Welfare State Legitimacy in Times of Crisis and Austerity

Edited by Tijs Laenen, Postdoctoral Researcher, KU Leuven, Belgium and Tilburg University, the Netherlands, Bart Meuleman, Professor of Sociology and Wim van Oorschot, Professor of Social Policy, Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Belgium

'The three editors unite the finest state-of-the-art research about public attitudes towards the welfare state in Europe. Drawing on the 2008 and 2016 waves of the high-quality European Social Survey, the contributors analyse how and why the diversity of relationships between citizens and the welfare state manifests itself in the individual mind in the first two decades of the 21st century.'--Achim Goerres, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

• Contents:Foreword xivPART I INTRODUCTION1. Welfare Attitudes in Times of Crisis and Austerity 3Bart Meuleman, Wim van Oorschot and Tijs LaenenPART II WELFARE STATE CRITICISM AND WELFARE STATESUPPORT2. Welfare Criticism in Times of Economic Crisis. Perceptions ofMoral, Economic and Social Consequences of the Welfare State,2008–2016 25Bart Meuleman and Sam Delespaul3. The Perceived Abuse of Welfare Benefits in Times of Crisis:Change or Stability in the Achilles’ Heel of Welfare StateLegitimacy? 46Femke Roosma4. The Ambivalence of Material Vulnerability as a Foundation forWelfare Dependency Attitudes: Social Distrust or Dissatisfactionwith the System? 68Christian Staerklé, Jessica Gale and Emanuele Politi5. Changes in Russians’ Attitudes: What Accounts for ReducedPreferences Regarding Public Welfare Provision? 91Dimitri Gugushvili and Wim van Oorschot6. Religiosity and Support for the Welfare State 111Heikki ErvastiPART III TARGET-SPECIFIC WELFARE ATTITUDES7. How Popular Deservingness Perceptions Mediate the Linkbetween Unemployment Policies and Their Public Support 139Tijs Laenen8. The Legitimacy of Public Pensions in an Ageing Europe:Changes in Subjective Evaluations and Policy Preferences,2008–2016 159Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Elias Naumann9. Welfare Nationalism Before and After the ‘Migration Crisis’ 176Maureen A. Eger, Christian Albrekt Larsen and Jan MewesPART IV (PERCEIVED) OUTCOMES OF THE WELFARE STATE10. Increasingly Connected? Political Distrust and Dissatisfactionwith Public Services in Europe, 2008–2016 199Lisanne de Blok, Atle Haugsgjerd and Staffan Kumlin11. Institutions versus Market Forces: Explaining theEmployment Insecurity of European Individuals Eight Yearsafter the 2008 Financial Crisis 220Heejung ChungPART V CONCLUSIONS12. Change or Continuity in Europeans’ Welfare Attitudes? 247Tijs Laenen and Wim van OorschotIndex