ices (e.g., unemployment insurance, labor exchanges, training schemes, health insurance, and medical benefits, etc.) and (2) benefits for the elderly and the very young (e.g., old-age pensions, family allowances, maternity benefits, etc.). In his study of France, Friedlander (1962) makes a threefold division: (1) family allowances, social insurance, and pensions; (2) public assistance of a categorical and general nature provided locally to persons in economic or medical need; and (3) general public health measures.

The authors of Social Denmark (1945) make the distinction between insurance and public assistance. Insurance is payable only to a specified group--the insured--while public assistance is universally available. Insurance requires the payment of a premium by the insured individual, while public assistance is funded by public grant or philanthropy. Insurance payments are seen as compensation for loss, while public assistance is given to relieve a distress situation. Insurance payments are received as a matter of right and are fixed by regulation or statute, while public assistance is discretionary and based on means or needs. The Danish system is asserted to be a mix of these two approaches to providing for social welfare.

Operational Definition. While a number of specific classifications of welfare programs could have been prepared, the information in the files would not have upheld such refined coding. The following categories seek instead to accommodate a party's posture toward the general principle of government-supported welfare programs. The distinction between "universal" and "voluntary" welfare programs is paramount in this variable. Universal coverage involves compulsory participation in the sense of citizen cost-sharing through government expenditures are the essence of public assistance. Voluntary programs, on the other hand, are essentially insurance programs.

PRO-strong +5	Advocates or supports universally available social welfare through a compulsory program of public assistance, including aid to the poor, unemployed, aged, and including health care and medical benefits.
PRO-moderate +3	Contains a mixture of compulsory programs of public assistance and voluntary insurance programs that cover most or all of the above areas.
PRO-weak +1	Advocates voluntary assistance programs and generally opposed to compulsory public assistance, but favors some extension of programs to cover unprotected areas.
NEUTRAL 0	Includes ambiguous or contradictory positions.
CON-weak -1	Accepts the existing government programs, but opposes extension of those programs to unprotected areas; certainly favors voluntary over compulsory programs.
CON-moderate -3	Accepts a situation of government inactivity in developing social welfare programs; content to leave such programs to private resources.
CON-strong -5	Advocates repeal of existing policies that promote social welfare programs; supports the reduction of program scope and coverage; prefers returning to a situation of government inactivity in these areas.

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