Public Opinion, Public Policy and the Welfare State
| Date | 01 March 1992 |
| Published date | 01 March 1992 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1992.tb01758.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political Studies
(I
992),
XL,
21-37
Public
Opinion,
Public Policy
and the
Welfare State
ELM PAPADAKIS*
University
of
New
England, Armidale, Australia
A
recurring problem in political analysis is to link public opinion to public policy.
Public opinion has often come to mean the replies to structured questions in
representative surveys. The task of connecting opinion and policy
is
complicated by
the difficulty in interpreting replies to these surveys. The burgeoning literature
on
public opinion and the crisis of the welfare state has failed
to
provide a consistent
account of what aspects of policy might
be
driven by public demand or vice versa. The
interpretations
of
survey data are either misleading or highly selective. This applies to
two crucial areas, attitudes towards poor minorities and opinions about state and
private welfare.
In
order to provide a better understanding of the problems of linking
policy and opinion and to offer some guiding principles for research in this area, this
paper attempts to clarify some of these difficulties.
The discussion of public opinion becomes murky when meticulous scholars
try
to define their conceptions and to form distinctions that enable them to
make statements that seem to
fit
the observable realities of the interaction of
public opinion and government. This murkiness by no means flows solely
from
the incomprehensibility
of
men
of
learning.
To
speak
with
precision
of
public opinion is not unlike coming
to
grips
with
the Holy Ghost
(V.
0.
Key,
Public Opinion and American Democracy).
An evaluation
of
analyses
of
public opinion about the welfare state is pertinent
for several reasons. First, the study of public opinion is
a
response to claims
about the crisis
of
the welfare state, to a decline
of
confidence in political elites
and in the election of governments (such as in the
UK
and the
US)
committed to
carrying out major reforms in this area.’ Secondly, studies
of
voting behaviour
and
of
public opinion have either cast doubt
on
the political success
of
some of
these challenges or argued that many changes (for example, the expansion of
*
This paper was written while
I
was
a
Visiting Fellow in the Political Science Program, Research
School
of Social Sciences, The Australian National University.
I
am grateful to that institution for its
support and, in particular, to Robert Jackson for stimulating discussions
on
the problems of
analysing public opinion and public policy. Bruce Coram, Barry Hindess and the Editor and readers
for this journal made helpful comments
on
earlier drafts of this paper.
’
Influential analyses of these changes include
J.
Habermas,
Legifimation Crisis
(London,
Heinemann,
1976);
J.
O’Connor,
TheFisculCrisisof the
State(New York, St Martin’s Press,
1981);
J.
Douglas, ‘The overloaded crown’,
British Journal
of
Political Science,
6 (1976).
483-505;
W.
Niskanen,
Bureaucracy
and
Representative Government
(Chicago, Aldine-Atherton,
197
1);
S.
Brittan, ‘The economic contradictions of democracy’,
British Journalof Political Science,
5
(1979,
129-59.
0032-3217/92/01/0021-17
0
1992
Political Studies
22
Public Opinion, Public Policj. and
the
Welfare State
private welfare) predate the prominence
of
the New Right as a political force.*
One
of
the contributions
of
studies of public opinion has been to question
assumptions about the crisis
of
the welfare state. Studies of attitudes to taxation
and spending in advanced industrialized countries have found strong support for
most of the major programmes commonly associated with the welfare state.3
They have also shown the complexity of public opinion; for instance, support
for
statutory intervention coexists with support for the private sector. Thirdly, there
has been a marked increase in the use of opinion surveys by government agencies
and political parties in their attempts either to shape opinion
or
to initiate policy
changes.
A
central problem with the literature on the welfare state has been its failure
to
focus on the difficulties
of
interpreting sample surveys and
of
relating opinion
to
policy. There is little discussion
of
the assumptions that underlie arguments
about the interaction
of
policy and opinion. Models for understanding this
relationship have not been incorporated in the analysis. There is little
appreciation of the need to specify ways in which policy and opinion might be
connected, for instance
to
differentiate between situations in which changes in
opinion may
follow
changes in policy, or changes in opinion may bring about
changes in policy. In response to particular events, both opinion and policies may
move in the same direction at about the same time.'
To
elicit replies from the public on policy issues is one thing.
To
be sure how far
these replies reflect either individual preferences, 'climates of opinion'
or
'popular
consciousness' is quite another. Among the problems
of
conducting surveys and
interpreting the findings are the wording
of
questions and the volatility of
attitudes over time. Even if these difficulties can be overcome, how relevant are the
findings to the formation
of
policy? Although some writers have argued that
public attitudes have a decisive influence on institutions (and hence on policies),
others have argued that public opinion only contributes in a limited manner to
this process; that political elites and institutional processes have the greatest
independent impact on policy formation.5 Writers on public opinion and the
welfare state have avoided addressing these issues directly. Yet their explanations
for attitudes to the welfare state are based on assumptions about the interaction
of opinion and policy, the nature of democracy and representative government,
definitions of the public and an understanding of the policy process.
Some writers have shown the complexity of public attitudes and suggested that
it is far from easy to establish causal links between opinion and policy.6
'
S.
Kelley. 'Democracy and the New Deal party system', in A. Gutmann (ed.),
Democracy and
the Weyare Slate
(Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1988). pp. 185-206; P. Taylor-Gooby,
Public Opinion. Ideology andSiate Weyure
(London, Routledge, 1985);
E.
Papadakis and P. Taylor-
Gooby,
The
Private Provision oJPublic WeFare
(Brighton, Wheatsheaf, 1987). This is not
to
ignore
the fact that theThatcher government, in its third term, initiated fundamental changes, even in major
services like pensions, health and education.
'
R. Coughlin,
Ideology, Public Opinion and Wel/are Policy
(Berkeley,
CA,
University
of
California, 1980); Taylor-Gooby,
Public Opinion. Ideology and Slate Welfare;
E.
Papadakis,
'Conjectures about public opinion and the Australian welfare state',
Ausrrulian and New Zealand
Journal
of
Sociology,
26
(1990),
209-34.
'
R.
Weissberg,
Public Opinion and
Popular
Government
(Englewood-Cliffs,
NJ,
Prentice-Hall,
1976).
J.
G. March and
J.
P.
Olsen,
'The new institutionalism: organizational factors in political life',
American Political Science Review.
78 (1984). 73449;
K.
A. Schepsle. 'Studying institutions: some
lessons from the rational choice approach',
Journal ojTheorerical Politics,
I
(1989). 131-47.
'
R. Coughlin, 'Social policy and ideology: public opinion and eight rich nations',
Cornpararive
Social Research,
2 (1979),
34;
P. Taylor-Gooby, 'Attitudes to welfare',
Journalof Social Policy,
14
To continue reading
Request your trial