Redistribution by the social welfare state and public support for it - What explains country differences?

This article seeks to explain international variation in public support of income redistribution by the social welfare state to reduce inequalities. On the one hand, it discusses the welfare regime approach, which explains differences according to variation in political culture and in cleavages in countries. However, previous comparative studies have not been able to confirm a regime approach empirically; furthermore, they neglect other explanations and do not control for other national features relevant to redistribution demands of their citizens. Consequently, this contribution includes approaches from political economics, that understand redistributional preferences as rational reactions of actors to conditions such as the degree of inequality (median voter-hypothesis), economic wealth, and the "varieties of capitalism." Explanations based on individual characteristics are only briefly discussed. Hypotheses about national differences are tested by controlling for individual characteristics based on data from ISSP 1999 and additional data about country characteristics such as GINI, GDP, regimeclusters, etc. Multilevel regression is used because country and individual level data are analysed. According to the results the two approaches cannot be contrasted: neither political economy nor regime approach alone offers an adequate explanation of the data. The impact of the economic factors is mediated by culture and vice versa: Ideas are embedded in economic conditions.