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PUBLIC ATTITUDES TO SOCIAL PROTECTION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY TRADITIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE

Studies of public attitudes to the welfare state have generally failed to uncover consistent and clear country variations in relation to patterns of support for different social programmes. This finding contrasts with the important degree of cross-national variation that exists with regard to the institutional structure of welfare states. This article argues that in order to capture the extent of cross-national variation in public attitudes to social protection, the focus needs to be expanded to forms of protection other than income transfer programmes, to encompass labour law and collective bargaining. The article presents survey data that show cross-national variation in relation to these alternative forms of social protection to be significant, and suggests that such variation can be explained with reference to the political economy traditions that are typical of the different countries covered.