| Abstrakt: |
This study examines how institutional arrangements and policy trajectories typical of a country interact with structural positions to affect attitudes to government redistribution through analysis of data from a national representative sample survey conducted in China in 2004. Four structural cleavages in attitudes that bear the imprints of distinct institutional and policy history in pre- and post-reform China are found: urban-rural variation, regional difference, SOE (state-owned enterprise)/non-SOE cleavage, and cohort effect. Older people and SOE employees are more likely to support government's role in reduction of income gap and welfare provision, a finding consistent with interest-based model. However, urban people who have been at an advantaged position express stronger preference for government responsibility for provision of an array of welfare benefits than rural people, and less developed middle and west regions are more reluctant to endorse government's role in either narrowing of income gap or in provision of welfare than the most prosperous east coastal area. These patterns, although seemingly contradicting self-interest assumption, are explained by group variations in expectations of and dependence on state protection, which are shaped by the institutional contexts in which different groups are situated. This study sheds light on developing comprehensive theories of public opinions about the welfare state. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
