Table of Contents

1: The Rise and Fall of Social Cohesion Part 1: The Rise and Fall of the Middle-Class Society: A Kernel of Truth 2: The Three Threats to the Social Fabric of the "Golden Age" 3: The Contingent Consequences of the Three Threats Part 2: The Importance of Perceptions 4: A Social Constructivist Theory of Economic Inequality and Trust 5: Perceptions of Middle-Class Society and Social Trust: A Micro- Perspective Part 3: The Construction of members of the imagined national community: The Case of "the Bottom" 6: How to Study the Social Construction of "the Bottom" 7: The Media Poor and the Stories about them 8: The Stereotypes of "the Bottom" and "the Middle" Part 4: The Contemporary Challenges: Vicious - and Virtuous - Feedback Circles 9: Public Opinion towards Integrative Policies 10: Increased Ethnic Diversity: A Threat to Social Cohesion 11: The Ability to Overcome Out-group Perceptions: Face-to-face Interaction Revisited Conclusion Social Cohesion: A Process of Construction and De-construction

About the Author

Christian Albrekt Larsen is Professor at Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has published a number of books and articles primarily about the Danish and Nordic welfare state, including The institutional logic of welfare attitudes: How welfare regimes influence public support" (2006).