How the Populist Radical Right Transformed Swiss Welfare Politics: From Compromises to Polarization

Afonso, Alexandre; Papadopoulos, Yannis

doi:10.1111/spsr.12182

Cited by 67 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…And the inclusion of all relevant parties and interest groups into the policy‐making process no longer insulate the resulting compromises from referendums, as Neidhart () had postulated. Likewise, Bochsler and Bousbah () show that polarization undermines the unity of the right and thereby impacts on government formation, while Afonso and Papadopoulos () demonstrate that the rise of the SVP has affected policy outcomes by redrawing welfare state reform coalitions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Cultural Conflict, Polarization, and Representation in the Swiss Party System, 1975–2011

Bornschier

2015

Swiss Political Sci Review

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Party relationships in the Swiss party system have become substantially more antagonistic over the past decades. This article analyzes the actors and ideologies that have triggered the emergence of a polarizing cultural antagonism, and shows that this conflict is not primarily about Switzerland's relationship with Europe. The implications of the emergence of the new cultural conflict for democracy are far from clear. Using an innovative approach to measure the congruence between voter preferences and party positions, I show that the representation of citizens' interests along the cultural dimension has improved significantly since the 1970s. The concomitant polarization of the economic dimension has not altered the quality of representation, on the other hand. I conclude by discussing the trade-offs between the political articulation of a traditionalist-communitarian conception of community that clearly resonates with an important part of the Swiss populace, and other components of liberal democracy.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Cultural Conflict, Polarization, and Representation in the Swiss Party System, 1975–2011

Bornschier

2015

Swiss Political Sci Review

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“…In terms of social policies, the SVP has traditionally taken an economically liberal position, advocating for spending cuts and less government intervention (even though the party found it more difficult to stick to this line on pensions, see Afonso and Papadopoulos ). UKIP has staked out a similar position, yet has repeatedly proposed to redirect funds that the UK pays into the EU budget towards domestic social programmes.…”

Section: Case Selection and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare Chauvinism in Populist Radical Right Platforms: The Role of Redistributive Justice Principles

2017

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Welfare chauvinism has become an important element in the agenda of the populist radical right. This article proposes a novel argument to explain variation in the strength of welfare chauvinist appeals across social policy programmes. It theorizes that the redistributive justice principles (equity, equality, and need) that underpin a social programme matter. Equality-and need-based programmes are more likely to contradict a nativist worldview in principle or practice, whereas equity-based schemes are less vulnerable to welfare chauvinistic appeals. As a consequence, welfare chauvinism should be targeted at social policies that provide universal or means-tested benefits. Insurance-based systems are more likely to be immune. This argument is tested through a qualitative content analysis of populist radical right election manifestos in four West European democracies. The results show that insurance-based systems (pensions, unemployment) are less likely to attract welfare chauvinism, whereas universal healthcare and means-tested social assistance programmes are more prone to draw nativist appeals. Universal family allowances, however, are less likely to attract welfare chauvinism than predicted by the theory.

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“…However, this does not mean that they cannot affect socio-economic policies, especially as coalition politics involves complex negotiations about different policy issues with other parties. Yet, no systematic large-N analysis has been conducted on the socio-economic policy impact of PRRPs and the number of qualitative case studies explicitly addressing this question is limited (see, however, Afonso, 2015;Afonso and Papadopoulos, 2015). This is somewhat surprising because the role and preferences of PRRPs in the socio-economic domain have been the subjects of sharp controversies, depending on the alleged preferences of their voters (vote-seeking strategies) and the autonomy of PRRP party elites towards them when it comes to coalition formation (office-seeking strategies).…”

Section: Prrps and Socio-economic Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of Populist Radical Right Parties on socio-economic policies

Röth

Afonso

Spies

2017

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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126

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Because they are now members of most Western European parliaments, Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) have the potential to influence the formulation of socio-economic policies. However, scholarly attention so far has nearly exclusively focussed on the impact of PRRPs on what is considered their 'core issue', that is migration policy. In this paper, we provide the first mixed methods comparative study of the impact of PRRPs on redistributive and (de-)regulative economic policies. Combining quantitative data with qualitative case studies, our results show that the participation of PRRPs in right-wing governments has noteworthy implications for socio-economic policies. Due to the heterogeneous constituencies of PRRPs, these parties not only refrain from welfare state retrenchment but are also less inclined to engage in deregulation compared with right-wing governments without PRRP participation.

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How the Populist Radical Right Transformed Swiss Welfare Politics: From Compromises to Polarization

Cited by 67 publications

References 39 publications

The New Cultural Conflict, Polarization, and Representation in the Swiss Party System, 1975–2011

The New Cultural Conflict, Polarization, and Representation in the Swiss Party System, 1975–2011

Welfare Chauvinism in Populist Radical Right Platforms: The Role of Redistributive Justice Principles

The impact of Populist Radical Right Parties on socio-economic policies

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