Welfare Attitudes, Political Trust and Its Determinants in Sweden
(2018) WPMM42 20181Department of Sociology
School of Social Work
Sociology
- Abstract
- Korea is characterized by the state's low responsibility for welfare provision and low political trust, while Sweden exemplifies a welfare state with universal welfare provision and high political trust. These characteristics in Sweden arouse interest in the question of whether political trust is causally linked to welfare attitudes and what factors influence political trust. Thus, the present study aims to explore whether political trust affects welfare attitudes and what factors are influencing political trust in Sweden. From the perspective of welfare attitude's multi-dimensionality, the author conducted a quantitative research with different statistical methods, Ordinal Logistic Regression and Multiple Linear Regression, depending on... (More)
- Korea is characterized by the state's low responsibility for welfare provision and low political trust, while Sweden exemplifies a welfare state with universal welfare provision and high political trust. These characteristics in Sweden arouse interest in the question of whether political trust is causally linked to welfare attitudes and what factors influence political trust. Thus, the present study aims to explore whether political trust affects welfare attitudes and what factors are influencing political trust in Sweden. From the perspective of welfare attitude's multi-dimensionality, the author conducted a quantitative research with different statistical methods, Ordinal Logistic Regression and Multiple Linear Regression, depending on the scale of dependent variables, using data from the 2016 European Social Survey. The key findings of the research are that political trust does not significantly or strongly influence the goal and range dimensions of welfare attitude, while it significantly and strongly affects the implementation and outcome dimensions in Sweden and that political trust is not significantly affected by formal and informal networks, electoral and institutionalized participation, internal efficacy, media exposure and socio-economic variables, while it is significantly affected by social trust, non-institutionalized participation, government performances, external efficacy, policy issue, partisanship and political interest. The author concludes that political trust does matter for welfare attitudes in Sweden and that politicians and political institutions' responsiveness, government performances and policy issue are major determinants of political trust. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- People's trust in politicians and government is of great importance for their support for a variety of aspects of the welfare state in Sweden and politicians and government's responsive attitude, government performances and policy issue are major causal factors influencing their trust in politicians and government. According to the European Social Survey in 2016, it is striking that the Swedes have higher trust in politicians and government and more positive attitudes for their welfare state than other Europeans. Although the causal relationship between trust in politicians and government and support for welfare policies has been studied for decades by Political Sociologists, we are lacking conclusive evidence or results to prove their... (More)
- People's trust in politicians and government is of great importance for their support for a variety of aspects of the welfare state in Sweden and politicians and government's responsive attitude, government performances and policy issue are major causal factors influencing their trust in politicians and government. According to the European Social Survey in 2016, it is striking that the Swedes have higher trust in politicians and government and more positive attitudes for their welfare state than other Europeans. Although the causal relationship between trust in politicians and government and support for welfare policies has been studied for decades by Political Sociologists, we are lacking conclusive evidence or results to prove their relationship. Thus, it is important to explore their relationship comprehensively and exhaustively. Here I suggest a yet untried conceptual framework of welfare attitude's multi-dimensionality to understand the relationship between trust in politicians and government and support for welfare policies. In this study, I investigated the effects of trust in politicians and government on various dimensions of people's attitudes towards the welfare state in Sweden. The results show that people's trust in politicians and government does not have a significant or strong effect on their support for the welfare state's goal of income equality and the state's responsibility for ensuring reasonable standard of living for the old, the unemployed and the working parents, but that it does affect strongly and positively their attitudes towards how effectively welfare policies are implemented and how desirable the welfare state's outcomes are. I also examined the causal factors of trust in politicians and government in Sweden. Trust in politicians and government is not significantly or strongly affected by social networks, political participation and social groups, but it is strongly affected by politicians and government's responsive attitude, government performances, immigration attitude as policy issue and social trust. The results of this study broaden the horizons of understanding the relationship between trust in politicians and government and support for the welfare state. I emphasize, "Trust in politicians and government was, is and will always be of critical importance for support for the welfare state in Sweden." (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8943984
- author
- Lee, Seong Ho LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- WPMM42 20181
- year
- 2018
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- welfare attitude, welfare state, political trust, European Social Survey, Korea, Sweden
- language
- English
- id
- 8943984
- date added to LUP
- 2018-06-04 09:38:52
- date last changed
- 2018-06-04 09:38:52
@misc{8943984,
abstract = {{Korea is characterized by the state's low responsibility for welfare provision and low political trust, while Sweden exemplifies a welfare state with universal welfare provision and high political trust. These characteristics in Sweden arouse interest in the question of whether political trust is causally linked to welfare attitudes and what factors influence political trust. Thus, the present study aims to explore whether political trust affects welfare attitudes and what factors are influencing political trust in Sweden. From the perspective of welfare attitude's multi-dimensionality, the author conducted a quantitative research with different statistical methods, Ordinal Logistic Regression and Multiple Linear Regression, depending on the scale of dependent variables, using data from the 2016 European Social Survey. The key findings of the research are that political trust does not significantly or strongly influence the goal and range dimensions of welfare attitude, while it significantly and strongly affects the implementation and outcome dimensions in Sweden and that political trust is not significantly affected by formal and informal networks, electoral and institutionalized participation, internal efficacy, media exposure and socio-economic variables, while it is significantly affected by social trust, non-institutionalized participation, government performances, external efficacy, policy issue, partisanship and political interest. The author concludes that political trust does matter for welfare attitudes in Sweden and that politicians and political institutions' responsiveness, government performances and policy issue are major determinants of political trust.}},
author = {{Lee, Seong Ho}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Welfare Attitudes, Political Trust and Its Determinants in Sweden}},
year = {{2018}},
}