A central component of institutional trust is related to perceptions of state capacity. Claims have been made that if citizens’ experiences with the state tell them that the government is efficacious, fair and trustworthy, then the odds for supporting publicly financed welfare policies are higher compared to a situation when their experiences with government feed feelings of inefficiency, corruption, unfairness and arbitrary discretion. The general question guiding the empirical analysis is the following: Is distrust in institutional capability an important prerequisite for general welfare state support withdrawal? Relying on Swedish nationally representative survey data, this issue is examined using Latent Class Analysis (LCA). Empirical evidence suggests that distrust in the institutional capability of the welfare state has not translated into widespread anti-welfare state sentiments. For some citizens, distrust in the capability of the welfare state is an issue of insufficient resources and they are willing to increase social spending in order to improve social services and benefits. For other citizens, distrust is closely connected with anti-welfare state sentiments. The article discusses the implications of the results for arguments about institutional trust and welfare state support.
Bergmark, Å. (ed.) (2000) Välfärd och försörjning. SOU 2000: 40. Stockholm: Fritzes.
2.
Broady, D., Andersson, M., Börjesson, M., Gustafsson, J., Hultqvist, E., Palme, M., Gustafsson, J.-E., Andersson, A. and Hansen, M. (2000) Välfärd och skola. SOU 2000: 39. Stockholm: Fritzes.
3.
Daly, M. (1994) ‘Comparing Welfare States: Towards a Gender Friendly Approach’, in D. Sainsbury (ed.) Gendering Welfare States. London: Sage.
4.
Easton, D. (1975) ‘A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support’, British Journal of Political Science5: 435-457.
5.
Edlund, J. (1999a) ‘Progressive Taxation Farewell? Attitudes to Income Redistribution and Taxation in Sweden, Great Britain and the United States’, in S. Svallfors and P. Taylor-Gooby (eds) The End of the Welfare State? Public Responses to State Retrenchment. London: Routledge.
6.
Edlund, J. (1999b) ‘Trust in Government and Welfare Regimes: Attitudes to Redistribution and Financial Cheating in the United States and Norway’, European Journal of Political Research35: 341-370.
7.
Edlund, J. (2001) ‘Dimensions of Attitudes Towards Taxation During Times of Welfare Retrenchment: Evidence from Sweden’, in A. Tavidze (ed.) Progress in International Economics Research. New York: Nova.
8.
Edlund, J. (2007) ‘Class Conflicts and Institutional Feedback Effects in Liberal and Social Democratic Welfare Regimes: Attitudes toward State Redistribution and Welfare Policy in Six Western Countries’, in S. Svallfors (ed.) The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages and Orientations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
9.
Erikson, R. (1984) ‘Social Class of Men, Women and Families’, Sociology18: 500-514.
10.
Erikson, R. and Goldthorpe, J. H. (1992) The Constant Flux. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
11.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1985) Politics Against Markets: The Social Democratic Road to Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
13.
Evans, G. (1992) ‘Testing the Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema’, European Sociological Review8: 211-232.
14.
Evans, G. (1993) ‘Class, Prospects and the Life-cycle: Explaining the Association between Class Position and Political Preferences’, Acta Sociologica36: 263-276.
15.
Evans, G. (1996) ‘Putting Men and Women Into Classes: An Assessment of the Cross-Sex Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema’, Sociology30: 209-234.
16.
Evans, G. and Mills, C. (1998a) ‘Identifying Class Structure. A Latent Class Analysis of the Criterion-Related and Construct Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema’, European Sociological Review141: 87-106.
17.
Evans, G. and Mills, C. (1998b) ‘Assessing the Cross-Sex Validity of the Goldthorpe Class Schema Using Log-linear Models with Latent Variables’, Quality & Quantity32: 275-296.
18.
Fritzell, J. (ed.) (2000) Välfärdens förutsättningar: arbetsmarknad, demografi och segregation. SOU 2000: 37.
19.
Stockholm: Fritzes. Fritzell, J. and Lundberg, O. (2000) Välfärd, ofärd och ojämlikhet-levnadsförhållanden under 1990-talet. SOU 2000: 41. Stockholm: Fritzes.
20.
Hagenaars, J. A. (1993) Loglinear Models with Latent Variables. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
21.
Hagenaars, J. A. (1998) ‘Categorical Causal Modeling: Latent Class Analysis and Directed Log-Linear Models with Latent Variables’, Sociological Methods and Research26: 436-486.
22.
Hagenaars, J. A. and McCutcheon, A. L. (eds) (2001) Applied Latent Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
Hall, P. and Taylor, R. (1996) ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies44: 936-957.
24.
Hjerm, M. and Svallfors, S. (1998) Åsikter om skatter och offentliga sektorn. Codebook for Machine-readable Datafile. Umeå University: Department of Sociology.
25.
Irwin, S. (1996) ‘Age Related Distributive Justice and Claims on Resources’, British Journal of Sociology471: 69-92.
26.
Johansson, F., Nilsson, L. and Strömberg, L. (2001) Kommunal demokrati under fyra decennier. Malmö: Liber.
27.
Kautto, M. (2000) Two of a Kind?: Economic Crisis, Policy Responses and Well-Being During the 1990’s in Sweden and Finland. SOU 2000: 83-83. Stockholm: Fritzes.
28.
Korpi, W. (1980) ‘Social Policy and Distributional Conflict in the Capitalist Democracies. A Preliminary Comparative Framework’, West European Politics3: 296-316.
29.
Korpi, W. (1983) The Democratic Class Struggle. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
30.
Korpi, W. and Palme, J. (1998) ‘The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality, and Poverty in the Western Countries’, American Sociological Review63: 661-687.
31.
Kumlin, S. (2002) The Personal and the Political. How Personal Welfare State Experiences Affect Political Trust and Ideology. PhD thesis. Göteborg Studies in Politics 78. Department of Political Science, Göteborg University.
32.
Lewis, A. (1982) The Psychology of Taxation. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
33.
Magidson, J. and Vermunt, J. K. (2001) ‘Latent Class Factor and Cluster Models, Bi-plots and Related Graphical Displays’, Sociological Methodology31: 223-264.
34.
March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. (1984) ‘The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life’, American Political Science Review78: 734-749.
35.
Matheson, G. (1993) The Decommodified in a Commodified World. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of New England, Armidale.
36.
McCutcheon, A. L. (1987) Latent Class Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
37.
Nososco (2002) Social Protection in the Nordic Countries 2000. Scope, Expenditure and Financing. Copenhagen: Nordic Social-Statistical Committee.
38.
Olsson, E., Edlund, J. and Svallfors, S. (2002) Åsikter om den offentliga sektorn och skatterna 2002. Codebook for Machine-readable Datafile. Umeå University: Department of Sociology.
39.
Orloff, A. S. (1993) ‘Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States’, American Sociological Review58: 303-328.
40.
Palme, J. and Wennemo, I. (1998) Swedish Social Security in the 1990’s: Reform and Retrenchment. Välfärdsprojektet. Stockholm: Printing Works of the Cabinet and Ministries.
41.
Pierson, P. (1993) ‘When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change’, World Politics45: 595-628.
42.
Raftery, A. E. (2001) ‘Statistics in Sociology, 1950-2000: A Selective Review’, Sociological Methodology31: 1-45.
43.
Rose, R. (1991) ‘Is American Public Policy Exceptional?’, in B. E. Shafer (ed.) Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
44.
Rothstein, B. (1998) Just Institutions Matter. The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
45.
Rothstein, B. (2002) ‘The Universal Welfare State as a Social Dilemma’, in B. Rothstein and S. Steinmo (eds) Restructuring the Welfare State: Political Institutions and Policy Change. New York: Palgrave.
46.
Rothstein, B. and Steinmo, S. (eds) (2002) Restructuring the Welfare State: Political Institutions and Policy Change. New York: Palgrave.
47.
Särkimukka, J., Edlund, J. and Svallfors, S. (2001) ISSP 2000. Åsikter om miljön. Codebook for Machine-readable Datafile. Umeå University: Department of Sociology.
48.
SCB (1982) Socio-ekonomisk indelning SEI Socio-Economic Classification. Meddelanden i samordningsfrågor 1982: 4. Stockholm: Statistiska Centralbyrån.
49.
SOU (2000) Välfärd vid vägskäl. Utvecklingen under 1990-talet. Kommittén Välfärdsbokslut. SOU 2000: 3. Stockholm: Fritzes.
50.
Steinmo, S. (1993) Taxation and Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
51.
Steinmo, S. (1994) ‘Rethinking American Exceptionalism: Culture or Institutions?’, in L. Dodd and C. Jillson (eds) The Dynamics of American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
52.
Svallfors, S. (1995) ‘The End of Class Politics? Structural Cleavages and Attitudes to Swedish Welfare Policies’, Acta Sociologica38: 53-74.
53.
Svallfors, S. (1999a) ‘Political Trust and Attitudes Towards Redistribution: A Comparison of Sweden and Norway’, European Societies1: 241-268.
54.
Svallfors, S. (1999b) ‘Antipoder? Politisk tilltro och attityder till välfärdsstaten i Sverige och Nya Zeeland’, in E. Amnå (ed.) Medborgarnas erfarenheter. SOU 1999: 113.
55.
Stockholm: Fritzes. Svallfors, S. (1999c) Mellan risk och tilltro: opinionsstödet för en kollektiv välfärdspolitik. Department of Sociology, Umeå Studies in Sociology.
56.
Svallfors, S. (2001) ‘Kan man lita på välfärdsstaten?’, in J. Fritzell and J. Palme (eds) Välfärdens finansiering och fördelning. SOU 2001: 57. Stockholm: Fritzes.
57.
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.
58.
Svallfors, S. (2003) ‘Welfare Regimes and Welfare Opinions: a Comparison of Eight Western Countries’, Social Indicators Research64: 495-520.
59.
Svallfors, S. (2004) Klassamhällets kollektiva medvetande. Klass och attityder i jämförande perspektiv. Umeå: Boréa bokförlag.
60.
Szebehely, M. (ed.) (2000) Välfärd, vård och omsorg. SOU 2000: 38. Stockholm: Fritzes.
61.
Turner, B. S. (1989) ‘Ageing, Politics and Sociological Theory’, British Journal of Sociology404: 588-606.
62.
Turner, B. S. (1998) ‘Ageing and Generational Conflicts: A Reply to Sarah Irwin’, British Journal of Sociology492: 299-304.
63.
Vermunt, J. K. and Magidson, J. (2000) Latent GOLD 2.0 User’s Guide. Belmont, MA: Statistical Innovations.
