ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the connection between welfare regimes and the perception that poverty is caused by 'laziness and lack of will power'. The 'laziness and will power' answer clearly refers to a situation where 'the poor' are in control of their neediness. If the poor only made an effort, they would be able to escape their neediness. Comparative research has always been, and always will be, challenged by the limited number of cases. The logic is that what is left of the regime effect after taking level of unemployment, social expenditures, and ethnic fractionalisation into account must be assigned to the degree of selectivism. The chapter addresses the possible intervening variables that enable readers to explain the link between welfare regimes and cross-national differences in public support for welfare policies. The boundaries of an ethnic group are very blurred as they not only include language differences 'but also other cleavages such as racial characteristics'.
