This paper is about the relative impact of retirement and social class on individual attitudes towards welfare state policies in advanced industrial democracies. Which factor is more important in explaining individuals' social policy preferences: socio-economic background or retirement? How can...

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a tremendous challenge to health care systems around the globe. Using original panel survey data for the case of Germany, this paper studies how specific trust in the health care system's ability to cope with this crisis has evolved over the course of the pandemic. It...

The new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe achieved an economic and political tour de force on their way to EU accession. Their next challenge is the entry to the eurozone. Thus, the dynamics of public opinion toward the euro become crucial for political leaders. We test three...

The new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe achieved an economic and political tour de force on their way to EU accession. Their next challenge is the entry to the eurozone. Thus, the dynamics of public opinion toward the euro become crucial for political leaders. We test three...

The new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe underwent an economic and political tour de force on their way to EU accession. Their next challenge is the entry to the Euro-zone. Thus, the dynamics of public opinion towards the Euro become crucial for political leaders. We test three...

When faced with the necessity of reforming welfare states in ageing societies, politicians tend to demand more solidarity between generations because they assume that reforms require sacrifices from older people. Political economy models, however, do not investigate such a mechanism of...

This paper uses an original dataset from a survey conducted in Switzerland in 2007 to explore the dynamics of education policy preferences. This issue has largely been neglected so far as most studies on welfare state attitudes do not look at preferences for education. We argue that education...