How to study the populist radical right and the welfare state?

Abstract

This review article and special issue introduction argues that studying the relationship between the populist radical right and the welfare state requires bridging literatures that have so far advanced with little mutual engagement: party politics and voting behaviour research on the one hand, and comparative political economy and welfare state research on the other. In this way, the article highlights the advantages of connecting different academic sub-fields in studying radical right politics. First, the literature of comparative political economy on the multi-dimensionality of welfare politics can contribute to a clearer understanding of both the welfare-related causes and consequences of radical right support. Second, the party politics literature on the radical right's ideology provides theoretical tools to explain the welfare-related consequences of populist radical right parties. The article illustrates the advantages of bridging these literatures through the empirical contributions in this special issue and concludes with avenues of future research.

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

“…The finding that large welfare expenditures might catalyze support for the PRRP has been noted or suggested by other works than those already discussed above (Rooduijn and Burgoon, 2018;Rathgeb and Busemeyer, 2022). More formally, this suggests that some policies might have a "self-undermining" feedback effect, whereby high levels of intervention might lead to public opinion (and voting behaviour) to decrease interventionism and vice versa (Busemeyer et al, 2021).…”

“…Finally, the implementation of such policies that intend to 'cushion' radical right support, might have an adverse feedback effect of 'catalyzing' greater support for radical right parties (Ennser-Jedenastik and Koeppl-Turyna, 2018). Should policies favour socio-demographic groups that potential populist radical right voters displease of, such as those not affiliated with nostalgic views of the welfare state like immigrants or labour market outsiders or those not involved in 'producerist' activities, like the unemployed, voters might turn to the populist radical right to reorient policies in favour of those currently employed, especially if such policies are large enough to be quite 'visible' to labour market observers, and thus potentially raise the salience of such programmes (Gingrich, 2014;Rathgeb and Busemeyer, 2022). This paper blends these three lines of research: occupational labour market risks, preferences over labour market policies, and heterogeneous feedback effects of such policies.…”

Understanding Right-Wing Populism and What to Do about It

“…At the policy level, this report documents the previously overlooked importance of welfare state institutions (Rathgeb and Busemeyer 2021;Vlandas 2021 and. Our analysis illustrates that welfare state policies moderate a range of economic risks individuals face.…”

“…The adoption of more economically centrist positions of RWPPs in the West (De Lange 2007; Ivaldi 2015) is also reflected in these parties' positions on the left right-left scale (Figure 22), but they remain more right-wing on average across the whole period (MARPOR 2021). 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.…”

Investigating the radical right's family policy agenda: evidence from six European countries

“…The cultural and economic positions of radical right parties (RRPs) have been widely scrutinized in the last few decades (Mudde, 2007;Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Rathgeb and Busemeyer, 2022).…”