Amount Awarded: $18,000
Termination or curtailing of parental rights is one of the most invasive and consequential decisions a state can make. Strong critiques of child protection interventions are uttered regularly in the mass and social media, and the legitimacy of child protection systems is challenged both in the U.S. and in Norway. This project aims to study the basis for legitimate and justified state intervention by examining citizens' opinions and sentiments on the child´s best interests and thresholds for child protection intervention through survey vignettes and survey experiments in the U.S. and in Norway. These two countries are ideal cases for studying this topic, as they represent two different welfare state models and child protection systems. The project will contribute to closing the knowledge gap on citizens' views on child protection; findings have the potential to inform child welfare policy within the U.S. and Norway, as well as in other high-income countries and elsewhere internationally. The findings may also improve our understanding of legitimacy in modern welfare states.