THREE WORLDS OF PUBLIC OPINION? VALUES, VARIATION, AND …iversen/PDFfiles/Mehrtens2004.pdf · F. John Mehrtens III ABSTRACT The variation among advanced capitalist democracies in

International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. No. © World Association for Public Opinion Research; all rights reserved

THREE WORLDS OF PUBLIC OPINION? VALUES, VARIATION, AND THE EFFECT

ON SOCIAL POLICY

F. John Mehrtens III

ABSTRACT

The variation among advanced capitalist democracies in terms of welfare programs hasbeen well documented. Given the theoretical relationship between public opinion andpublic policy in democratic states, we should expect to see similar differences amongsuch countries in terms of their mass political preferences. Rooted in Esping-Andersen’sfamiliar and influential ‘Three Worlds’ typology, this paper provides an analysis of thisrelationship for advanced capitalist democracies using International Social SurveyProgram, World Values Survey, and Eurobarometer data. Results suggest () a noticeableideological rift between the more libertarian English-speaking countries and the moresocially-oriented states of Scandinavia, continental Europe, and Japan; () a strong fitbetween differences in public opinion and variation in policy orientation when ideologicalresponses are considered separately from policy-oriented results, consistent with both Freeand Cantril () and Coughlin (); () the unexpected emergence of Sweden and GreatBritain as anomalous cases which exhibit patterns of policy preferences at odds with theirstatuses as bulwarks of the Social Democratic and Liberal welfare types, respectively;and () a relationship between public opinion and social policy roughly similar to that ofpreviously-established causal relationships, justifying the further examination of masspolitical preferences as a source of the variation in policy among our sample countries.

By definition, democracy implies at least some sort of relationship between publicopinion and government policy. Since we know there is significant variationbetween countries, even seemingly similar ones, in terms of their social policy(levels of spending, range and availability of programs, etc.), should we not alsoexpect to see related differences in public opinion at the national level? This isthe primary question which motivates this study.

Specifically, this essay will analyze the attitudes of citizens from advancedcapitalist democracies with respect to the proper role of government within thelarger society, focusing particularly on the social services spending designed to

The author would like to thank John Stephens, Marco Steenbergen, Gary Marx, Carol Mershon, Jim Stimson,Cyndy Mehrtens, and the editor, staff, and reviewers of IJPOR for their invaluable advice and assistance.

The article was first submitted to IJPOR January , . The final version was received August , .

I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L O F P U B L I C O P I N I O N R E S E A R C H

enhance standards of living, such as health care, education, pension, and unem-ployment programs. Viewed within the context of the larger global community,these states share a number of important characteristics: democracy, capitalism,a half-century or more of political and economic stability, a high standard ofliving, culture, and status in the global arena, to name a few of the most obvious.Yet when one looks at this small and seemingly homogenous group of countriesin isolation, it does not take long before the policy differences become apparent.

Perhaps the most significant and most analyzed source of variation among thesecountries is the extent to which they manage the free market’s self-regulatingmechanism in an attempt to combat some of the unpleasant external costs whichthe market tends to ignore (if not cause). In other words, some countries are morewilling than others to let the ‘invisible hand’ govern itself, even though whileproducing a socially desirable allocation of resources it simultaneously offers somepeople little more than a nasty punch in the nose. More to the point, if the marketprovided universal health care and education, as well as care for the elderly andunemployed, it would be unnecessary for governments to do so, but the govern-ments of all advanced capitalist democracies do indeed provide such services tocompensate for the market’s inadequacies, though programs vary a great deal fromcountry to country in terms of their funding level, range, duration, and eligibilityrequirements. Given this well-documented diversity (Esping-Andersen’s The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism being the hallmark study), along with thesignificance of public opinion to democratic governance, it seems worthwhile toinquire as to whether or not these clear differences between countries’ publicpolicies are reflected in similarly clear differences in the attitudes of their citizens.

Following a review of the relevant literature and a brief methodologicaldiscussion, this paper will proceed to accomplish three specific tasks. As a found-ational first step, I will briefly justify my methodological decision to rely on Esping-Andersen’s () decommodification index as a policy indicator later in the paper.Second, we will undertake a direct comparison of cross-national values in order toassess whether or not countries do indeed cluster together with respect to values asthey do in terms of social policy. Last we will address the issue of causality. Datalimitations render more advanced statistical tests implausible, but it is possible,through simple correlation and regression analyses, to compare the strength of therelationship between public opinion and policy against a number of variablespreviously found to affect the variation among advanced capitalist democracies.

THEORETICAL ORIENTATION

PUBLIC OPINION AND PUBLIC POLICY

According to Webster’s Dictionary (Mish, , p. ), the term democracy,based on its Greek roots, means ‘government by the people’ or ‘rule of the

T H R E E W O R L D S O F P U B L I C O P I N I O N

majority’. Direct democracy, which would be the most straightforward applica-tion of the concept, is fraught with logistical and theoretical complications whichrender it impractical at best, dangerous at worst. As such, democracy as it ispracticed in modern nation-states is largely of the representative variety. Policymakers are chosen by their fellow citizens to represent community interests inthe political process, or in other words, public opinion shapes governmentalpolicy. So goes the theory, at any rate, but to what extent does policy reflectpublic preferences in the real world?

As Burstein () has noted, the causal relationship between public opinionand public policy is an understudied area of inquiry in the social science literature.More common are projects which attempt to decipher the basic nature of publicopinion (such as Free & Cantril, ) or evaluate public opinion as the dependentvariable (a few classic examples are McClosky & Zaller, ; Zaller, ; a coupleof very current examples would be Moene & Wallerstein, ; Iversen & Soskice,). However, political science research has yielded a couple of importantfindings in answer to the question of whether public opinion input does indeedinfluence public policy output.

Page and Shapiro () provide a pioneering study in the effort to uncoverthe causal dynamics at work by comparing changes in both public opinion andpublic policy in the United States and find that public opinion often has at least aproximal affect on policy. And while feedback between the two certainly seems tobe present, it is indeed public opinion which seems to cause policy more oftenthan the reverse. However, they caution against any grand illusions about therepresentativeness of the American political system, noting that fairly simplisticresearch design necessitates further study before such a claim could be made.

Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson () develop the notion of ‘dynamic repre-sentation’ and, through the use of a more advanced statistical model, find thateach branch of American government, and indeed the government as a whole, ishighly responsive to changes in public opinion. Focusing on defense spending inthe United States, Wlezien (, ) addresses the feedback issue by concep-tualizing public opinion as a ‘thermostat’, which registers responses to existinggovernment policies (or changes in them), so that government can in turnrespond by adjusting policy until it coincides with the public’s preferences.Though some of the specifics of the complicated causal relationship remainelusive, studies such as these provide an important foundation by convincinglyestablishing the fact that public opinion does play a role in shaping public policy,at least in terms of the American example, as democratic theory suggests.

VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM

The body of literature which seeks to make sense of the significant variation interms of government policy and social outcomes among seemingly homogeneous


advanced capitalist democracies is perhaps more developed than that on thecausal relevance of public opinion (though it has by no means answered all of itsown relevant questions). As mentioned previously, Esping-Andersen () pro-vides us with the most widely-accepted typology for classifying these countries.Beginning with the notion that social outcomes are more important than themere existence of programs or the amount spent on them, Esping-Andersenfocuses on the explicitly Polanyi-esque concept of decommodification, or thedegree to which social programs ‘emancipate individuals from market dependence’(, p. ), as the crucial feature differentiating advanced capitalist demo-cracies from one another. Because basic human needs must be met on a consistentbasis, labor is different from the other factors of production in that its price cannotrealistically fall below subsistence level in the medium or long term. Decom-modification is used as a measure of the degree to which a country’s residents areable to secure basic needs free from exposure to the unpredictability of marketforces (supply and demand).

Measuring decommodification through an analysis of old-age pensions, sicknessbenefits, and unemployment insurance, Esping-Andersen finds that countriesnaturally separate into three distinct clusters. The Social Democratic model charac-teristic of the Nordic states, which promotes equality and social rights through arelatively high degree of market intervention, provides a level of benefits thateffectively reduces the gap in standard of living between rich and poor. The Con-servative (or Christian Democratic or corporatist) model of continental Europe(Japan is placed here also), with an emphasis on social stability and a preservationof hierarchical class or status relationships, provides substantial universalbenefits, but not at a level sufficient to achieve any significant redistributiveeffect. Lastly, the Liberal model of the Anglo-American countries, epitomized bya relatively heavy reliance on the market mechanism and therefore relatively littleprotection from it, offers means-tested benefits, typically in paltry amounts and withstrict eligibility requirements, to a relatively few citizens. Esping-Andersen’sinvestigation indicates that none of these models is epitomized in any one countryas an ideal type, but that three distinct clusters do indeed emerge.

Combining Esping-Andersen’s important analysis with the above discussionabout the relationship between policy and public opinion, we arrive at the questionwhich serves as the foundation for this analysis. Are there variations in publicopinion from country to country which mirror (and may in fact underlie) theobserved variations in managing the social effects of a capitalist economy? Thisquestion has been addressed previously by both Coughlin () and Svallfors(, forthcoming). Among Coughlin’s key findings is a discernable relation-ship between social policy and mass ideology, marked by a striking absence ofhardcore laissez-faire sentiment, in the eight countries he studies. Similarly,Svallfors has also found some evidence of a fit between public opinion and welfaretype across eight countries, using a four-way classification scheme developed by


Castles and Mitchell (). The problem with these studies, as addressed byboth of the authors themselves, is limited data availability, which, like a naggingfly, perpetually plagues anyone who studies comparative public opinion (andcertainly goes a long way toward explaining the relative dearth of studies in thisarea). Coughlin, writing over two decades ago, was largely forced to rely on thepasting together of various surveys conducted independently in the eight countrieswhich made up his sample. The obvious problems are that interesting questionsasked in one country may not be asked in another, and, even if they are, thetranslation of the questions may be different enough that the results are renderedincomparable. Svallfors, writing just a few years ago, had quite a few moreoptions, but has confined his analysis to the in-depth coverage of a single survey, anda relatively small number of questions, which in turn limited him to a relativelysmall number of countries. The benefits of this approach are an enhanced level ofconceptual precision, but the costs are that the results of one survey may becontradicted by another (see Mehrtens, ). While it may come with the priceof somewhat reduced specificity, this project will attempt to contribute to thepioneering efforts of both of these researchers by following the same line ofinquiry, but looking at more countries, more questions, more surveys, and moretime, in an effort to simultaneously decipher a number of available surveys.

IDEOLOGICAL VS. OPERATIONAL ATTITUDES

Free and Cantril () identify a crucial split between ideological and oper-ational attitudes among the American public. That is, Americans tend to give veryconservative (laissez-faire, anti-government, etc.) responses to broad ideologicalquestions, but then tend to respond in favor of specific policy programs, such ashealth care, education, and the like, which helps explain why such programspersist despite an enormous amount of anti-government (or at least minimalgovernment) rhetoric in American political discourse. As mentioned above,Coughlin () applies this logic to his comparative analysis and achieves a similarresult. Specifically, he finds that public opinion toward specific spendingprograms (operational attitudes) vary little across countries (consistently highsupport), but that responses to broad, general questions (ideological attitudes) dovary to a significant degree, and in accordance with the documented cross-nationalvariation in policy outcomes. As we shall see, this insight will be vital in ourefforts to make sense of the survey data analyzed in this study.

CAUSES OF VARIATION AMONG ADVANCED CAPITALIST DEMOCRACIES

The literature on welfare state development has identified a number of key vari-ables that have contributed to the formation of distinct types of policy orientation.For example, within the tradition of power resources theory (Korpi, ;


Stephens, ), both left government and unions have been found to positivelyaffect welfare state development through the political mobilization of previouslymarginalized societal segments (particularly workers) that have much to gainfrom government social activism. Similarly, numerous authors (Schmitter, ;Katzenstein, ; Crouch, ; Hicks, ) have cited the presence of cor-poratist bargaining arrangements as a key to the emergence of more extensivesocial programs, as the very definition of the term entails a level of cooperationand compromise between business and labor in which the latter repudiates its moreradical tendencies (such as the abolition of private property) in exchange forconcessions such as health coverage and unemployment assistance (Przeworski,). As an indicator of institutional legacy, Hicks () discusses earlyprogram consolidation, arguing that those countries with a lengthy history ofgovernmental generosity can be expected to display similar characteristics in thepresent. Huber, Ragin, and Stephens () find that constitutional structureaffects welfare state development by determining whether narrow majorities willhave the opportunity to veto populist policies.

HYPOTHESES

Based on the established findings discussed above, we are able to derive and testthree specific hypotheses. First, if we know that there is a relationship betweenpublic opinion and governmental policy, and we know that advanced capitalistdemocracies vary significantly in terms of their policies and outcomes, then weshould expect them to exhibit similar differences with respect to country-levelmass attitudes. Specifically, my hypothesis is that support for social programsshould be higher in Social Democratic than in Christian Democratic countries,and Christian Democratic states should in turn bear the same relationship withrespect to Liberal countries. Next, within the context of testing our first hypothesiswe must incorporate Free and Cantril’s () and Coughlin’s () resultsregarding operational and ideological attitudes into our comparative analysis.Based on their work, we expect to find very little variation between countries onquestions of specific policy (which register widespread support), but a great dealof variation on questions of broad ideology, and variation consistent with theThree Worlds typology (Esping-Andersen, ). Last, it is expected that a briefempirical examination will show that public opinion merits further attention as asignificant cause of welfare state variation.

SAMPLE, DATA, AND METHODS

In an attempt to extend the efforts of Coughlin () and Svallfors (, forth-coming), and consistent with the large body of work in comparative politics onadvanced capitalist countries (such as Esping-Andersen, ), this study will focus


on the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark,Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands,Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.

Mention of this group of countries necessitates an immediate turn to the issueof data availability because, while it would be nice if the hypotheses generatedabove could be examined in light of survey responses from each of these coun-tries, this is unfortunately not the case, and that needs to be made clear from theoutset. As with previous analyses of cross-national attitudes, this project suffersto some extent from spotty data coverage, though the relatively recent emergenceof the International Social Survey Program, World Values Survey, and Euro-barometer data are an immeasurable improvement over what was previouslyavailable and indeed have made this project possible.

The significance of these three surveys is that they represent coordinatedefforts to ask important and interesting questions of a fairly sizable sample in anumber of different countries at roughly the same time, and just as importantly,in successive versions. The International Social Survey Program (or ISSP) wasorganized in , is structured around specific social science themes (forinstance, the ‘Social Inequality’ and ‘Role of Government’ studies analyzed here),and has grown to include countries. The World Values Survey (or WVS) hasbeen conducted in three waves (, –, and –) and has coveredmore than societies in various combinations throughout those three waves.The Eurobarometer has, since the early s, conducted twice-yearly topically-oriented surveys of European countries (one problem with Eurobarometer fromthe perspective of this project is that it includes only one country from the Liberalcluster, the somewhat anomalous Great Britain, to compare against an armada ofSocial Democratic and Christian Democratic counterparts—as the name of thesurvey implies, this is, at least for my purposes, simply an unfortunate side-effectof its geographical focus and in no way reduces the contribution of the survey asa whole). Once again, the extent to which these three survey projects have facilitatedcomparative studies of the type undertaken in this study cannot be overstated.1

An important caveat must be issued here about interpreting poll responses:when attempting to draw broad conclusions from these surveys, with some questionsit is essential that one does so only in the context of existing national circum-stances. In other words, some questions ask for relative rather than absoluteresponses, which are necessarily shaped by the respondent’s own personal experi-ences within her country. For example, Question in the ISSP survey

1 In some cases the data files contain information on response rates, in other cases they do not. In still othercases, response rates are completely unavailable. For the ISSP Role of Government surveys, response rates(RR according to the ‘Standards and Best Practices’ page of the website for the American Association ofPublic Opinion Research, www.aapor.com) as available in the data files range from percent (France, ) to percent (USA, ); for the ISSP Social Inequality surveys from percent (France, ) to percent(USA, ). A compilation of the response rates contained in the data files is available from the author.

www.aapor.com


asks whether income differences in the respondent’s country are too large, andAmericans are more likely than Norwegians to answer in the affirmative. So canwe conclude from these results that Americans are more concerned than Norwegiansabout inequality? Clearly we cannot because inequality is much higher in the USthan in Norway, so to some extent we should probably expect this result. Butwhen we look at Question from Wave of the World Values Survey, whichcalls for a comparison based on a one-to-ten response scale where one indicatesthat incomes should be made more equal and ten denotes that larger incomedifferences are needed as an incentive for effort, the results suggest that Americansare more comfortable with inequality than are Norwegians, as intuition might imply.

Methodologically, this essay is rather crude, perhaps necessarily so given thenature of the data. Much of what is presented is simply my own analysis of thesurvey data. However, bivariate correlations and simple regression equations willbe utilized to test for both fit and causality between attitudes and policy.

A few notes need to be made here regarding data presentation. First, to maintaintheoretical consistency, and for ease of presentation, countries will be groupedaccording to Esping-Andersen’s ‘Three Words’ typology in all relevant tableswithin this paper (the reasons for this approach will be explained in the next partof the paper). On that note, there has been some disagreement about which clusterbest fits a couple of countries. Probably the most questionable among the choicesI have made are the placement of Ireland into the Liberal group and the Netherlandsinto the Social Democratic group. I have done so because this approach is the mostconservative from a research perspective, as it lessens the difference in meancluster scores and thus should make it harder to find the hypothesized pattern.Second, rather than merging the second and third waves of the WVS andpresenting the most recent results from each country (which would provide asample size of ), poll results from the two waves will be listed separately. Thisis because there is a noticeable shift in all countries toward a pro-governmentstance between the two waves, rendering the results of the two surveys largelyincomparable—what looks like a relatively liberal aggregate response in Wave becomes a relatively conservative response in Wave (for more on this, seeMehrtens, ). Finally, in all of the tables I have listed each of the samplecountries, regardless of whether survey data exist for all countries in thatparticular table. While this may be a bit unusual, I have presented the results insuch a manner to provide an ongoing indicator to the reader of exactly whichdata we are working with in comparison to what we would optimally like to haveavailable.

DECOMMODIFICATION AS AN INDICATOR OF POLICY VARIATION

Before turning to the substantive results of this study, it is necessary to tackle onelast methodological issue, namely the exclusive reliance on Esping-Andersen’s


() decommodification index as my preferred indicator of variation in socialpolicy among advanced capitalist democracies, both in this paper and throughoutthe larger study of which it is but a part. While I do feel the need to justify thisapproach, I take comfort in the facts that many respected and influentialresearchers hold the decommodification index in such high regard, and it iscertainly among the most (if not the single most) cited work within the body ofliterature on welfare state variation. To be fair, Esping-Andersen’s typology hasgenerated both criticism and alternative classification schemes (see Castles &Mitchell, ; Sainsbury, ; Gornick, Meyers, & Ross, ; Hicks &Kenworthy, ; Edwards, ), but as Goodin, Headey, Muffels, and Dirven(, p. ) note, ‘not only does it remain the firm focus of most on-goingdiscussions in these areas, it has by now become a well-established landmark inrelation to which any subsequent work . . . must situate itself’. The point here isnot to unduly reify Esping-Andersen’s classification scheme, but rather to justifyits centrality within my own analysis.

Theoretically rooted in the influential work of Karl Polanyi (), decom-modification, in Esping-Andersen’s own words, ‘occurs when a service isrendered as a matter of right, and when a person can maintain a livelihood withoutreliance on the market’ (, p. –). As mentioned earlier, actual decom-modification scores used in Esping-Andersen’s analysis are operationalized as acombination of pension, sickness, and unemployment benefits, according tocharacteristics such as replacement rates, eligibility rules, and duration of coverage.The variation in these characteristics from country to country provides evidenceof differing levels of decommodification, thus resulting in Esping-Andersen’sfamiliar ‘Three Worlds’ typology. Decommodification scores for each of oursample countries are listed by cluster in Table .

Perhaps most importantly, the use of decommodification figures as an indica-tor of policy variation is justified by the fact that it is very highly correlated withthe alternative measures one might logically use in its place. For example,decommodification is very highly correlated with alternative policy indicators,such as welfare effort (Hicks & Misra, ; Hicks, ) and economic freedom(Fraser Institute, ). It is highly correlated with indicators of policy perform-ance, such as reductions in poverty and inequality, as well as with social outcomessuch as post-tax and -transfer poverty and inequality (Hicks & Kenworthy, )and social indicators such as those relating to health, literacy, and crime(Mehrtens, forthcoming). In sum, many of the variables mentioned abovecould be used as an indicator of variation among advanced capitalist democra-cies, but I have chosen Esping-Andersen’s decommodification scores becausethere seems to be a national economic, political, and social orientation whichcharacterizes advanced capitalist democratic countries and which the decom-modification index seems to capture, both in the numbers and through thehistorically rooted theory.


VARIATION IN PUBLIC OPINION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Given that national policies and outcomes cluster as they do into Social Demo-cratic, Christian Democratic, and Liberal groups, it seems logical to assume thatnational attitudes might follow a similar pattern. That is, we might reasonablyexpect citizens in Social Democratic countries to hold more favorable views towardgovernment spending programs than those in Christian Democratic countries,and we would expect citizens in Liberal countries to be the most hostile towardthose same services.

TABLE Scores for the three components of decommodification and com-bined decommodification scores

Note: The Netherlands is often placed in either the Social Democratic or Conservative groups. See Goodin et al.() for a further discussion. Also, I have chosen to call the middle group ‘Conservative’ rather than ‘ChristianDemocratic’ simply because of the presence of Japan, which shares an emphasis on social traditionalism, butobviously not a Christian heritage. Source: Esping-Andersen, , pp. –.

Old-age pensions

Sickness benefits

Unemployment insurance

Composite decommodification

score

Liberal regimes Australia . . . . Canada . . . . Ireland . . . . New Zealand . . . . Great Britain . . . . United States . . . . Mean score . . . .

Conservative regimes Austria . . . . Belgium . . . . France . . . . Germany . . . . Italy . . . . Japan . . . . Switzerland . . . . Mean score . . . .

Social democratic regimes Denmark . . . . Finland . . . . Netherlands . . . . Norway . . . . Sweden . . . . Mean score . . . .

Overall mean . . . . Overall standard deviation . . . .


GENERAL RESULTS

At first glance, the relationship between differences in public opinion and differ-ences in national policy orientations appears to be rather weak. In response to asubstantial number of questions, our paradigmatic understanding of the differencesbetween advanced capitalist democracies seems to display at best an unimpressiverelationship to differences in country-level public opinion. In general, among thecountries which come across as the most consistently supportive of governmentprograms are some of our Conservative states. For example, respondents in thesecountries are among the most likely to feel that income differences in their coun-try are too large (ISSP, , Question ), incomes should be made more equal(WVS, Waves and , Question ), government is not doing enough to fightpoverty (Eurobarometer, , Question ), and society is unfair (Eurobarometer,, Question ), as we see in Table . As further evidence, note the meanscores for each cluster, which show that it is the Conservative group whichgenerally displays the most pro-government sentiment.

Simultaneously, some of our egalitarian Social Democratic countries produceresponses to the political right of some of our typically more anti-governmentLiberal states on a number of questions, though this seems largely related to theaforementioned issue of absolute vs. relative questions. Swedes, for example, aremore likely than Americans or Australians to feel that people should provide forthemselves rather than relying on the government (World Values Survey, Waves and , Question ) and if one were to focus only on the version of theISSP (not to be confused with the first data column of Table , which providesthe most recent result for each country), it would appear that respondents in theUS, Great Britain, and New Zealand are more likely to see inequality as a problemthan are citizens in Norway (ISSP, , Question ).

What is quite clear, however, is that our Liberal countries consistently tend tocongregate at the conservative end of the distribution with respect to surveyresponses, regardless of the question asked. For example, Australia, Canada, GreatBritain, and the United States are among the most likely to argue that larger incomedifferences are needed as an incentive for effort (WVS, Waves and , Question), and those polled in Australia, Canada, and the US are among the least likely tofavor an increase in government ownership at the expense of private ownership(WVS, Waves and , Question ). Respondents in Australia, Canada, NewZealand, and the US are among the least likely to feel that the government shouldreduce inequality (ISSP , Question , and , Question ). Similarly,Australians, Canadians, and Americans are among the least likely to feel that gov-ernment should provide a basic income (ISSP , Question and , Ques-tion ). Other countries do occasionally provide responses similar to those of theLiberal countries, but it is generally not the same country with any degree of regu-larity (with the possible and highly unexpected exception of Sweden). Likewise,


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.

.


Liberal countries may produce atypical responses from time to time, but they gen-erally tend to cluster together at one end of the distribution (with the possible andalso unexpected exception of Great Britain). Once again, comparison of the meanresponses for each cluster may provide the clearest indication of the overall picture.

This discussion is not meant to imply that no pattern emerges, just that thepattern is not as clear as anticipated. In general terms, the picture painted by thedata is of a fairly obvious split between our Liberal countries, on the one hand,and our Social Democratic and Conservative countries, on the other, but thenwith no discernible gap between Social Democratic and Christian Democraticcountries. This, perhaps not coincidentally, corresponds to an intermingling ofEsping-Andersen’s own decommodification scores between the two groups (seeTable ), and may provide evidence that the real-world differences between thetwo clusters are rather subtle.

TWO EXCEPTIONAL CASES—GREAT BRITAIN AND SWEDEN

Looking below the surface, there seem to be two specific reasons for this mediocrefit between variation in opinion and policy. The first is the emergence of two highlyanomalous cases—Sweden and Great Britain (also noted briefly by Svallfors, ;Ginsburg, , p. , perhaps most accurately refers to Britain as ‘an odd mixtureof the “socialist” and “liberal” types’). The former is, of course, considered thepreeminent example of an active and generous welfare state, successfully combatingpoverty and inequality through extensive government programs, the high taxesnecessary to fund them, and an extraordinary level of social cohesion, while the latteris generally viewed, particularly in the popular media, as a lone European bulwarktrying to pull her continental counterparts in the direction of a U.S.-style capitalismbased on individualism, competition, and minimal governmental interference.

However, survey results show these characterizations to be grossly exaggerated,if not downright erroneous, with respect to the mass attitudes of Swedish andBritish citizens, as we see by again looking at Table . Sweden, for its part, as ofthe most recent polling, is the country most likely to favor inequality as an incentivefor effort (WVS, Wave , Question ), among the least likely to argue that incomedifferences are too large (ISSP, , Question ), among the most likely to feelthat citizens, rather than government, should provide for themselves (WVS,Wave , Question ), and among the least likely to see competition as harmful(WVS, Wave , Question , not included in the table). Great Britain, on theother hand, is among the countries most likely to argue that competition is harmful(WVS, Wave , Question ) and that government should provide a basicincome (ISSP, , Question ). The British are also among the most likely toview success as the result of luck and connections rather than hard work (WVS,Wave , Question , not included in the table) and see the world in zero-sumrather than positive-sum terms (WVS, Wave , Question , not included in


the table). In response to some survey questions, those polled in Sweden andGreat Britain respond more as one might expect given their more generalnational orientations. However, it would not be an overstatement to suggest,based on the poll results analyzed here, that the British public generally holdsattitudes which are more receptive to governmental activism and more hostiletoward the free market than those of their Swedish counterparts.

This discussion of Sweden and Great Britain needs to be viewed in light of theissue of relative and absolute questions discussed earlier. That is, Swedish citizensmight be less likely than British citizens to support increased governmentalactivity because their government is already quite active in, not to mentionsuccessful at, managing the economy for the sake of larger social goals. However,I maintain that the larger point about the anomalous nature of these casesremains valid. Comparing Sweden’s responses with the cluster means, Swedenoften produces results most similar to the Liberal group, while Great Britain isconsistently far more likely than any of the other Liberal countries to displayinterventionist tendencies. This raises one further question. If it is just aboutrelative vs. absolute questions, why does Sweden so often look different from theother Social Democratic countries, and why does Great Britain appear evenmore strikingly different from its Liberal counterparts? Norway and Denmarkboth have active governments which successfully manage social problemsthrough market intervention, and the US and Australia both have relativelyuninvolved governments which let social outcomes be determined by marketforces, but in all of these cases, mass attitudes bear at least a general resemblanceto governmental orientation. It is only Sweden and Great Britain which consist-ently emerge as anomalous. Clearly the dynamic process by which public opinionis translated into public policy in these two countries deserves further attention.

IDEOLOGICAL AND OPERATIONAL ATTITUDES

The second and more important reason for an apparently unimposing fit betweenpublic opinion and public policy concerns the nature of the questions themselves.As the work of Free and Cantril () suggests, and as Coughlin () indeedfinds, we might expect our preliminary finding of a merely modest fit betweenvariation in attitudes and variation in policies to change if we consider the distinc-tion between ideological and operational attitudes. That is, we should find similar(and generally high) levels of support, across our sample of countries, for specificpublic spending programs, but we should find mixed levels of support for broaderideological questions, with variation occurring in accordance with each country’sgeneral policy orientation, as evidenced by a much stronger relationship betweendifferences in mass attitudes and decommodification scores.

Examination of simple bivariate correlations allows us to reach some basicconclusions. Tables and provide evidence of the operational–ideological


dichotomy, thereby reinforcing Coughlin’s () results and establishing thevalidity of the Three Worlds paradigm in the context of cross-national publicopinion. As we can see from the first four correlations presented in Table (theaggregated country-level data are presented in Table ), which are based on datafrom the ISSP’s Role of Government polls, the relationship between decom-modification scores and four specific policy-oriented questions, which ask whetherthe respondent would like their government to increase spending on health,education, pensions, and unemployment, respectively, even if doing so might

TABLE Bivariate correlations between Esping-Andersen’s () decommodi-fication scores and country level responses to various policy and ideologyquestions

*** p = .; ** p = . level; * p = . level (one-tailed tests). Note: Country-level responses to these questions are provided in Table . Source: Decommodification scores obtained from Esping-Andersen, , p. . See Appendix for questionwordings.

Bivariate correlations

n Sources

Increase spending for . . . health, . . . −. ISSP, , Q. education, . . . −.** ISSP, , Q. pensions, . . . . ISSP, , Q. unemployment, . . . . ISSP, , Q. even if it requires a tax increase?

Government’s responsibility to . . . provide health care for the sick? . ISSP, , Q. provide decent living for the

elderly? .** ISSP, , Q.

provide decent living for the unemployed?

.*** ISSP, , Q.

reduce differences in income? .* ISSP , Q. ; , Q. ; , Q.

Government doing enough for people in poverty?

.** WVS, Wave , Q.

Income Distribution Index, measuring optimal pay differences between various occupations

−.* Svallfors, , p.

Success is the result of hard work, rather than luck and connections

−.*** WVS, Waves and , Q.

People in need because of laziness or social injustice?

.* WVS, Wave , Q.

Is it just that money buys better health?

−.** ISSP, , Q.

Is it just that money buys a better education?

−.** ISSP, , Q.


require a tax increase (ISSP, , Questions , , , and ), is unimpressiveto say the least. The correlations for three of the four propositions are statistic-ally insignificant, and the fourth, regarding education, is highly significant, butnegative, contrary to expectations. This is a noteworthy finding because this isthe same battery of questions analyzed by Iversen and Soskice (), in whichthey argue that differences in vocational training (general vs. specific) shapepolicy variation among advanced capitalist democracies, through a simple rationality-based effect on citizen preferences.

Turning to the second four correlations in Table , however, we see that morebroadly ideological questions concerning similar issue areas are asked within thesame survey, but produce a much different outcome. Specifically, respondentswere asked about the role of the government in providing for the sick, the elderly,the unemployed, (ISSP, , Questions , , ) and in reducing inequality(ISSP, , Question , , Question, , and , Question ) andaggregate results for three of the four questions are significantly and positivelycorrelated with decommodification scores (the fourth, regarding health care, justmisses significance at the . level, seemingly due to the low French response, butstill provides a much better fit than the related item in the specifically policy-oriented battery of questions).

Merely rephrasing the questions in a more broadly ideological, rather thanpolicy-specific, manner drastically alters the goodness of fit between variations inmass attitudes and public policy. To be fair, the results diverge somewhat fromwhat we should expect based on Coughlin’s () results, which, as mentionedbefore, show that specific policy questions draw universally high support, butthen broader ideological questions draw high levels of support in some countries,and lower levels of support in others, with the result being a pattern which corre-sponds closely to policy variation. What we see here, particularly for the questionson health care and pensions, is fairly high levels of support in all countries (all ator above percent for both questions), but the variation that exists is morehighly correlated with the decommodification index (the questions regardingunemployment benefits and reducing inequality do more closely correspondwith Coughlin’s results). One might also argue that the caveat about higher taxesin the first battery of questions merely introduces a distortion to the respondentbut that these are both series of questions which are inherently policy-oriented,rather than ideological in nature. I will, of course, leave this issue to the judgmentof the readers, though I would argue that the second battery of questions (‘is itthe responsibility of the government to . . .’) is a step towards broader ideology ascompared to the first (‘would you like to see more or less . . .’), and as we will seemomentarily, the fit with policy variation gets even better as we move toquestions which are even more removed from specific policy.

The remaining correlations in Table are between decommodification and sixother interesting and relevant questions of broad ideology, each of which also


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displays a strong relationship. The last five of these questions, in particular, allpertain in some way to the notion of social justice, and all are significantly corre-lated with variation in policy orientation. Focusing specifically on the last twoitems in Table , it is particularly instructive that Great Britain and Swedenexhibit aggregate responses more as one might expect, confirming that it is thesequestions of broad ideology which really matter. These results imply that thosecountries which provide more for their citizens in terms of social policy arepopulated by citizens who have a more expansive conception of social justice, asopposed to their counterparts living under less-generous governments. Whilethe causal relationship between preferences and policy is obviously complicated,it seems clear that people are, at least to some extent, getting what they wantfrom government, in comparative context. At the aggregate level, those whofavor a more egalitarian society get a more active government which providesmore extensive services and lower levels of poverty, inequality, and other socialproblems. Those who hold less egalitarian views get smaller government, less-generous social programs, and social outcomes left relatively unchecked. It isthus fair to say that broad ideological attitudes do in fact vary in accordance withthe documented variation in policy orientation.

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, the preceding analysis provides us with three clear conclusions. First,there is a sharp division in public preferences between Liberal countries, on theone hand, and Social Democratic and Conservative countries on the other,consistent with the decommodification numbers provided by Esping-Andersen(), if not as clearly consistent with the underlying theory. Second, Swedenand Britain emerge as anomalous cases, each consistently producing aggregateresponses uncharacteristic of their roles as bulwarks of the Social Democraticand Liberal models, respectively. Finally, and most significantly, the operational–ideological dichotomy works at the cross-national level, the result being a strongfit between cross-national differences in broad ideology and social policy (and aninsignificant fit between policy and more specific policy preferences). This findingnecessitates a cursory investigation of the possible causal link between the ideologyand policy, and it is to this task that we now turn our attention.

CAUSALITY

Working with a sample of only countries and then having relatively spottydata coverage leaves us in a position where the usual multivariate statisticalprocedures are rendered problematic. However, having established a statisticallysignificant relationship between aggregate political attitudes and policy orienta-tion, we can weigh public opinion alongside variables already known to shape


welfare state variation. To do so, I have constructed two index variables usingfactor analysis to simplify the analysis and presentation. The first combinesquestions regarding the government’s responsibility in providing health care,pensions, and unemployment assistance (ISSP, , Questions , , and ,respectively), while the second combines questions asking whether it is just thatmoney buys better health and education (ISSP, , Questions , and ).For the record, these are the two clusters of questions which will be the focusof the larger study of which this essay provides a foundation (discussed belowin the concluding section). The factor loadings for each are available from theauthor.

As we see in Table , the relationship between public opinion (measured asthe two indexed variables) and decommodification is roughly similar in strengthto the relationships between decommodification and left government (measuredas cumulative years of left government as of , based on data from Huber,Ragin, & Stephens, ), union density (unionized workforce as a percentage oftotal workforce via Huber et al., , and Visser, ), constitutional structure(index available from Huber et al., ), and early consolidation (measured asthe average number of years that pension, sickness, and unemployment benefitshave been both binding and extensive in each country via Hicks, , p. ),

TABLE Relative strength of public opinion, compared to variables previouslyfound to have causal significance, as a source of welfare state variation

** p = .; * p = . level (one-tailed tests). a Combined measures using factor analysis; factor loadings available from the author. b Dummy variable measuring whether or not program consolidation had been achieved by Source: Decommodification scores obtained from Esping-Andersen, , p. . See Appendix for questionwordings.

Bivariate correlations with decommodification

Bivariate correlations

n Sources

Index of public support for government provision of health care, pensions, and unemployment assistancea

.* ISSP, , Q. , , and

Index of justice-based opiniona

−.* ISSP, , Q. and

Left government .** Huber et al., Union density .* Huber et al., ;

data from Visser, and OECD

Constitutional structure −.** Huber et al., ; Lijphart,

Early consolidationb .* Hicks, , ch. Neo-corporatism .** Hicks, , ch.


especially when one factors in differences in sample size, though not as highlycorrelated as the relationship between decommodification and neo-corporatism(specifically tripartite neo-corporatism from Hicks, , p. ).

Further, we can perform simple bivariate regressions, measuring the strengthof our two public opinion index variables against our other predictors of decom-modification one at a time. The results, presented in the top half of Table ,indicate that the first indexed variable performs only moderately, as it is only asignificant predictor of decommodification when paired with unionization and

TABLE Public opinion as a predictor of decommodification weighed intwo-variable models against factors known to affect welfare state variation

*** p = .; ** p = .; * p = . level (one-tailed tests). Standardized coefficients in parentheses. Sources: See Table . Public opinion index is the Index of public support for government provision of healthcare, pensions, and unemployment assistance in Table , and Public opinion index is the Index of justice-basedpublic opinion there.

OLS regression results with decommodification as dependent variable

Public opinion index

. .* . .* . (.) (.) (.) (.) (.)

Left-government .* (.) Union density . (.) Constitutional

structure −. (−.)

Early consolidation . (.) Neo-corporatism .*** (.) Constant .*** .** .*** .** .***Adjusted R-Square . . . . . n

Public opinion index

−.** −.** −.** −.** −.(−.) (−.) (−.) (−.) (−.)

Left-government .** (.)

Union density .** (.)

Constitutional structure

−.*** (−.)

Early consolidation .* (.)

Neo-corporatism .*** (.)

Constant .*** .*** .*** .*** .***Adjusted R-Square . . . . . n


the dummy variable for early consolidation. However, a look at the standardizedcoefficients, combined with a reminder about the tiny sample sizes, indicates thatthis variable performs well enough to at least be included in the discussion aboutdeterminants of welfare state variation.

The case is much stronger for the second indexed variable, which is a significantpredictor of decommodfication scores at the . level in all cases except whenpaired with neo-corporatism (which is statistically, and perhaps theoretically, avirtual proxy for decommodification). Further, a relatively high portion of thevariance in decommodification scores is achieved through most of these simplebivariate models. The fact that the second indexed variable performs better thanthe first is consistent with the previously discussed notion that it is broader ideologywhich is truly important in helping to shape policy variation among advancedcapitalist democracies.

It is important not to overstate any causal claims given the temporal relation-ship between the public opinion and decommodification data. However, giventhe strength of the statistical relationship between public opinion and social pol-icy and the strong causal link between public preferences and policy outcomes indemocratic theory, it is clear that mass political preferences warrant increasedattention as a significant cause of welfare state development. It certainly seems to bethe case that, at least to some extent, citizens are getting what they want fromtheir own governments, relative to each other, in terms of social policy, whichimplies that a thorough understanding of the variation among advanced capitalistdemocracies needs to incorporate the role of political ideology.

CONCLUSION

Based on the above evidence, four clear findings emerge in response to the hypoth-eses derived earlier in this study. First, there is a significant gap in mass attitudesbetween Liberal countries, on the one hand, and Social Democratic and Conserva-tive societies on the other. Second, we find a relatively weak relationship betweenpolicy-related public opinion and the differences in social policy among countries,but we find a much stronger fit between broad ideology and policy variation, consist-ent with the distinction between ideological and operational attitudes offered byFree and Cantril (). Third, and in addition to our hypothesis-driven results, weunexpectedly find that Sweden and Great Britain emerge as clearly anomalous cases,and therefore complicate our analysis, in that they each seem to display the mass atti-tudes one would expect of the other—social democratic Sweden often comes acrossas relatively laissez-faire, even conservative, in terms of its aggregate poll responses,while liberal Great Britain often emerges as rather egalitarian and pro-government.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, crude correlation and regression analysesindicate that public opinion, particularly of the broader ideological variety, deservesconsideration as an important determinant of welfare state variation.


As for future research, three possibilities come to mind. First, having estab-lished a relationship between public opinion and public policy within this data, itis necessary to obtain a fuller understanding of the forces which shape publicopinion and the cross-national differences in it which we have observed here.Specifically, we need to develop a more accurate model of the social forces whichshape attitudes at the individual level. Much recent work has focused on a sort ofbasic economistic approach, arguing that political preferences are formed by a simplecost–benefit analysis, whereby policies which financially benefit a particularindividual are supported, while those that do not are opposed. This rationality-based perspective seems flawed, however, in that it is both anti-historical andanti-sociological and therefore wrongly assumes that all similarly situated indi-viduals will reach the same political decisions, regardless of social context, andparticularly with regard to cross-national variation in that social context. Withinthe confines of this research project, this is the line of inquiry I will be following.

Second, the emergence of Britain and Sweden as anomalous cases raises interestingquestions. Specifically, if Britain has such egalitarian and pro-government views,while Sweden exhibits such conservative and laissez-faire attitudes, how have theyevolved into exemplars of the Liberal and Social Democratic models, as has been sowell documented? There seems to be a mismatch between public opinion and publicpolicy in these two countries which cries out for further examination.

The third suggestion is simply a continuation of the current line of inquiry asmore data become available. Just as Coughlin () provided a first step, Svallfors(, forthcoming) provides a second, and this project hopes to provide a third,many more steps need to be taken before we can feel comfortable that we have asound understanding of the comparative nature of public support for governmentalspending programs. Given the important theoretical link between public opinionand public policy, it is crucial that we definitively ascertain the degree to whichcitizen preferences are reflected in the work of our elected representatives.

APPENDIX: SURVEY QUESTIONS

ISSP, —SOCIAL INEQUALITY III

Question : Differences in income in this country are too large—percentage answering‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for each country).

Question : It should be or should not be the responsibility of the government to reducethe differences in income between people with high incomes and those with lowincomes—percentage answering ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for eachcountry).

Question : Is it just or unjust—right or wrong—that people with higher incomes canbuy better health care than people with lower incomes?—Percentage responding ‘veryjust, definitely right’ or ‘somewhat just, right’.


Question : Is it just or unjust—right or wrong—that people with higher incomes canbuy better education for their children than people with lower incomes?—Percentageresponding ‘very just, definitely right’ or ‘somewhat just, right’.

ISSP, —ROLE OF GOVERNMENT III

Question : Please show whether you would like to see more or less government spend-ing for health. Remember that if you say ‘much more’, it might require a tax increase topay for it—percentage answering ‘spend much more’ or ‘spend more’.

Question : Please show whether you would like to see more or less government spend-ing for education. Remember that if you say ‘much more’, it might require a tax increaseto pay for it—percentage answering ‘spend much more’ or ‘spend more’.

Question : Please show whether you would like to see more or less governmentspending for old age pensions. Remember that if you say ‘much more’, it mightrequire a tax increase to pay for it—percentage answering ‘spend much more’ or‘spend more’.

Question : Please show whether you would like to see more or less governmentspending for unemployment benefits. Remember that if you say ‘much more’, it mightrequire a tax increase to pay for it—percentage answering ‘spend much more’ or‘spend more’.

Question : It should be or should not be the responsibility of government to providehealth care for the sick—percentage answering ‘definitely should be’ or ‘probablyshould be’.

Question : It should be or should not be the responsibility of government to provide adecent living for the elderly—percentage answering ‘definitely should be’ or ‘probablyshould be’.

Question : It should be or should not be the responsibility of government to provide adecent living for the unemployed—percentage answering ‘definitely should be’ or ‘prob-ably should be’.

ISSP, —SOCIAL INEQUALITY II


Question : It is the responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in incomebetween people with high incomes and those with low incomes—percentage answering‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for each country).

Question : The government should provide everyone with a guaranteed basic income—percentage answering ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for each country, notasked in version).


ISSP, —SOCIAL INEQUALITY I


Question : It is the responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in incomebetween people with high incomes and those with low incomes—percentage answering‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for each country).

Question : The government should provide everyone with a guaranteed basic income—percentage answering ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ (most recent result for each country, notasked in version).

WORLD VALUES SURVEY, WAVES AND :

Question : A one-to-ten scale, where low numbers indicate that ‘incomes should bemade more equal’ and high numbers indicate that ‘we need larger income differences asincentives for individual effort’—mean response.

Question : A one-to-ten scale, where low numbers indicate that ‘private ownership ofbusiness and industry should be increased’ and high numbers indicate that ‘governmentownership of business and industry should be increased’—mean response.

Question : A one-to-ten scale where low numbers indicate that ‘the governmentshould take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for’ and high num-bers indicate that ‘people should take more responsibility to provide for themselves’—mean response.

Question : A one-to-ten scale where low numbers indicate that ‘in the long run, hardwork usually brings a better life’ and high numbers indicate that ‘hard work does not gener-ally bring success—it’s more a matter of luck and connections’—mean response.

Question : Why, in your opinion, are there people in this country who live in need?Here are two opinions. Which comes closest to your view? () ‘they are poor because oflaziness and lack of will power’, or () ‘they are poor because society treats themunfairly’—mean response.

Question : Do you think that what the government is doing for people in poverty inthis country is about the right amount, too, much, or too little? () ‘too much’, () ‘aboutthe right amount’, or () ‘too little’—mean response

EUROBAROMETER .—POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

Question : Do you think the public authorities do too much for people who are poor orexcluded, do all that they should, or do not enough?—Percentage answering ‘notenough’.

Question : Taking everything into account, do you yourself have the feeling thatsociety is unfair to you?—Percentage responding ‘yes’.


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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

F. John Mehrtens III is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at theUniversity of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, where he is completing his dissertation underthe direction of John Stephens. He is also currently an instructor in the Department ofPolitical Science at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and holds a Master’s degree inPolitical Science from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Address correspondence to F. John Mehrtens III, Crystal Drive, Fairfield, OH, USA, E-mail [email protected]

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THREE WORLDS OF PUBLIC OPINION? VALUES, VARIATION, AND …iversen/PDFfiles/Mehrtens2004.pdf · F. John Mehrtens III ABSTRACT The variation among advanced capitalist democracies in