Journal of Economic Psychology 1 (1981) 239-241 239 North-Holland Publishing Company

BOOK REVIEW

Richard Coughlin, Ideology, public opinion and welfare policy. Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1980. 195 pp. $4.95.

Richard Coughlin's book reviews and evaluates public attitudes to- wards taxation and welfare spending from surveys conducted in the U.S.A., U.K., West Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Canada and Australia.

The book, in its five chapters, places the research problem in a sociological context, discusses the ideological underpinnings of public opinion in this area, evaluates the consensus of mass support for welfare programmes and interventionalist policies across nations and discusses the fiscal crisis of the welfare state placing it in a political context with particular reference to the dialogue between public opin- ion, public policy and social and fiscal policy making.

Considering the problems of survey design, question wording and the different political, economic, historical (and perhaps psychological) climates of different nations the overall results are remarkably con- sistent. The results reveal widespread support for health services, pen- sions and child allowances provided by the state as well as widespread support for the concept of national insurance. Conversely, and even in these times of an international recession, there is considerable antipathy among the citizens of Denmark, U.K., Canada and U.S.A. toward unemployment compensation and various forms of public assistance.

The major contribution of the author is in bringing survey data together in a coherent framework: it is often easy because of time constraints and cognitive limitations to give too much credence to fragmentary pieces of evidence of this kind: the author does a lot of useful hard work on the reader's behalf which reduces the likelihood of this kind of misinterpretation.

This book is likely to be of most interest to economic psychologists

0167-4870/81/0000- 0000/$02.50 © 1981 North-Holland

240 Book review

engaged in fiscal psychology research and work concerned with the role of public opinion in policy making. NO less importantly it is of value to those interested in attitude structure and its relationship to values, belief systems and ideology. The first two chapters are particularly valuable in this regard and underline how more operational preferences for government expenditure for instance may differ from more ideologi- cal and abstract notions of liberalism and conservatism.

The neoclassical model of man as a rational optimiser is partly challenged as preferences do not accrue neatly with these predictions. Rather attitudes tend to reflect the status quo, habit, and past experi- ence as George Katona has noted elsewhere. Mass opinion is rarely radical and support for interventionalist policies and the welfare state are more prevalent in nations with a long history of such policy implementations. However much of the data is crosstabulated accord- ing to occupation, age, income and other demographic variables and these may more readily fulfill the micro-analytic interests of many psychologists.

Those economic psychologists who would prefer to see economic policy have a 'more human face' through more attention to consumers attitudes and preferences would do well to read and consider the possible political implications of such a move discussed in this book. Does an increase in the influence of public opinion on policy making through social surveys and referenda constitute a desirable increase in participatory democracy? Or will this engender short-sighted policy making when policies and policy makers are left ship-wrecked and at the mercy of the ebb and flow of the vagaries of ill-informed opinion. Other questions raised of note to economic psychologists are their role in what internationally has been referred to as the 'fiscal crisis of the welfare state'. Should economic psychologists attempt to increase the general public's economic and fiscal knowledge in such a way that they would become more cognizant of their exchange with government in terms of taxes paid and welfare and other benefits received, thereby reducing the ambiguity between favoring tax cuts on the one hand and many forms of public expenditure increases on the other? Or should it be the economic psychologists' job to advise policy makers as to the best way to make taxation less 'visible' thereby making perceived fiscal exchanges more favorable? Or are economic psychologists to follow the methodological tenets of strict empiricism exemplified in positive eco- nomics and attempt a value-free predictive model of events? Whatever

Book review 241

the choice Richard Coughlin's book, as well as being well presented and informative, clearly stands as a thought provoking piece of scholarship.

Alan Lewis Centre for Fiscal Studies

Bath University Bath BA2 7AY

Great Britain