Introduction : social justice, legitimacy and the welfare state / Steffen Mau and Benjamin Veghte -- Welfare-attitude formation from a cross-national perspective -- Social stratification and political articulation : why attitudinal class differences vary across countries / Staffan Kumlin and Stefan Svallfors -- Who supports the welfare state? : determinants of preferences concerning redistribution / Phillip Rehm -- Are the 'deserving needy' really deserving everywhere? : cross-cultural heterogeneity and popular support for the old and the sick in eight Western countries / Mads Meier Jµger -- Burdens and benefits : the justice perspective -- When is a taxation system just? : attitudes towards general taxation principles and towards the justice of one's own tax burden / Stefan Liebig and Steffen Mau -- The moral economy of poverty : on the conditionality of public support for social assistance schemes / Patrick Sachweh, Carsten G. Ulrich and Bernhard Christoph -- Political factors shaping welfare attitudes -- Social policy preferences, national defense and political polarization in the United States / Benjamin Veghte, Greg M. Shaw and Robert Y. Shapiro -- Populist challenges to the welfare state in Belgium : on the susceptibility of the underprivileged for anti-welfare state discourse and politics / Anton Derks -- The welfare state consensus in Israel : placing class politics in context / Michael Shalev -- The challenge of social and ethnic diversity -- Multi-level determinants