Personal and the Political

Staffan Kumlin is a Research Fellow and Teacher in the Department of Political Science at Goteborg University, Sweden. His research interests include public opinion formation and comparative political behavior. He has been visiting Fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). His work has previously appeared in Restructuring the Welfare State (edited by Bo Rothstein and Sven Steinmo, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), and in the European Journal of Political Research.

• Acknowledgements RESEARCH PROBLEMS The Personal and the Political THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES Self-Interest and Social Justice The Institutional Interface Political Trust and Ideology FINDINGS The Data and the Case The Welfare State and the Economy Self-Interest Distributive Justice Voice The Customer, the User, and the Client IMPLICATIONS The Personal and the Political Revisited References

"If you want the deep background on the latest thinking on how attitudes towards political trust and democratic support are affected by citizens' welfare state experiences, you need look no further than this well-written, thorough, meticulously-researched and thoughtful book. This is a consummate scholarly performance grounded in extremely readable prose, systematic in its presentation from theory to analysis and conclusions." - Sandford Schram, Bryn Mawr College