As a consequence of the Eurozone crisis and the creation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the prospect of a transfer union has become a particularly contested aspect of European integration. How should one understand the public backlash against fiscal transfers? And, what explains voter preferences for international transfers more generally? Using data from the 2014 European Elections Study (EES), this article describes the first cross‐national analysis of voters’ preferences on international transfers. The analysis reveals a strong association between voters’ non‐economic cultural orientations (i.e., their cosmopolitanism) and their position on transfers. At the same time, it is found that voters’ economic left‐right orientations are crucial for a fuller understanding of the public conflict over transfers. This counters previous research that finds economic left‐right orientations to be of little explanatory value. This study demonstrates that the association between economic left‐right orientations and preferences for international transfers is conditional on a person's social class. Among citizens in a high‐income class an economically left‐leaning position is associated with support for transfers, whereas it is associated with opposition to transfers among citizens in a low‐income class.

This article explores the influence of politics and institutions on poverty and inequality. It first considers the general contention that poverty is shaped by the combination of power resources and institutions. On one hand, scholars in the power resources tradition have emphasized the role of class-based collective political actors for mobilizing “power resources” in the state and economy. On the other hand, institutionalists have highlighted the role of formal rules and regulations. The article goes on to discuss the theoretical arguments of power resources theory and the evidence for key power resources (that is, collective political actors like labor unions and parties). It also reviews institutional explanations, focusing on the key concepts and theories and as well as the evidence linking the most salient institutions to poverty. Finally, it examines how state policy influences poverty and presents several challenges for future research.

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