Public opinion towards welfare state reform : The role of political trust and government satisfaction

Abstract

The traditional welfare state, which emerged as a response to industrialization, is not well equipped toaddress the challenges of today’s post-industrial knowledge economies. Experts and policymakers have thereforecalled for welfare state readjustment towards a ‘social investment’ model (focusing on human skills and capabilities). Under what conditions are citizens willing to accept such future-oriented reforms? We point at the crucialbut hitherto neglected role of citizens’ trust in and satisfaction with government. Trust and satisfaction matterbecause future-oriented reforms generate uncertainties, risks and costs, which trust and government satisfactioncan attenuate. We offer micro-level causal evidence using experiments in a representative survey covering eightEuropean countries and confirm these findings with European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We find thattrust and government satisfaction increase reform support and moderate the effects of self-interest and ideologicalstandpoints. These findings have crucial implications not least because they help explain why some countriesmanage – but others fail – to enact important reforms.