germans. In this respect, the immigration issue shapes the view of the German welfare state. Keywords: European Social Survey, Germany, immigration, political opinion, social policy, social security, social welfare attitudes, In this article, we explore the attitudinal basis of the immigration issue and the German welfare state. Scholars have shown that immigration influences social welfare attitudes by the immigration rate, [...]

There is a widespread fear in many western nations that ethnic diversity is eroding support for the welfare state. This article examines such fears in the Canadian context. In-depth analysis of public attitudes finds remarkably little tension between ethnic diversity and public support for social programs in Canada. At first glance, then, the country seems to demonstrate the political viability of a multicultural welfare state. But this pattern reflects distinctive features of the institutional context within which public attitudes evolve. The Canadian policy regime has forestalled tension between diversity and redistribution by diverting adjustment pressures from the welfare state, absorbing some of them in other parts of the policy regime, and nurturing a more inclusive form of identity. These institutional buffers are thinning, however, potentially increasing the danger of greater tension between diversity and redistribution in the years to come. On craint generalement dans de nombreux pays occidentaux que l'immigration et la diversite ethnique de plus en plus grande soient en train d'eroder l'appui accorde a l'Etatprovidence. Cet article porte sur de telles inquietudes au sein du Canada. Une analyse approfondie des attitudes du public devoile qu'il existe remarquablement peu de tension entre la diversite ethnique et l'appui du public a l'endroit des programmes sociaux du Canada. A premiere vue, le pays semble donc demontrer la viabilite politique d'un Etat-providence multiculturel. Mais cette tendance reflete les traits distinctifs du contexte institutionnel au sein duquel evoluent les attitudes du public. Le regime de politiques canadiennes fait echec a la tension entre la diversite et la redistribution en soustrayant de l'Etat-providence diverses pressions d'ajustement et en favorisant une forme d'identite plus inclusive. Certains de ces mecanismes de tampon institutionnels disparaissent progmssivement, ce qui peut accroitre le danger d'une tension accrue entre la diversite et la redistribution dans les annees a venir. doi: 10.1017/S0008423910000983

This paper examines the role of national identity in sustaining public support for the welfare state. Liberal nationalist theorists argue that social justice will always be easier to achieve in states with strong national identities, which, they contend, can both mitigate opposition to redistribution among high-income earners and reduce any corroding effects of ethnic diversity resulting from immigration. We test these propositions with Canadian data from the Equality, Security and Community survey. We conclude that national identity does increase support for the welfare state among the affluent majority of Canadians and that it helps to protect the welfare state from toxic effects of cultural suspicion. However, we also find that identity plays a narrower role than existing theories of liberal nationalism suggest and that the mechanisms through which it works are different. This leads us to suggest an alternative theory of the relationship between national identity and the welfare state, one that suggests that the relationship is highly contingent, reflecting distinctive features of the history and national narratives of each country. National identity may not have any general tendency to strengthen support for redistribution, but it may do so for those aspects of the welfare state seen as having played a particularly important role in building the nation or in enabling it to overcome particular challenges or crises. Cet article examine le role de l'identite nationale en matiere d'appui populaire a l'Etat-providence. Les theoriciens du nationalisme liberal soutiennent que la justice sociale sera toujours plus facile a realiser dans les Etats ayant une forte identite nationale, laquelle, selon eux, peut a la fois attenuer l'opposition a la redistribution chez les personnes a revenu eleve et reduire les effets corrosifs de la diversite ethnique engendree par l'immigration. Nous evaluons ces propositions a la lumiere des donnees canadiennes de l'Etude sur l'egalite, la securite et la communaute. Nous concluons que l'identite nationale augmente effectivement l'appui envers l'Etat-providence parmi les Canadiens fortunes de la majorite, et qu'elle aide a proteger l'Etat-providence contre les effets toxiques de la suspicion culturelle. Cependant, nous constatons egalement que l'identite joue un role plus restreint que ne le suggerent les theories existantes du nationalisme liberal et que ses mecanismes de fonctionnement sont differents. Cela nous amene a proposer une autre theorie de la relation entre l'identite nationale et l'Etat-providence, une theorie selon laquelle cette relation est fortement contingente et reflete les caracteristiques propres de l'histoire et de la tradition nationale de chaque pays. L'identite nationale n'a peutetre, en soi, aucune tendance generale a renforcer l'appui a la redistribution, mais elle peut le faire pour les aspects de l'Etat-providence consideres comme ayant joue un role particulierement important dans l'edification de la nation, ou lui ayant permis de surmonter des crises ou des defis particuliers. doi: 10.1017/S0008423910000089

The welfare state faces a number of challenges. Recent reforms in the UK appear broadly successful in attaining targets and improving cost-efficiency, but are nonetheless confronted by public disquiet and unease. This article argues that one difficulty with the new directions in policy is that they rest on a particular and limited understanding of agency. Reformers tend to operate within a theoretical framework that understands behaviour as driven by individual and predominantly rational incentives and pays little attention to the expressive and normative aspects of social action. The problems that arise in these areas when a competitive market logic is applied in social provision tend not to be recognised. Such a logic may contradict established values of social care and commitment to user interests. A qualitative survey of 48 members of the general public is used to examine perceptions of and responses to the NHS reforms, and to show how public discourse in this area is at variance with the instrumental and individual assumptions of policy-makers. The result is that the reform programme damages the legitimacy of the service and that those responsible for the new policies fail to recognise that the individual instrumental agenda is eroding public trust.

Social scientists have documented more negative reactions to the concept of welfare versus the concept of poor, despite the fact that both labels can be used almost interchangeably in current political discussions. We believe that the most proximal explanation rests in the different attributional information contained within the stereotypes of welfare recipients versus poor people. Three studies were conducted to test this idea. The results suggest that the attributional content within stereotypes of welfare recipients, particularly their greater responsibility for their impoverished state compared with poor people, most influences the public's more negative reaction to welfare. The results are discussed in terms of how the rhetoric of stereotypes may be exploited in the political domain.

The 1993 Canadian election campaign clearly mattered; the fortunes of the Conservative and Reform parties underwent a fundamental re-orientation during the campaign. Previous research has indicated that Reform's success in 1993 was related to the activation of people who were opposed to the welfare state, but this represents only one dimension of Reform's appeal. This article examines the effect of issues on Reform support during the campaign and considers the actual process by which issues affect party support. While it is sometimes said that a candidate primed or made important certain issues for voters, it may be that some of what is labeled priming is actually something else. This article makes a conceptual and empirical distinction between campaign learning and priming. If voters do not know where a party stands on an issue, they cannot adequately use it in their overall evaluation. The evidence demonstrates that the increased importance of attitudes toward the welfare state was largely a function of the distribution of new information or learning, while the increased importance of cultural questions represented priming.

THE SOURCE: 'A Quiet Revolution' by Peter Kellner, in Prospect, March 2012. Britain is one of the bastions of the modern welfare state; decades ago, its people became comfortable with [...]