Social policy outcomes of government participation by radical right parties

Abstract

<jats:p> The literature has pointed to a change in radical right-wing parties’ (RRWPs) position regarding the welfare state. Those parties have abandoned the neoliberal approach on distributive issues and have become defenders of social expenditure for deserving groups. Nevertheless, as RRWPs have joined with right-wing mainstream parties to form governments, their distributive policy position might cause conflict in a coalition. This study, therefore, addresses this puzzle by analysing the social policy outcomes of RRWPs’ government participation. The conclusion is that those parties contribute to the welfare state retrenchment. However, policies are not affected evenly. Expenditure that targets groups regarded as undeserving by the radical right is retrenched the most. </jats:p>

Radical right parties and their welfare state stances – not so blurry after all?

“…On the contrary, a range of studies have placed RRPs around the centre of the economic dimension (Afonso and Rennwald 2018;de Lange 2007;Kitschelt 2004) or have at least observed them moving to the left Valdez 2015, 2019;Lefkofridi and Michel 2014;Rovny and Polk 2020). Consequently, when in government, they are rather reluctant to engage in welfare retrenchment (R€ oth et al 2018) or then target cutbacks to specific social groups (Chueri 2020). As an alternative to describing RRPs' economic stances as moderate, Rovny (2013) especially has argued that RRPs have an incentive to blur their economic positions, i.e.…”

Who Deserves Welfare and Who Does Not? Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties’ Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

“…11 This idea is confirmed by interesting research by Juliana Chueri -not included in the review. 2,9,12 Her findings indicate that participation of PRR parties in government coalitions generally lead to the adoption of welfare retrenchment (compared with other types of governments), but social expenditure on unemployment benefits and immigrants' access to social rights are the main targets of cutbacks. In contrast, public expenditure on pension schemes is not negatively affected by PRR government participation, compared to a mainstream right-wing government.…”

“…Although the particular coefficient is not statistically significant, the results suggest that PRR government participation "might corroborate to a lesser reduction of old-age expenditure, in comparison with governments of mainstream right-wing parties" (p. 6). 2 The main problem of the review's conclusion is that this empirical confirmation of PRR parties' welfare chauvinist position does not tell us very much about public health. By definition, this position implies the protection or expansion of welfare for some groups, but restrictions for others.…”

“…Whereas far right 'core issues, ' most notably migration politics, have received much attention, the impact of PRR incumbency on welfare policies, let alone public health, has barely been explored. 2,3 The laudable effort of Chiara Rinaldi and Marleen Bekker to summarize what we know thus far is thus very welcome and helpful for the development of future research. Since research on PRR parties' impact on welfare policy-making is still in its infancy, it is understandable that the review has an explorative character.…”

“…15 After all, mainstream right-wing parties have also independently adopted welfare chauvinistic measures, regardless of electoral successes and government participation of PRR parties. 2,13 To conclude, future work could benefit from more fine-grained distinctions addressing the different domains and various types of welfare services (pensions, healthcare, child benefit, unemployment benefits etc) and -rather than try to 'isolate' the influence of PRR parties -more systematically explore the interplay of all relevant factors that determine why some citizens and politicians (including the mainstream ones) more strongly support the implementation of welfare chauvinist policies than others.…”