Conferences

In research on public support for income redistribution by welfare states there is a vivid debate about the country level influences explaining the empirical cross national differences in the degree to which citizens vote for income redistribution.
According to the 'median voter-hypothesis’ from the economists Meltzer/Richard the demand for income redistribution should rise with the degree of inequality in a country, because more voters expect advantages from redistribution and opt for governments with redistributive programmes. This direct link between the social facts, a certain level of inequality, and the distributive preferences suggested by the median voter hypothesis, was rejected by research. Because preferences for redistribution obviously are no demand reacting on the actual Gini, other explanations are sought for, especially those that introduce cultural factors like regime approaches. Again, the empirical support for that approaches is insufficient. So, research is still testing hypothesis about the influence of country conditions that make people prefer more or less equality and redistribution coming from different branches of research, like the effect of Gross Domestic Product or unemployment. Further institutionalist approaches assume an influence of different kind of welfare institutions (the universalistic vs. the selective welfare state), the varieties of capitalism approach argues similar. The overarching question is whether preferences follow a rational calculus of advantages or are driven by political cultures.
The paper will present this literature and explore the underlying mechanisms, by which country level effects are thought to influence behaviour or vice versa. Also aggregated individual preferences can have a collective effect. Then different hypothesis on the relation between country characteristics and demand for redistribution are analysed by multi level regression procedures based on the ESS and the ISSP data sets with additional country data.