The Politics of Targeting: the Belgian Case

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 1980s, successive Belgian governments have pursued a social security policy that is a combination of cutting social expenditure on the one hand and im proving the plight of lower income categories among benefit recipients on the other. This has been realized by means of a strategy of 'target ing within universalism', i.e. improving the benefits for the poor and restricting them for the better off, but without abolishing the en titlements of the latter category completely. The Belgian experience puts in perspective the 'middle class matters argument, which pre dicts that, if cuts are made in social expendi ture, the middle classes will use their political resources to defend the provisions they benefit from and to diminish the benefits reserved for the poor.