The Welfare Agenda of the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe: Combining Welfare Chauvinism, Producerism and Populism*

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the populist radical right tends to imprecisely describe the welfare agenda of this party family with reference to its key ideological characteristics of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. We propose an alternative analytical framework that considers the multidimensionality of welfare state positions and the "deservingness criteria" that underlie ideas about welfare entitlement. Applying this framework to a sample of four European populist radical right parties, we conclude that three interrelated frames inform their welfare agenda. These parties, we argue, advocate social closure not only on the basis of the deservingness criterion of identity (welfare chauvinism), but also on criteria of control, attitude, and reciprocity (welfare producerism) and on an antagonism between the people and the establishment (welfare populism). Understanding the welfare agenda of the populist radical right requires us to move beyond welfare chauvinism and to reconsider the concept of welfare producerism and its interaction with welfare chauvinism. Zusammenfassung: J€ ungere Forschungbeitr€ age zur populistischen radikalen Rechten neigen dazu, die Wohlfahrtsagenda dieser Parteifamilie bez€ uglich ihrer Hauptmerkmale Nativismus, Autoritarismus und Populismus ungenau zu beschreiben. In diesem Artikel erarbeiten wir einen alternativen analytischen Rahmen, der die Vielschichtigkeit wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Positionen und die "Verdienstkriterien", die dem Anspruch auf Wohlfahrtsleistungen zugrunde liegen, ber€ ucksichtigt. Diesen Rahmen wenden wir auf vier populistische, rechtsradikale Parteien an und kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass drei miteinander verbundene Kriterien ihre Wohlfahrtsagenden bestimmen. Diese Parteien bef€ urworten soziale Ausgrenzung nicht nur aufgrund von Identit€ at (Wohlfahrtschauvinismus), sondern auch von Kontrolle, Gesinnung und Gegenseitigkeit (Wohlfahrtsproduktivismus) sowie eines Gegensatzes zwischen Volk und Establishment (Wohlfahrtspopulismus). Um die Wohlfahrtsagenda der populistischen radikalen Rechten zu verstehen, m€ ussen wir daher € uber bestehende Konzeptionen von Wohlfahrtschauvinismus hinausgehen und das Konzept des Wohlfahrtsproduktivismus und seine Wechselwirkung mit Wohlfahrtschauvinismus neu € uberdenken. R esum e: Les etudes contemporaines de la droite populiste radicale analysent ses programmes en mati ere de politique sociale de mani ere impr ecise en s'appuyant sur les piliers id eologiques de cette *We would like to thank the editors of the Swiss Political Science Review for their support during the publication process and the anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments. Simon Bornschier commented on an earlier draft of this paper. We thank him a lot for his suggestions. Emmanuel Dalle Mulle would like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for its generous support (grant n. P2GEP1-165085).

Thirty years of welfare chauvinism research: Findings and challenges

“…Other studies, however, question the commitment of PRRPs to protect welfare for natives. Rather, PRRPs appear to strategically support certain welfare policies, for example, social consumption over social investment (Enggist and Pinggera, 2021; Otjes et al, 2018) or workfare-ist over generous welfare benefits (Abts et al, 2021; Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016). Recent demand-side studies reinforce the idea that PRRP supporters harbour strong preferences for workfare-ism and judge welfare benefits recipients in terms of their deservingness (Busemeyer et al, 2021), independent of immigration attitudes (Attewell, 2021).…”

Labour market policies and support for populist radical right parties: the role of nostalgic producerism, occupational risk, and feedback effects

“…While indeed workers at risk would hope there would be generous unemployment benefits, should they need it to cushion the decline in economic status associated with unemployment, requiring unemployment would thus transform someone into a 'taker'. The workfare attitudes expressed by PRRP voters and statements from PRRP highlight the abuses of the undeserving beneficiaries of such programmes (Abts et al, 2021) who should be held to tight restrictions and the inefficiencies of government bureaucrats administering them. Unemployment compensation might not be enough to cushion potential PRRP voters, as they are not especially strong supporters of redistributive programmes to begin with (Gidron and Hall, 2020).…”

Understanding Right-Wing Populism and What to Do about It

“…This focus on welfare state policies as a new dimension of RWPPs' success has been the subject of a burgeoning literature (Rathgeb and Busemeyer 2021). Abts et al (2021) argue that RWPPs promote 'social closure' not just based on a deservingness dimension that is most often related to welfare chauvinism, but also on what they term 'welfare producerism', which is defined as an attempt to control and enforce reciprocity and welfare populism. Others contest the view that RWPPs are always and consistently pro-welfare.…”