Since the ideologically coloured meaning of the 'welfare state', implying a massive level of redistribution and high government spending in the field of social policy, does not match the reality of a number of today's welfare state systems, especially outside Europe, this article examines the...

In this paper, I empirically test the notion that the degree of inclusion/exclusion of social welfare policies can have important feedback effects on political participation of poor citizens. I conduct a comparative analysis of the 50 US states, using the uptake (or coverage rate) of the Food...