Attitudinal polarization towards the redistributive role of the state in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis
Attitudinal polarization towards the redistributive role of the state in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis
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DOI：
10.1080/17457289.2021.1924736
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发表时间：
2021-05-31
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
Haeusermann, Silja
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ares, Macarena;Buergisser, Reto;Haeusermann, Silja
COVID-19 危机提供了一个独特的机会来研究公众对国家再分配作用的看法如何应对重大经济冲击。这一流行病以及为阻止这一流行病而采取的措施使公民面临更大的财政约束和更高的再分配能力：国内生产总值（和财政收入）出现历史性下降，同时医疗保健和社会政策方面的公共支出空前增加，以及向遭受重创的经济部门提供的金融流动性数量惊人。这如何影响公民对再分配的态度以及他们对国家干预能力的评估？为了解决这些问题，我们依赖于 2018 年底和 2020 年 6 月在德国、瑞典和西班牙进行的两波小组调查。虽然首选的再分配水平基本保持稳定，但我们的结果表明，围绕福利国家效率和能力、财政约束和政治信任的看法发生了重大转变，意识形态两极分化日益严重。因此，迄今为止，新冠危机既没有导致公民期望的国家干预水平发生左翼或右翼转变，而是导致（再）分配政治日益两极分化，这可能意味着未来经济和社会政策方面的冲突加剧。
The COVID-19 crisis presents a unique opportunity to study how public opinion towards the redistributive role of the state reacts to a major economic shock. The pandemic and the measures taken to stop it exposed citizens to both increased fiscal constraint and heightened redistributive capacity: historical drops in GDP (and fiscal revenue) coincided with unprecedented increases in public spending on healthcare provisions and social policy, as well as staggering amounts of financial liquidity provided to hard-hit economic sectors. How did this affect citizens' attitudes towards redistribution and their assessments of the capacity of the state to intervene? To tackle these questions, we rely on a two-wave panel survey fielded in Germany, Sweden and Spain in late 2018 and June 2020. While preferred levels of redistribution have remained largely stable, our results indicate major shifts and growing ideological polarization around perceptions of welfare state efficiency and capacity, fiscal constraint and political trust. Hence, the COVID-crisis has so far neither led to a left- nor a right-wing shift in citizens' desired level of state intervention, but to an increasingly polarized context of (re)distributive politics, which is likely to imply heightened conflict over economic and social policy in the future.