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Public Attitudes toward Government Spending in the Asia-Pacific Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

CHONG-MIN PARK
CHONG-MIN PARK*
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration, Korea University, Seoul, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article describes public attitudes toward government spending in Australia, China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States, the six major economies of the Asia-Pacific region. An analysis of the 2008 AsiaBarometer Survey data shows that ordinary citizens of the sample countries favored increased, rather than reduced, government spending on a wide range of policy programs. It is also found that support for state activism was stronger in former state socialist countries than in market capitalist ones. Although economic interests, symbolic predispositions, and social positions influenced spending preferences to varying degrees, left–right ideology was particularly conspicuous in most countries surveyed. It is evident that the mass publics of the major economies of the Asia-Pacific region did not strongly endorse state contraction or retrenchment, even in the wake of economic globalization and the neoliberal reform movement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 77 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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