Neoliberalism and Welfare Chauvinism in Germany

Abstract

Anti-immigration sentiments can take on a variety of forms, but a particularly prevalent version across Europe is welfare chauvinism. According to welfare chauvinism, the services of the welfare state should be provided only to natives and not to immigrants. Like many other European countries, German politics also features welfare chauvinism, and not only on the far right segment of the political spectrum. What drives welfare chauvinism? Most studies of welfare chauvinism try to assess whether economic or cultural factors matter most. In an attempt to bridge these perspectives, this article brings in neoliberalism. An examination of survey results from EBRD’s Life in Transition project suggests that neoliberal economic attitudes are a key determinant of welfare chauvinism. German respondents who have neoliberal economic views tend to see immigrants as a drain on the welfare state, while those who have economically leftist views tend to see immigrants as providing a positive contribution.

Nordic welfare chauvinism: A comparative study of welfare chauvinism in Sweden, Norway and Finland

“…Attitudes towards welfare benefits and different forms of anti-immigrant attitudes, however, seem to be important for predicting welfare chauvinism in all three countries. Despite the link between neoliberalism and welfare chauvinism having often been commented on (Keskinen et al, 2016;Kymlicka, 2020), the empirical link that is found in this study is quite a novel finding, as, to the best of our knowledge, the only other study to empirically confirm that attitudes towards welfare benefits influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes is Grdešić's (2019) study of neoliberal attitudes on welfare chauvinism in Germany.…”

“…We also assume that individual attitudes towards benefits in general may affect welfare chauvinistic attitudes. We build on the notion that neoliberalism and welfare chauvinism share a similarity, as their core idea is to constrain solidarity and to separate the ‘deserving’ from the ‘undeserving’ (Grdešić, 2019). Here, we follow the explanation that neoliberalism is linked to a general position that market forces are beneficial, and that it glorifies individualism, competition and private initiative (Grdešić, 2019).…”

“…To our knowledge, few quantitative empirical studies have explored this link (Careja & Harris 2022). Yet, it has been found that neoliberal attitudes are correlated with welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Germany, even overriding the effect of education, which tends to be the most consistent factor in decreasing negative attitudes towards immigrants (Grdešić, 2019). Based on the above-mentioned studies, we assume that an individual who is negative towards benefits in general would be more likely to be negative towards giving immigrants the benefits of the welfare state.…”

Neoliberal ideology and negative attitudes toward immigrants: Evidence from a survey and survey experiment in Japan

“…Such radical right-wing parties' messages promoted citizens to internalize the association between neoliberal ideology and anti-immigrant sentiment. This theoretical explanation has been widely accepted in the literature (e.g., Mudde, 1999) and has been used as an underlying assumption in the models of empirical analyses (e.g., Grdešić, 2019;Schmidt & Spies, 2014;Zhirkov, 2014).…”

Perceptions and realities: Explaining welfare chauvinism in Europe

“…Attitudes towards redistribution have also been found to influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes (Grdešić, 2019; Bell et al, 2022). We therefore create a scale for measuring attitudes towards welfare benefits using four questions where the respondents were asked if they disagree strongly (=1) or agree strongly (=5) with the following statements concerning social benefits/services: (1) Social benefits/services cost businesses too much in taxes/charges; (2) Social benefits/services make people lazy; (3) Social benefits/services make people less willing to care for one another; (4) Social benefits/services place too great a strain on the economy.…”