The welfare state, social capital and alternative

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science

Vol. 1 No. 11 [Special Issue – August 2011]

The Welfare State, Social Capital and Alternative Politics: First Findings from Israel
Fany Yuval Department of Public Policy and Administration Faculty of Management, Ben-Gurion University Beer Sheva, Israel. Email: [e-mail] Shlomo Mizrahi Department of Public Policy and Administration Faculty of Management, Ben-Gurion University Beer Sheva, Israel. Email: [e-mail] Nissim Cohen Department of Management and Economics The Open University of Israel, The Dorothy de Rothschild Campus 1 University Road, P.O.B. 808, Raanana, 43107, Israel. Email: [e-mail] Introduction
This paper reports the main findings of an explorative study that attempts to connect three variables: attitudes towards the welfare state, social capital and attitudes towards illegal channels for providing services (called here 'alternative politics'). It is part of an ongoing project that has already produced a report, based on an earlier survey, concerning the attitudes of the Israeli public towards the welfare state (Cohen, Mizrahi and Yuval, forthcoming). The current study is based on a survey conducted during Spring 2010 among 507 Israeli citizens representative of the Jewish portion of the Israeli population. This paper will not explore the relationships between the variables mentioned above, but rather will describe the main descriptive statistics and also outline possible theoretical hypotheses.

Theoretical Background
Public Opinion about the Welfare State The role of public opinion in the development of the modern welfare state has been studied from various angles. Brooks and Manza (2004) show the influence of public opinion in the United States on public policy in general and welfare policy in particular, and Manza and Cook (2002) demonstrate the relationship between public opinion and welfare policy in other countries. Bartels (1991) and Wlezien