In Chapter two we found that welfare state support is still high in the Netherlands, as it is in many other European welfare states. However, this does not imply that people oppose the changes that have taken place in welfare state policies during the last two decades. On the contrary. We concluded that support for the welfare state in transition is based on an increasingly shared normative ideal of obligatory reciprocity and on perceptions of deservingness. Public opinion about the welfare state and welfare state policies appear to develop in the same direction. In this chapter, we delve deeper into the sociology of welfare state support. The social process of individualisation is often suggested to undermine welfare state support. However, we have not found a decrease in welfare state support. In this chapter we therefore investigate in more detail the claim that individualisation undermines welfare state support. We make a distinction between cultural (or normative) individualisation and (structural) individualisation in social relations. These processes of individualisation appear to have different effects on welfare state support. By making this distinction in different processes of individualisation we are able to explain continued high support for the welfare state. Individualisation not only appears to undermine welfare state support, under certain conditions it can also fuel welfare state support.

Introduction

In the literature pertaining to the legitimacy of the welfare state, it is often implied that there is, or should be, a crisis of the welfare state for many different reasons. One of the reasons most often mentioned is the process of individualisation (e.g. Giddens 1994; Inglehart 1997; Trommel and Van der Veen 1999). Yet, while most authors use the same term, the conceptualisation of individualisation differs widely, and with that the reasons for it causing an alleged decline in welfare state legitimacy. While the number of interpretations and conceptualisations of individualisation may be numerous, most explanations boil down to two central ideas of cultural and structural individualisation (e.g. Atkinson 2007: 353).

Cultural individualisation implies growing ideals of individual liberty and freedom. A great number of studies have shown that in the Netherlands, similar to the rest of the Western world, people increasingly emphasise ideals of individual freedom, self-actualisation and individual level political participation (e.g. Inglehart 1977, 1997; Duyvendak 2004), and that the importance of socially collectivist values is diminishing (Flanagan and Lee 2003; Houtman 2003; Inglehart 1997).