Political Sociology of the Welfare State

Stefan Svallfors is Professor of Sociology at Umeå University, Sweden. He is the author of The Moral Economy of Class: Class and Attitudes in Comparative Perspective (Stanford, 2006) and the editor of Analyzing Inequality: Life Chances and Social Mobility in Comparative Perspective (Stanford, 2005).

• CONTENTS List of Tables and Figures XXX List of ContributorsXXX PrefaceXXX Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Stefan Svallfors Chapter 2 Class Conflicts and Institutional Feedback Effects in Liberal and Social Democratic Welfare Regimes: Attitudes toward State Redistribution and Welfare Policy in Six Western Countries 000 Jonas Edlund Chapter 3 Overloaded or Undermined? European Welfare States in the Face of Performance Dissatisfaction 000 Staffan Kumlin Chapter 4 Social Risk, Policy Dissatisfaction, and Political Alienation: A Comparison of Six European Countries 000 Maria Oskarson Chapter 5 The Relationship between Public Service Dissatisfaction and Political Action ' Does Institutional Design Matter?000 Maria Pettersson Chapter 6 Class and Attitudes to Market Inequality ' A Comparison Between Sweden, Britain, Germany, and the United States000 Stefan Svallfors Chapter 7 Are We the People?'National sentiments in a Changing Political Landscape 000 Mikael Hjerm Chapter 8 Conclusion: the Past and Future of Political Sociology 000 Stefan Svallfors Index000

"One does not generally look to edited volumes for marked advances in the sophistication of analysis and wholly original treatments of the subject-matter of a discipline, but that is what we have here... it deepens and extends our understanding of the workings of welfare politics by demonstrating how institutional arrangements and public policies feedback to shape and reshape political attitudes and orientations." - Acta Sociologica "Drawing on survey data, this remarkably coherent volume is a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of the welfare state in advanced capitalist countries. How do welfare systems and other national-level institutions affect the salience of social class for individual attitudes? In addressing this question, the contributors also explore how the process of welfare-state retrenchment over the last twenty years has affected the salience of social class. Methodologically, the volume provides state-of-the-art examples of how to model the interaction of individual-level and system-level effects. The volume offers up many fascinating insights about the determinants of individual attitudes towards inequality and the public provision of social welfare." - Jonas Pontusson (Princeton University) "This useful collection of essays seeks to develop a comparative European political sociology... The chapters are solidly researched and concisely argued." - CHOICE "The Political Sociology of the Welfare State assembles innovative analyses about mechanisms linking political institutions, social cleavages, and citizen orientations. The general approach is new and original: it highlights feedback effects of institutions and public policies in comparative perspective. The rigorous and systematic attempt to combine micro- and macro- data makes this book a 'must-read' for all those interested in the future development of political sociology." - Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Professor of Political Science, Social Science Research Center, Berlin (Germany) "The essays in this edited volume draw on cross-national survey data to piece together the best picture to date of the mass-level policy feedbacks of welfare state policies and programs in European countries I expect this book to stimulate the next generation of research on the development of the mass politics of European welfare states." - Julia Lynch (U of Penn)