Welfare deservingness and welfare policy. New perspectives on popular deservingness opinions and their interaction with welfare state policies

In present times of ‘permanent’ austerity, in which various structural challenges -such as globalization, population ageing and mass migration- continue to threaten the financial sustainability and social legitimacy of modern welfare states, the issue of welfare deservingness is again high on the political agenda. Despite the considerable progress made in recent years by a growing body of research trying to improve our understanding of the welfare deservingness opinions of citizens, some important knowledge gaps remain present. This book makes three much-needed contributions to the literature on popular welfare deservingness. First, it brings popular deservingness opinions closer to the institutional context in which they take shape, by studying their relationship with real-world welfare state policies. Second, the book provides more conceptual clarification, by introducing a number of novel conceptual distinctions intended to inspire future researchers. Third, the book offers a broad range of new empirical observations, by embarking on several hitherto underexplored pathways in deservingness research.