A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties’ Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe

Building on Rinaldi and Bekker’s scoping review of articles on the impact of populist radical right (PRR) politics on welfare and population health, this short article formulates three pointers towards a framework that might help structure future research into PRR, populist politics more generally, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other health issues. First, we discuss the centrality of welfare chauvinism to the PRR’s impact on health, taking this as a cue for a broader reflection on the importance on distinguishing between the nativist and populist dimensions of PRR politics. Secondly, we turn our attention to the potential moderating effect of the PRR’s welfare chauvinism on the welfare cuts proposed by their right-wing coalition partners, comments we see as pointing to the need to focus on nativist, populist, neoliberal and other threats to welfare policy more generally, rather than on the PRR only. Thirdly, we reflect on the paradoxical nature of welfare chauvinism – its negative consequences for the health of the ‘own people’ it proclaims to defend – as a starting point for a brief discussion of the need to consider carefully the not-so-straightforward relation between the PRR’s political rhetoric, its (impact on) policy and institutions, and the outcomes of such policy.

“…Authors' affiliations 1 Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium. 2 School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.…”

Section: Ethical Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting the Problem Definition Right: The Radical Right, Populism, Nativism and Public Health Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties’ Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Cleen

Speed

2020

“…8 Moreover, it produces scientific texts that are riddled with moralizing passages, such as when referring to harmful beliefs and fake experts. 1,8 Through such questions and texts, a specific epistemological (but also politicalideological) scientific community is established. One that is based on (liberal) political theories and hypotheses rather than critical and empirical scrutiny of populist movements and their expressions.…”

Section: Some Concerns About the Direction Of This Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking the Relationship Between Populism and Healthcare Seriously: A Call for Empirical Analysis Rather Than Moral Condemnation Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties’ Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Felder

Kuijper

Bal

2020

In this commentary, we reflect on Rinaldi and Bekker’s scoping review of the literature on populist radical right (PRR) parties and welfare policies. We argue that their review provides political scientists and healthcare scholars with a firm basis to further explore the relationships between populism and welfare policies in different political systems. In line with the authors, we furthermore (re)emphasize the need for additional empirical inquiries into the relationship between populism and healthcare. But instead of expanding the research agenda suggested – for instance by adding categories or niches in which this relationship can be observed – we would like to challenge some of the premises of the studies conducted and reviewed thus far. We do so by identifying two concerns and by illustrating these concerns with two examples from the Netherlands.

“…Since the latter, in their turn, are shaped by the governance of a country, a systems perspective to understand population health and inequalities should include political variables. It is in this respect that the scoping review by Chiara Rinaldi and Marleen Bekker 4 contributes to a better understanding of health inequalities. Their scoping review focuses on a specific element of the political system -the rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties in Europe.…”

Section: Political Factors As Components Of the System That Produces mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Multifaceted Pathways Linking Populism to Ethnic Minority Health Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties’ Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Stronks

Agyemang

2020

Based on a scoping review of empirical studies accompanied by interviews with experts, Rinaldi and Bekker studied the impact of populist radical right (PRR) parties on access to welfare provisions – the latter standing proxy for population health and for health inequalities in particular. We argue that populism can impact on migrant and ethnic minority health in multiple ways, in addition to the welfare mechanism specified in that review. These include institutionalised discrimination affecting individuals’ positions in the social hierarchy, experiences of discrimination in interpersonal relationships, and a weakened legitimacy of health policies. Interdisciplinary teams that include public health scholars and political scientists should take up the challenge of understanding migrant and ethnic minority health from a systems perspective.