ABSTRACT
We take as our starting point recent findings which suggest a substantial convergence across countries in their citizens’ views about government responsibilities (Edlund 2009; Svallfors 2010). Since views about what governments should or should not do in relation to redistribution of resources is a key indicator of welfare state orientations among mass publics, and since existing scholarship tends to emphasize stability rather than change in these respects, this apparent convergence poses something of a puzzle for comparative research in this field.
