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Citation link: https://doi.org/10.26092/elib/2289

Publisher DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329220940850
Berens_WelfareStateCrime_2020.pdf
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The Welfare State amid Crime: How Victimization and Perceptions of Insecurity Affect Social Policy Preferences in Latin America and the Caribbean


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Authors: Altamirano, Melina  
Berens, Sarah  
Ley, Sandra  
Abstract: 
Criminal violence is one of the most pressing problems in Latin America and the Caribbean, with profound political consequences. Its effects on social policy preferences, however, remain largely unexplored. This article argues that to understand such effects it is crucial to analyze victimization experiences and perceptions of insecurity as separate phenomena with distinct attitudinal consequences. Heightened perceptions of insecurity are associated with a reduced demand for public welfare provision, as such perceptions reflect a sense of the state’s failure to provide public security. At the same time, acknowledging the mounting costs and needs that direct experience with crime entails, victimization is expected to increase support for social policies, particularly for health services. Survey data from twenty-four Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period 2008–12 show that perceptions of insecurity indeed reduce support for the state’s role in welfare provision, whereas crime victimization strongly increases such preferences.
Keywords: crime; Social policy preferences; victimization; insecurity perceptions; Latin America
Issue Date: 11-Aug-2020
Publisher: Sage
Journal/Edited collection: Policy & Society 
Start page: 389
End page: 422
Type: Artikel/Aufsatz
ISSN: 1552-7514
Secondary publication: yes
Document version: Postprint
DOI: 10.26092/elib/2289
URN: urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-elib69680
Institution: andere Institution 
Appears in Collections:Forschungsdokumente

  

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