Introduction -- Self-interest and pocket-book attitudes -- Beneficial involvement -- Rising demands and ungovernability -- Legitimation crisis: value for meaning -- The welfare backlash and a rational opposition -- Entrenched interests and 'varieties of capitalism' -- Policy reforms: designing...

This paper deals with the problems of social acceptance and social support of the welfare state. It starts with a brief presentation of approaches which infer in an immediate way from the self-interest of the citizens as welfare beneficiaries (‘beneficial involvement’) to the question of...