Government Quality and Preferences for Economic Redistribution

• In Event: Public Opinion on Tax and Redistribution

Abstract

Who supports the welfare state is a question that has attracted considerable scholarly attention. Focusing on different contexts, using different data, and drawing on different methods, existing scholarship has identified a number of factors that meaningfully predict welfare state attitudes. While these studies undoubtedly deepen our understanding of the considerations driving support for the welfare state, they generally depart from the assumption that citizens believe that the actions that governments take will actually result in redistribution. Nevertheless, existing work has shown that the existence of a redistributive framework does not always guarantee that resources will go toward social programs. What happens when citizens are aware of this problem? Do they change their attitudes toward the welfare state when exposed to information about government ineffectiveness? This project examines the impact of perceptions about the quality of government on attitudes toward inequality and redistribution. In particular, it sets out to uncover how exposure to information about government inefficiency affects general support for state-sponsored redistribution; whether this information leads individuals to embrace specific policy designs; and if this information induces respondents to embrace alternative forms of inequality reduction that occur in the labor market. To do so, I run original survey experiments in Bulgaria, Czechia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. My results shed light on the conditions under which citizens withdraw support for state-sponsored redistribution and turn to other policies that alleviate income differentials.

Author

• Bilyana Petrova, Texas Tech University