Research Agenda for Public Attitudes to Welfare

Edited by Femke Roosma, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands and Tijs Laenen, Postdoctoral Researcher, KU Leuven, Belgium and Tilburg University, the Netherlands

• Contents:1 Introduction to A Research Agenda for PublicAttitudes to Welfare 1Femke Roosma and Tijs Laenen2 Labour market policy preferences in the contextof migration 25Dominique Oehrli and Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen3 From national welfare states to Social Europe:welfare attitudes in the context of European integration 55Sharon Baute4 New directions in research on public support foruniversal basic income 83Marie-Laure Mulayi, Tijs Laenen, Wim VanLancker and Bart Meuleman5 Political awareness and the structure of supportfor the welfare state 105Jason Jordan6 Just institutions for those most in need?Quantitative and qualitative bottom-upperspectives on the perceived legitimacy ofa social assistance reform: a focus on food aidrecipients in Finland 123Helena Blomberg and Christian Kroll7 Varieties of welfare populism; radical right votersbetween chauvinism and producerism 143Thierry Kochuyt, Koen Abts and Femke Roosma8 Support for the welfare state over the lifecourse: analysing individual attitude change withmultiwave panel data 163Elias Nauman9 Institutional trajectories of the welfare state:returns from social policy inception to modernpublic opinion 187Nate Breznau10 Context as a part of our cases: the potential ofqualitative work in welfare attitudes research 209Katharina Zimmermann11 Conclusion: welfare attitudes research ascathedral under permanent construction 231Tijs Laenen and Femke RoosmaIndex

‘The book reveals the ideas, methods and aspirations of talented scholars seeking to understand public attitudes towards the welfare state. In their words, building on an unfinished La Sagrada Familia cathedral. In my opinion, the major strength of the book is the non-findings. How losing a job doesn’t matter. How the inflow of migrants doesn’t matter. How early institutions don’t matter. Such knowledge is seldom found in journal articles. The book is also filled with good ideas about better construction methods. Illustrated in a trial-and-error fashion. The use of panel data. The mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. The sensitivity to context. These ideas and suggestions are crucial for anyone wanting to contribute to this scholarly field. The book leaves me with a small puzzle, though. Why do we want to build a cathedral?’