Vlfrdsstaten och den sociala sammanhllningens kraft: egenintresse, solidaritet och socialt kapital

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Välfärdsstaten och den sociala sammanhållningens
kraft egenintresse, solidaritet och socialt
kapital

• Bo Rothstein
• Göteborg University
• The Quality of Government Institute

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Recent papers

• Making and Breaking Social Capital The
  Importance of Welfare State Institutions (with
  Staffan Kumlin), Comparative Political Studies
  2005
• How Political Institutions Create and Destroy
  Social Capital (APSA 2004 with Dietlind Stolle)
• All for All Equality, Corruption and Social
  Capital (with Eric M. Uslaner, World Politics
  2005)
• What is Quality of Government A Theory of
  Impartial Political Institutions (APSA 2005, with
  Jan Teorell)
• Political Corruption and Social Trust An
  Experimental Approach (APSA 2006 with Daniel Eek)

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Why this interest?

• IMPORTANT EMPIRICAL CORRELIATIONS
• Quality of democratic institutions
• Economic growth
• Less crime
• Better health
• More Happiness
• High education

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Reflektion

• I en alltmer nätverksbaserad, globaliserad
  informations- och kunskapsberoende ekonomi blir
  förmodligen socialt kapital allt viktigare som
  produktionsfaktor

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Vad är socialt kapital?

• Tillgång till nätverk/kontakter
• Mellanmänsklig tillit/förtroence
• Definition Socialt kapital är antalet kontakter
  multiplicerat med graden av förtroende i dessa
  kontakter

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ATT FÖRKLARA VARIATION
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Problemet med många namn

• Problem of collective action
• Problem of public goods
• The N-person prisoners dilemma
• Multiple equilibria
• Social dilemmas
• SOCIAL TRAP

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Trust and the Social Trap

• Efficient cooperation for common purposes can
  only come about if people trust that most other
  people will also choose to cooperate..
• Lacking this informal institution, we end up in
  a state of affairs that is worse for everyone,
  even though everyone realizes that they would
  profit from cooperation if only they could trust,
  
• But trust can not be produced for instrumental
  reasons. THE SOCIAL TRAP

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What do people mean when they answer the WVS
trust question?

• Cook Hardin Levi Trust as encapsulated
  interest implies that generalized trust can not
  exist
• Delhey Newton when people answer if they think
  that most other people can be trusted, this can
  be interpreted as their evaluation of the moral
  standard of the society in which they live.

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Is it voluntary associations?

• "perhaps most important and most surprising, none
  of the four measures of voluntary activity stood
  up to statistical tests, in spite of the
  importance attached to them in a large body of
  writing, from de Tocqueville onwards",
• Delhey, Jan, and Kenneth Newton. 2004. Social
  Trust Global Pattern or Nordic Exceptionalism.
  BerlinWissenschaftszentrum.

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Is civil society good for democracy?

• The problem from Weimar
• Berman, Sheri. 1997. "Civil Society and the
  Collapse of the Weimar Republic." World Politics
  49401429.
• The problem from Spain and Brazil
• Encarnación, Omar G. 2003. The Myth of Civil
  Society. Social Capital and Democratic
  Consolidation in Spain and Brazil. New York
  Palgrave/Macmillan
• The not so nice organisations problem

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The strange disappearance of equality in the
SC/ST discourse

• Should have been obvious from the very start from
  the Nordic countries
• Makes theoretically very good sense
• But.
• Is this a result of the U.S. domination in the
  social sciences?

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If not civil society then what?

• The STATE
• Quality of political institutions
• Equality of resources
• Equality of opportunity
• DER FISCH STINKT VOM KOPF HER

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Statens betydelse

• Stark samvariation på ländernivå mellan stark
  socialpolitik och högt socialt kapital
• Förtroende för politiker har sjunkit men.
• fortsatt hög tillit till myndigheter och
  offentlig service och hög tillit till andra
  människor

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Main results

• Social trust is generated by fair (non-corrupt,
  non-discriminatory) equality enhancing social
  policies
• Such policies are mostly universal
• Such policies will be difficult to establish if
  there is too much distrust of government in the
  first place

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Evidens?

• Surveydata (SOM-institutet)
• Sverige är en omfattande välfärdsstat
• Mycket myndighetskontakter
• Generella vs selektiva välfärdsprogram
• Behovsprövningens problem

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Behovsprövade program

• Socialbidrag
• Bostadsbidrag
• AMS-åtgärder
• Förtidspension
• Äldreomsorg

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Resultatets tillförlitlighet

• Att människor som har kontakter med selektiva
  välfärdsprogram har mindre social tillit håller
  även om man kontrollerar för deras
• Utbildning och inkomst
• Kön och subjektiva klasstillhörighet
• Arbetslöshet och politiskt intresse
• Aktivitetsgrad i det civila samhället

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Forskningsresultat 2

• Experimentella studier med svenska och rumänska
  studenter
• Scenarioexperiment
• Resultat Att tappa förtroendet för
  myndighetspersoner leder inte bara till mindre
  förtroende för myndigheten ifråga utan även för
  folk i allmänhet i det land där myndigheten
  verkar

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Kausala mekanismer

• Kausala mekanismer är en teori som förklarar
  varför en förändring av variabeln X orsakas av
  variabeln Y
• Det vill säga, i detta fall, varför individens
  uppfattning om myndigheternas pålitlighet kan
  förändras hennes uppfattning om ifall människor
  i allmänhet är att lita på

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Teori Tre kausala mekanismer

• Inferens 1 Från offentliga tjänstemän till folk
  i allmänhet
• Inferens 2 Från folk i allmänhet som är
  tvingade att bidra till korruption etc. till
  andra människor
• Inferens 3 Från sig själv (som är tvingad att
  bidra till korruption etc. ) till folk i
  allmänhet

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Trust and implementation of social policy

• Selective social policies often create suspicion
  regarding fairness
• Means testing leads to negative stereotyping
• Universal social policies are based on equal
  treatment and thus less bureaucratic intrusion
• A sense of equality of opportunity and fairness
• Quality of Government as IMPARTIALITY
  (opartiskhet) equals UNIVERSALISM

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Hur kontroversiellt är detta resultat

• Small government QoG
• Alesina Angeletos (NBER paper 2005)
• a large government increases corruption and
  rent-seeking
• But what about the Nordic countries???

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När data sparkar ..

• La Porta et al 1999 Quality of Government
• Finally, we have consistently found that the
  better performing governments are larger and
  collect higher taxes. Poorly performing
  governments, in contrast, are smaller and collect
  fewer taxes

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however

• this result does not of course imply that it is
  often, or ever, socially desirable to expand a
  government of a given quality, but it tells us
  that identifying big government with bad
  government can be highly misleading

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Policy implications

• A. Civil society thesis correct
• Support for voluntary associations
• Transfer of public services to voluntary
  associations
• Discourse government blaming the people for not
  getting involved.

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Policy implications

• Political institutions theory correct
• More policies for economic equality
• Policies for equal opportunity
• Policies against corruption and discrimination
• Discourse the government is responsible for
  faulty institutions

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Some basic facts

• Scandinavian countries USA
• Growth 3,4 3,2
• WEF rank 1, 3,4, 7 2
• GDP/Cap 29600 36000
• Public exp 54 36
• Inf. Mort 2,8 6,8
• Life exp 80,1 77,1
• Hours worked 1500 1800
• In poverty all 5 17
• Poverty child 3,5 22
• Social Trust 59 33
• In prison 65 /100000 700/100000

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Thanks for listening!

• Questions
• Comments
• Critique

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