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Abstract: Cultural differences between societies have turned out to be crucial determinants of various salient political-economic processes, including eco-nomic development and governance. The persistent, deeply historically rooted individualism-collectivism divide is especially important in this respect. But does this cultural cleavage also matter for the size of the modern welfare state? Theoretically, the issue seems undetermined. On one side, critical scholars have been warning that individualism erodes social solidarity and cohesion, bolstering self-centered and self-seeking behavior, and thus undermining the prospects of a robust social safety net. On the other side, awealth of empirical evidence shows individualism is associated with highertrust, more cooperation, and increased prosociality, suggesting it might act as a key structural foundation of the welfare state. Empirically, macro-level studies on the topic performed with large, globally representative sources are sparse to nonexistent. The present study seeks to address this gap in the literature by constructing a panel dataset of 120–140 countries and using the latest comprehensive, non-WEIRD-biased measure of collectivism. A varietyof different statistical estimations, including causal instrumental-variable an-alyses based on the Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality, uncover noevidence to support the claim that individualism corrodes the welfare state.Instead, correlational random-effects regressions clearly suggest the opposite,with collectivism consistently and significantly negatively predicting thewelfare state. Causal instrumental-variable analyses reveal a more mixed result, with many estimates turning out to be non-significant in at least some of the specifications.
Keywords: individualism, collectivism, welfare state, size of government, economic freedom
Published in DKUM: 27.08.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 5
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