Worlds of Welfare, worlds of Consent? Are the forces of habit and democratic decision-making so strong that outcomes are judged as legitimate whatever the outcomes are? Or is the relationship between the real worlds of welfare capitalism and public opinion more complex?
This study examines whether the public's consent to welfare state solidarity and its choices of justice principles are related to the specifics of welfare state regimes, as initially conceived by Goesta Esping-Andersen (1990) and, later, extended and amended by his critics.
This is done by using opinion and attitude data from several large-scale survey projects which cover the early to mid-1990's. In the book, people's opinions concerning government intervention in social protection and their beliefs about social justice are compared across a wide variety of welfare states.