A Survey: Theory of Control and Welfare State Attitudes

We emphasize the importance of informal institutions, namely trust and control, exploring the public's acceptance of the Welfare State reforms. While the concept of social trust is well elaborated, the concepts on control have remained omitted in economics. The aim of the paper is to provide a survey of psychological and sociological concepts on control being relevant for an analysis of Welfare State attitudes. The paper introduces and compares the concepts of fatalism, locus of control, self-efficacy and autonomy freedom. Finally, it suggests a coherent framework to control covering features of perceived control, agent-ends relations and competence.