Why Swedes Trust the State and Scots Do Not: An Exploration of the Diverse Protestant Roots of Modern Welfare Systems

This paper explores how the Protestant traditions of Calvinist Presbyterianism and Lutheranism have shaped church‐state relations differently in Scotland and Sweden, resulting in different understandings of the role of the state and civil society in public welfare. It finds that high levels of public trust in the state's authority and state intervention in Sweden can be traced back to Lutheran doctrine and institutionally close links between the Swedish Church and the state, while in Scotland trusting independent civil society and its responsibility for welfare reflects the distance of the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk from the state both in theological and institutional terms.