Political Culture: State Responses to Social Welfare Pubblico

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore whether state political culture influences social welfare outcomes via state policy designs. Drawing on previous theory and literature, I compare three measures of political culture and I hypothesize that the influence of political culture determines the progressiveness of state policy designs, which in turn affects outcomes in social welfare problems. To test these hypotheses, I utilize a cross sectional design to examine how political culture effects social welfare outcomes, in particular poverty rates and uninsured rates, in the policy arenas of welfare and health respectively. My analysis results in mixed findings; the relationship between state policy designs and political culture was mixed, showing significance for only a few variables. Further, there proved to be little to no relationship between state policy designs and outcomes in poverty rates and the uninsured rate. Overall, my findings do not confirm my hypotheses. However, my findings suggest several avenues for further research.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction...1
Chapter 2: Literature Review...5

Other Explanations for State Variation...8

Economic Differences...8
Partisanship/Citizen Ideology...8
Demographic Characteristics...9
Political Culture...9

Research Question...20

Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework...20

Hypotheses...21

Chapter 4: Data and Methods...22

Dependent Variable...23
Independent Variable...24
Intervening Variable...25
Control Variables...27

Chapter 5: Results and Discussion...28

Political Culture→Policy Designs...29
Policy Design→Social Welfare Outcomes...32

Chapter 6: Conclusion...34

Limitations of Study...34
Strengths of Study...35
Implications...36
Further Research...37

References...46
Appendixes...59

List of Tables
Table 4.1 Sharkansky Political Culture Scales and State Scores...40
Table 4.2 Lieske Fivefold Reduced Typology Index Scores...40
Table 5.1 State Political Culture [Elazar] Influence on State Policy Design TANF (2000)...41
Table 5.2 State Political Culture [Lieske] Influence on State Policy Design TANF (2000)...42
Table 5.3 State Political Culture [Elazar] Influence on State Policy Design Medicaid (2004)...43
Table 5.4 State Political Culture [Lieske] Influence on State Policy Design Medicaid (2004)...44
Table 5.5 Effect of State Policy Design on Social Welfare Outcomes-TANF (poverty rate)...45
Table 5.6 Effect of State Policy Design on Social Welfare Outcomes-Medicaid (uninsured rate)...46

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General Sociology, Public and Social Welfare
Parola chiave	Social Welfare Poverty Political Culture Uninsured
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Rich, Michael, Emory University
Committee Members	Cottrell, Camille, Emory University Reingold, Beth, Emory University

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