Welfare attitudes: Spillover or obstacle to support for Social Europe?

We propose two explanatory mechanisms for how welfare state attitudes may relate to support for Social Europe: namely, spillover or obstacle. On the one hand, Social Europe can be considered as an instrument that aims to achieve similar objectives to those of national welfare states. The social dimension of the EU has developed to counterbalance the negative impact of economic deregulation and to prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ in social standards (Fernandes and Maslauskaite, Reference Fernandes and Maslauskaite2013). In this respect, Vandenbroucke (Reference Vandenbroucke2013: 221) argues that a Social Union should guide and support the substantive development of national welfare states, based on general social standards and common objectives. From the perspective that Social Europe aims to defend the welfare state at the European level, it can be expected that advocates of the national welfare state will be more positive toward Social Europe. This spillover mechanism implies that citizens’ attitudes are congruent across policy levels (Muñoz et al., Reference Muñoz, Torcal and Bonet2011). A spillover of pro-welfare attitudes to the European area is consistent with cue-taking theory, which assumes that citizens use their attitudes about domestic politics as a proxy to evaluate European integration (Anderson, Reference Anderson1998). Given that many citizens have limited interest in and awareness of European politics, general attitudes toward the welfare state can be activated as a heuristic, and evoke attitudes toward the EU's social dimension.

On the other hand, it is argued that Social Europe challenges the foundations of national welfare states. Ferrera (Reference Ferrera2005) points out that national welfare states are based on ‘closure’, as compulsory social insurance draws clear boundaries between those who are entitled to social benefits and those who are not eligible to join the social security system. European integration, on the contrary, operates on the basis of ‘opening’, since it attempts to redraw the boundaries of welfare at the supranational level. The EU constrains the scope and content of national bounding decisions, as well as the right to impose boundaries as such (Ferrera, Reference Ferrera2005: 3). Others have expressed concerns that European integration will not be able to restructure, at the supranational level, the type of solidarity that exists in national welfare states (Hemerijck, Reference Hemerijck2012; Scharpf, Reference Scharpf2010). Integration not only affects the boundaries of social sharing systems, but also the internal design of welfare states: for instance, in the areas of pensions, health care and social assistance. The threat that Social Europe poses to the boundaries of welfare states can nourish competition for scarce resources, whereas the impact on the internal design of the welfare state can raise concerns – especially in the most advanced welfare states – about the maintenance of social protection levels. From this viewpoint, pro-welfare attitudes may obstruct support for Social Europe. First, citizens’ preferences regarding strong government responsibility for welfare and for income redistribution might be restricted to national boundaries. In this respect, pro-welfare state positions might coincide with welfare chauvinism. Second, citizens who are satisfied with their welfare regime may perceive Social Europe as a threat to institutionalised solidarity at the national level, whereas those who think that national institutions perform poorly may see it as an opportunity (Beaudonnet, Reference Beaudonnet2015; Sanchez-Cuenca, Reference Sanchez-Cuenca2000).

Dimensions of support for Social Europe

The notion of ‘Social Europe’ can refer to different basic principles and policy options, which vary in the extent to which they are intrusive to national welfare states. By intrusiveness, we understand the degree of interference in the boundaries of solidarity on which the welfare state is based. Accordingly, empirical research shows that citizens differentiate substantially in their attitudes concerning various aspects of Social Europe (Baute et al., Reference Baute, Meuleman and Abts2018). Whether citizens’ welfare attitudes facilitate or obstruct support for Social Europe might depend on how a particular policy instrument intervenes in the national welfare state.

The first, and least intrusive, aspect of current European social policy relates to the harmonisation of national social policies. This is mainly addressed through binding and non-binding social regulations: for instance, in the fields of health and safety at work, working conditions, and equality (Falkner, Reference Falkner, Castles, Leibfried and Lewis2010). The regulatory angle of Social Europe actually supports the welfare state, as it reinforces social protection, while leaving the boundaries of national welfare states untouched. More recently, the Open Method of Coordination was introduced to facilitate an upward convergence of social standards through mutual learning and peer pressure (de la Porte, Reference de la Porte and Greve2013). Given the large diversity of national welfare states, complete harmonisation is not aimed at. Nevertheless, the EU's instruments for harmonisation are a direct pressure toward more ‘bounded varieties of welfare’ (Falkner, Reference Falkner, Castles, Leibfried and Lewis2010).

Second, Social Europe also requires financial solidarity that goes beyond the national welfare state (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2013). Member state solidarity is implemented through various structural funds, which aim to reduce regional disparities in income, employment, investment and growth within the EU (Allen, Reference Allen, Wallace, Pollack and Young2010). The fiscal aid to Eurozone countries, which overturned the ‘no bailout clause’ during the European sovereign debt crisis, is also considered as an instrument of international redistribution. In essence, member state solidarity provides financial assistance from more affluent regions to poorer ones, on top of existing forms of institutionalised solidarity within member states. Therefore, these transfers do not erode the autonomy of member states to conduct their own social policies.

Third, the development of European social citizenship (Faist, Reference Faist2001) is a cornerstone of Social Europe that operates according to an opposing dynamic to that of national welfare states. It implies that EU citizens acquire access to other member states’ social security schemes and that already-earned social security rights are transferrable between member states. The creation of an EU social citizenship space – which matches the EU's territorial borders – strongly infringes on the boundaries of national welfare states (Ferrera, Reference Ferrera2005, Reference Ferrera, Vandenbroucke, Barnard and De Baere2017). Currently, EU citizens receive equal social rights as nationals, without a European standard, as the amount, type and duration of benefits depend on the country of residence.

Turning to the most intrusive dimension, Social Europe can also be implemented by policy instruments that are based on interpersonal solidarity, defining rights and obligations among EU citizens (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2013). Such policy instruments have been proposed in the form of a European unemployment insurance scheme (Dullien, Reference Dullien2013), a European minimum income benefit (Peña-Casas and Bouget, Reference Peña-Casas, Bouget and Natali2014), and a European child benefit (Levy et al., Reference Levy, Matsaganis and Sutherland2013). European social protection schemes would introduce new redistributive mechanisms and would enforce financial solidarity between EU citizens. Their level of contributions and benefits would be based on a relatively low common denominator between member states and could be topped up by the member states with national payments. Such measures would for instance be financed by a flat tax on all household income and limited to a maximum proportion of GDP. This is clearly the most intrusive component of Social Europe to the welfare state.

Welfare state principles and welfare state critique

To gain detailed insight into the spillover and obstacle mechanisms, we incorporate two clusters of welfare attitudes in this study, namely support for basic welfare state principles and welfare state critique. The distinction between the two is relevant, because their relationship with support for Social Europe rests on different theoretical foundations.

Attitudes about welfare state principles refer to citizens’ preferences for redistribution and the government's responsibility for welfare. Welfare state principles refer to what Roosma and colleagues (Reference Roosma, Gelissen and van Oorschot2013) label the ‘welfare mix’: the goals of the welfare state and the preferred range of government responsibility for welfare. First, the welfare mix refers to the diversity of welfare-generating forces. The state, the market, civil society or the family can all operate as regulatory or redistributive institutions (Roosma et al., Reference Roosma, Gelissen and van Oorschot2013). Our primary interest is citizens’ preferences regarding the role of the government in providing welfare. A second welfare state principle relates to the redistributive goals of the welfare state (van Oorschot and Meuleman, Reference van Oorschot and Meuleman2012). Imposing equality of opportunities and/or outcomes is one of its main objectives (Esping-Andersen, Reference Esping-Andersen1990). Support for welfare state principles is thus strongly related to egalitarian views. The third aspect, the range of government responsibilities, refers to the specific areas of life in which the government should intervene (Roller, Reference Roller, Borre and Scarbrough1995). For instance, one might think that the government should ensure the provision of health care, pensions, unemployment benefits, child care, paid care leave and so on.

At the European level, a similar debate is ongoing regarding the role of government, the promotion of equality and the range of government responsibilities. Cue-taking theory (Anderson, Reference Anderson1998) would predict a positive relationship between support for basic welfare state principles and support for Social Europe. For instance, it assumes that citizens with a more liberal orientation are strongly in favour of the EU's internal market while being more opposed to European social policy, because they prefer less government intervention and fewer regulations. In line with this theory, empirical studies show that citizens with egalitarian views and those who prefer higher social spending are more in favour of member state solidarity (Beaudonnet, Reference Beaudonnet2014; Ciornei and Recchi, Reference Ciornei and Recchi2017). However, welfare state development has facilitated internal bonding between insiders by means of external bounding toward outsiders (Ferrera, Reference Ferrera2005). Citizens mainly think about state intervention and welfare redistribution within national boundaries. Literature on welfare chauvinism confirms that endorsing the basic principles of the welfare state is not necessarily consistent with support for welfare redistribution to non-nationals (van der Waal et al., Reference van der Waal, Achterberg and Houtman2010). As a result, support for welfare redistribution and government responsibility may translate into opposition to European interference in social policy, in particular regarding the Europeanisation of social rights.

In contrast to welfare state principles, welfare state critique does not refer to an ideological position as such, but to citizens’ assessment of the performance and consequences of their national welfare state. The performance of the welfare state generates a certain amount of institutional trust among citizens. We consider people's trust in the social security system as an overarching evaluation of their national welfare state. However, more specific components of welfare state critique can be found in literature. Perceptions of the mistargeting of welfare benefits, and especially the overuse of benefits, are a sensitive subject among the European public (Ervasti, Reference Ervasti, Ervasti, Andersen and Friberg2012). One might perceive that some beneficiaries are not deserving of, or not entitled to, receive social benefits, which in the latter case is considered as benefit abuse. Furthermore, perhaps the most criticised side effect of the welfare state is its economic consequences (van Oorschot et al., Reference van Oorschot, Reeskens and Meuleman2012). The critique is that the welfare state is a financial burden on the government budget, increases labour costs and tax levels, and makes labour markets inflexible. Together with (dis)trust in the social security system and perceptions of benefit overuse, we consider the perceived economic consequences as a major component of welfare state critique.

Some scholars argue that both national and European institutions are evaluated similarly (Anderson, Reference Anderson1998), assuming that citizens’ evaluations rest on institutional trust in general (Muñoz et al., Reference Muñoz, Torcal and Bonet2011). A spillover effect may also result from a direct involvement of national governments in EU decision-making (Kritzinger, Reference Kritzinger2003). In this regard, citizens’ support for Social Europe expresses support for incumbent authorities’ policies at the European level. The opposite argument – in favour of the obstacle mechanism – is also plausible: namely, that national and European systems are evaluated differently, since citizens make cost/benefit evaluations over transferring sovereignty to the European level (Sánchez-Cuenca, Reference Sanchez-Cuenca2000). Those who are satisfied with the functioning of the national welfare state may be more reserved about Social Europe, whereas those who perceive the welfare state as inefficient may embrace European social policy-making more enthusiastically (Beaudonnet, Reference Beaudonnet2015). This implies that strong criticism of the welfare state may boost support for Social Europe, whereas little criticism is accompanied by lower support for Social Europe.

Hypotheses

We have argued that both support for the basic welfare state principles and welfare state critique can either facilitate or hinder support for Social Europe. The contrasting mechanisms of spillover and obstacle lead us to formulate two alternative hypotheses:

Furthermore, the policy instruments of Social Europe do not intervene in national welfare states in the same way. EU social regulations and member state solidarity are the least intrusive to national welfare states, whereas European social citizenship and interpersonal solidarity challenge and undermine the sovereignty and boundaries of the welfare states to a larger extent. In line with the arguments set out in the previous section, we assume that the spillover mechanism of basic welfare state principles will be stronger for those aspects of Social Europe that are least intrusive because citizens will perceive them as supportive to their national welfare state. More intrusive instruments, such as European social citizenship and interpersonal solidarity, may be perceived as more threatening to national welfare states and raise concerns about the consequences of these policies. In sum, given that the various dimensions of Social Europe differ in the extent to which they are intrusive to the welfare state, we expect the following differentiation in the spillover and obstacle mechanism as referred to in the previous hypotheses:

Furthermore, we expect the relative importance of the welfare state principles and welfare state critique to depend on the intrusiveness of the different dimensions of Social Europe. For dimensions that intervene more strongly in national systems, citizens’ assessments of whether this will bring improvement or deterioration will gain importance. The opportunity costs of transferring social competences to the European level are much higher for citizens who are satisfied with the performance of their welfare state. Therefore, for the most intrusive components of Social Europe, the level of criticism aimed at the welfare state is likely to be more important than the level of support for the basic principles of the welfare state. When it comes to less intrusive policy instruments, citizens may reason more according to their ideological preferences regarding redistribution and regulations, which can be expected to have a stronger effect on support for Social Europe than their level of welfare state critique.

Data

We use data from the 2014 Belgian National Election Study (Abts et al., Reference Abts, Swyngedouw and Meuleman2015). This post-electoral survey was carried out among a register-based probability sample of Belgians entitled to vote in the 2014 national elections. On completion of a computer-assisted personal interview (response rate 47 per cent), respondents were asked to fill out a 20-page drop-off questionnaire, containing a specific module on Social Europe. Applying the principles of the Tailored Design Method (Dillman et al., Reference Dillman, Smyth and Christian2014), we were able to convince 74 per cent of the respondents to fill out and send back the questionnaire (N = 1403).

Variables

Support for Social Europe is measured by a second-order latent factor, consisting of the four constitutive dimensions distinguished above (see online Appendices 1–2 for question wording). Each of the dimensions is specified as a latent factor. First, attitudes toward harmonisation are measured by support for four types of social regulations covering health and safety at work, maximum weekly working hours, minimum terms for paid leave, and minimum terms for maternity leave. Second, attitudes concerning member state solidarity are measured by three items referring to solidarity between the richer and poorer member states. These concern support in times of economic difficulties, the amount of tax money being redistributed, and the continuation of member state solidarity in the future. Third, opinions about European social citizenship are operationalised by four items concerning citizens’ attitudes toward the access of EU citizens to social benefits and protection in Belgium. One item concerns equal social rights, two items relate to prioritising nationals, and one item refers to the conditionality of social protection. Lastly, interpersonal solidarity is measured by support for the implementation of a European social security system. One item concerns the implementation of an entire European social security system, whereas three items refer to European protection schemes for specific policy areas: child allowances, minimum income benefits, and unemployment benefits.

Support for welfare state principles is measured by three latent factors. First, the role of the state versus the market is measured by the following agree-disagree statements recorded on a five-point scale: ‘Society would be better off if the government intervened less in the market’ and ‘Businesses should have more freedom; therefore, regulations for businesses should be reduced’. A higher factor score indicates that respondents support greater government intervention in the economy. Second, attitudes toward the principle of equality are measured by three items (answers on five-point scales): ‘The differences between classes ought to be smaller than they are at present’, ‘The differences between high and low incomes should stay as they are’, and ‘The government should reduce income differentials’. Higher scores indicate more egalitarian views. To measure attitudes concerning the range of government responsibilities, respondents were asked to what extent they think the government should be responsible for ‘a reasonable pension,’ ‘affordable health care’ and ‘a reasonable standard of living for the employed’. Responses range from ‘no responsibility’ (0) to ‘full responsibility’ (10).

Welfare state critique is also measured by three items. First, trust in the social security system is measured on a five-point scale ranging from ‘very little confidence’ (1) to ‘a great deal of confidence’ (5). Responses were recoded so that high scores indicate high levels of distrust. Second, perceptions of benefit overuse are measured by how often respondents think it occurs that people: ‘Use their health insurance although they are not sick’, ‘Receive unemployment benefits although they could have a job if they wanted’, and ‘Receive a minimum income although they are not actually poor’. Responses range from ‘very often’ (1) to ‘never’ (5). A latent variable was constructed with a higher score indicating greater perceptions of abuse. Lastly, attitudes to the economic outcomes of the welfare state are measured by a latent variable with three items: ‘The welfare state costs too much money compared with what it yields’, ‘The tasks of the welfare state are better left to the free market’, and ‘The welfare state costs companies too much and harms our economy’. Responses range from ‘completely disagree’ (1) to ‘completely agree’ (5).

We take into account basic social-structural variables such as age and gender (0 = male, 1 = female). Education level distinguishes between lower-secondary, higher-secondary, and tertiary education. Employment status consists of seven categories: white-collar worker, blue-collar worker, self-employed, pensioner, student, unemployed or disabled, and inactive. Sociotropic and egocentric benefits are included by citizens’ opinion about whether EU membership has brought advantages to Belgium and to people like them. Responses are recoded into ‘mainly advantages’ (1) and ‘mainly disadvantages or no opinion’ (0). European identity is measured by citizens’ attachment to Europe, ranging from ‘not at all attached’ (1) to ‘strongly attached’ (5). Since welfare attitudes are embedded in a larger political division of left-right ideology, we include left-right self-placement (0-10 scale). Responses are recoded into left (0–4), centre (5) and right (6–10).

An overview of the descriptive statistics is given in the online Appendices 3–4.