Author:

Keywords:

Social Europe, Welfare state, Social Security, Redistribution, Ethnic Minorities, Measurment Models, SEM, Multilevel Models

Abstract:

Contemporary society is characterized by a de-closure and de-structuring of the cultural compromise, the social contract and the political cleavages of organized modernity. The internal order of the pre-existing bounded space of the national state is gradually destabilized by the interference of external and competing authority structures (globalization and European integration) as well as the internal transition from collective identity to individual autonomy (individualization). These transformations have transformed the cleavage structure and the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe. Not only the existing dimensions of cultural conflict are re-articulated and re-organized, but also the scope and the content of the socio-economic conflict. Concretely, we focus in this lecture on the re-articulation of the socio-economic left-right cleavage at the demand side (voters) and its consequences for attitude patterns using three recent studies of the ISPO research group. We will investigate the attitudes of Belgian voters towards the idea of a social Europe and of the attitudes of EU28 citizens on Europe as a threat for social security. And last by not least we have a look into the attitudes of Belgians from ethnic decent towards redistribution and government responsibility.