Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T23:58:09.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Government quality, egalitarianism, and attitudes to taxes and social spending: a European comparison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2012

Stefan Svallfors
Stefan Svallfors*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper analyses how perceptions of government quality – in terms of impartiality and efficiency – impact on attitudes to taxes and social spending. It builds on data from the European Social Survey 2008 from 29 European countries. The paper shows a large degree of congruence between expert-based judgments and the general public's perceptions of the quality of government. It also shows that the quality of government has a clear, independent effect on attitudes to taxes and spending, so that people who perceive institutions as efficient and fair want higher taxes and spending. But government quality also conditions the impact of egalitarianism on attitudes to taxes and spending: in high-quality-of-government egalitarianism has a clearly stronger impact on these attitudes. It is concluded that government quality is an important and so far neglected factor in explaining attitudes to welfare policies.

Keywords

welfare stateattitudesquality of governmentEuropean Social Surveycomparative
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 363 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S.Robinson, J.A. (2001), ‘The colonial origins of comparative development: an empirical investigation’, American Economic Review 91: 1369–1401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S.Robinson, J.A. (2002), ‘Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 117: 1231–1294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, P.D. (2009), Fixed Effects Regression Models, Los Angeles: SAGE.Google Scholar
Anderson, C.J.Tverdova, Y.V. (2003), ‘Corruption, political allegiances, and attitudes toward government in contemporary democracies’, American Journal of Political Science 47: 91–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andress, H.-J.Heien, T. (2001), ‘Four worlds of welfare state attitudes? A comparison of Germany, Norway, and the United States’, European Sociological Review 17: 337–356.Google Scholar
Andress, H.-J., Heien, T.Hofäcker, D. (2001), Wozu brauchen wir noch den Sozialstaat? Der deutsche Sozialstaat im Urteil seiner Bürger [Do we still need a welfare state? The German Welfare State Judged by its Citizens], Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.Google Scholar
Arriba, A., Calzada, I.Del Pino, E. (2006), Los ciudadanos y el Estado de Bienestar en España (1985–2005) [The Cititzens and the Welfare State in Spain (1985–2005)], Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.Google Scholar
Arts, W.Gelissen, J. (2001), ‘Welfare states, solidarity and justice principles: does the type really matter?’, Acta Sociologica 44: 283–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blomberg-Kroll, H. (1999), Kosta vad det kosta vill? Attitydmönster och attitydförändringar hos befolkning och eliter beträffande välfärdsservicen i nedskärningarnas tid [At Any Cost? Attitude Patterns and Attitude Changes Regarding Welfare Services among the Population and Elite Groups in Times of Cuts], Vasa: Institutionen för socialpolitik, Samhälls- och vårdvetenskapliga fakulteten, Åbo akademi.Google Scholar
Borre, O.Scarbrough, E. (1995), The Scope of Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brambor, T., Clark, W.R.Golder, M. (2006), ‘Understanding interaction models: improving empirical analyses’, Political Analysis 14: 63–82.Google Scholar
Brooks, C.Manza, J. (2007), Why Welfare States Persist: The Importance of Public Opinion in Democracies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cook, F.L.Barrett, E.J. (1992), Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Cusack, T., Iversen, T.Rehm, P. (2006), ‘Risks at work: the demand and supply sides of government redistribution’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 22: 365–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edlund, J. (1999), ‘Trust in government and welfare regimes: attitudes to redistribution and financial cheating in the USA and Norway’, European Journal of Political Research 35: 341–370.Google Scholar
Edlund, J. (2006), ‘Trust in the capability of the welfare state and general welfare state support: Sweden 1997–2002’, Acta Sociologica 49: 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edlund, J. (2007), ‘Class conflicts and institutional feedback effects in liberal and social democratic welfare regimes’, in S. Svallfors (ed.), The Political Sociology of the Welfare State, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 30–79.Google Scholar
Edlund, J.Svallfors, S. (2011), ‘Cohort, class and attitudes to redistribution in two liberal welfare states: Britain and the United States, 1996–2006’, in A. Goerres and V. Pieter (eds), Generational Politics and Policies: Comparative Studies of Ageing Post-industrial Democracies, London: Routledge, 206–224.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1985), Politics Against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power, Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990), The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Flora, P. (1986–1988), Growth to Limits: The Western European welfare States Since World War II (5 Vols), Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Frey, B.S.Stutzer, A. (2000), ‘Happiness, economy and institutions’, Economic Journal 110: 918–938.Google Scholar
Gilley, B. (2006), ‘The determinants of state legitimacy: results for 72 countries’, International Political Science Review 27: 47–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haggard, S.Kaufman, R.R. (2008), Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe, Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Helliwell, J.F. (2003), ‘How's life? Combining individual and national variables to explain subjective well-being’, Economic Modelling 20: 331–360.Google Scholar
Helliwell, J.F.Huang, H.F. (2008), ‘How's your government? International evidence linking good government and well-being’, British Journal of Political Science 38: 595–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, S.Rothstein, B. (2011), ‘Dying of corruption’, Health Economics, Policy and Law 6: 529–547.Google Scholar
Holmberg, S., Rothstein, B.Nasiritousi, N. (2009), ‘Quality of Government: what you get’, Annual Review of Political Science 12: 135–161.Google Scholar
Iversen, T.Soskice, D. (2001), ‘An asset theory of social policy preferences’, American Political Science Review 95: 875–893.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H.Rehm, P. (2006), ‘New social risk and political preferences’, in K. Armingeon and G. Bonoli (eds), The Politics of Post-Industrial Welfare States. Adapting Postwar Social Policies to New Social Risks, London: Routledge, 52–82.Google Scholar
Knudsen, T.Rothstein, B. (1994), ‘State-building in Scandinavia’, Comparative Politics 26: 203–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korpi, W. (1983), The Democratic Class Struggle, London and Boston: Routledge & K. Paul.Google Scholar
Korpi, W.Palme, J. (1998), ‘The paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality: welfare state institutions, inequality, and poverty in the western countries’, American Sociological Review 63: 661–687.Google Scholar
Larsen, C.A. (2006), The Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes: How Welfare Regimes Influence Public Support, Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Levine, R.Easterly, W. (2003), ‘Tropics, germs, and crops: how endowments influence economic development’, Journal of Monetary Economics 50: 3–39.Google Scholar
Mau, S. (2003), The Moral Economy of Welfare States. Britain and Germany Compared, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Roller, E. (1992), Einstellungen der Bürger zum Wohlfahrtsstaat der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [The Citizens’ Attitudes to the German Welfare State], Opladen: Westdeutscher Vlg.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B. (2009), ‘Creating political legitimacy electoral democracy versus quality of Government’, American Behavioral Scientist 53: 311–330.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B. (2011), The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust, and Inequality in International Perspective, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B.Uslaner, E.M. (2005), ‘All for all – equality, corruption, and social trust’, World Politics 58: 41–72.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B.Teorell, J. (2008), ‘What is quality of government? A theory of impartial government institutions’, Governance 21: 165–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, B.Eek, D. (2009), ‘Political corruption and social trust an experimental approach’, Rationality and Society 21: 81–112.Google Scholar
Rothstein, B., Samanni, M.Teorell, J. (2011), ‘Explaining the welfare state: power resources vs. quality of Government’, European Political Science Review 3: 1–28.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (1997), ‘Worlds of welfare and attitudes to redistribution: a comparison of eight western nations’, European Sociological Review 13: 283–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svallfors, S. (1999), ‘Political trust and attitudes towards redistribution: a comparison of Sweden and Norway’, European Societies 1: 241–268.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2002), ‘Political trust and support for the welfare state: unpacking a supposed relationship’, in B. Rothstein and S. Steinmo (eds), Restructuring the Welfare State: Political Institutions and Policy Change, New York: Palgrave, 184–205.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2003), ‘Welfare regimes and welfare opinions: a comparison of eight western countries’, Social Indicators Research 64: 495–520.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2004), ‘Class, attitudes and the welfare state: Sweden in comparative perspective’, Social Policy & Administration 38: 119–138.Google Scholar
Svallfors, S. (2006), The Moral Economy of Class: Class and Attitudes in Comparative Perspective, Stanford, CA, USA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svallfors, S. (ed.) (2012) Contested Welfare States: Welfare Attitudes in Europe and Beyond, Stanford, CA, USA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tavits, M. (2008), ‘Representation, corruption, and subjective well-being’, Comparative Political Studies 41: 1607–1630.Google Scholar
Teorell, J., Charron, N., Samanni, M., Holmberg, S., Rothstein, B. 2011. The Quality of Government Dataset, version 6Apr11. University of Gothenburg, The Quality of Government Institute, http://www.qog.pol.gu.se.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Svalfors supplementary material

Appendix

Download Svalfors supplementary material(File)
File 35.8 KB