Troels Fage Hedegaard

The Policy Design Effect: Proximity as a Micro-level Explanation of the Effect of Policy Designs on Social Benefit Attitudes

Public and individual support for a policy is affected by how it is designed – that is, how eligibility is determined. This results in universal policies being more popular than contributions-based policies, which in turn enjoy more public support than the selective kind. The literature on welfare attitudes have argued that this ‘policy design effect’ can be explained by a combination of self-interest patterns, public perceptions of the recipient group and whether eligibility under the policy is perceived as fair or arbitrary. The explanations, however, lack micro-level theory and testing as to why the design of a policy affects individual and public support. This article seeks to explain this policy design effect by theoretically outlining and testing how being proximate to recipients of a social benefit affects attitudes towards the benefit. A survey of attitudes towards spending on five social benefits in Denmark shows a large impact on attitudes from being proximate to recipients under selective policies, little or no impact from universal policies and a pattern that falls in-between for the contributions-based policy. This article thus provides micro-level evidence for the different impacts on attitudes depending on the design of a policy, and a possible explanation for why the design impacts attitudes differently.

Stereotypes and welfare attitudes: a panel survey of how ‘poor Carina’ and ‘lazy Robert’ affected attitudes towards social assistance in Denmark

What is the impact of a predominantly negative debate about social assistance on public and individual support for the social benefit? Over the course of a year the public debate about social assistance flared up twice in Denmark. The debates drew on classic stereotypes of the social assistance recipients lacking both the financial incentives and the will to work. According to theories of the impact of media on welfare attitudes, this had the potential to undermine public support. A two-wave panel survey, however, showed only a small drop in public support for spending on social assistance, in a comparison of attitudes before and after the debates. The small overall impact on public opinion, however, hid a polarization of attitudes on the individual level. This shows that there was not a uniform reaction to welfare debates, but that people tend to seek out a version of reality that is consistent with their values and self-interest. The article thus shows that people when faced with public debates on welfare policies will seek to confirm their personal biases and this limits the possibility for overall changes in public support.