Edward Elgar Publishing The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare: Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness (Globalization and Welfare series)

Presenting a stimulating contribution to the quickly advancing field of welfare attitudes research, this important book develops the understanding of welfare legitimacy. It does so by assessing the nature of popular judgments about welfare deservingness, as well as the roots and consequences of these attitudes, offering a state-of-the-art picture of the latest theoretical, conceptual and methodological developments. The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare provides a multidisciplinary view on deservingness attitudes, with contributions from sociology, political science, media studies and social psychology. It advocates a multi-actor perspective, looking not only at citizens' attitudes, but also at attitudes of social administrators and policy-makers. The chapters also present new research methods in the field, including discrete choice experiments, factorial surveys, focus groups, and media content analysis. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, political science, and the fields of social psychology, philosophy, economics and history. It will help practitioners and policymakers in social policy, social work and healthcare understand popular perceptions and beliefs regarding just distributions of welfare. Contributors include: H. Blomberg, A. Bos, C. Buss, R. de Vries, M. De Wilde, B. Ebbinghaus, S. Evers, A. Fladmoe, B.B. Geiger, M. Hiligsmann, M. Jeene, J. Kallio, O. Kangas, A. Kootstra, C. Kroll, S. Kumlin, T. Laenen, D. Lepianka, B. Meuleman, E. Naumann, M. Niemelä, A. Paulus, J. Ragusa, T. Reeskens, F. Roosma, M. Sadin, K. Steen-Johnson, W. Uunk, M. van der Aa, T. van der Meer, B. van Doorn, W. van Oorschot, D. Wollebaek Review 'Deservingness considerations are central to the moral economy of welfare state arrangements. This book, written by a distinguished group of authors, offers a comprehensive, inspiring and highly innovative account of the logic and the drivers of deservingness attitudes. The authors succeed in putting the question ''Who should get what, and why'' in perspective and show the pivotal role of deservingness opinion therein. For sure, the book will become a key reference in the wider field of comparative welfare state research.' --Steffen Mau, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany About the Author Edited by Wim van Oorschot, Professor of Social Policy, University of Leuven, Belgium, Femke Roosma, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands, Bart Meuleman, Professor of Sociology, University of Leuven, Belgium and Tim Reeskens, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands