The makers get it all? The coalitional welfare politics of Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. The case studies of Austria and Italy

Abstract

The article investigates whether and to what extent the welfare policies of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) vary in diverse government coalitions. Relying on a multidimensional framework differentiating coalitional politics along the welfare size and deservingness dimension, we conduct a comparative case study analysing welfare reforms of the ‘standard’ centre-right/PRRP government coalition ÖVP-FPÖ in Austria and the ‘new’ populist government coalition M5S-Lega in Italy. We find that both PRRPs do not promote pro-welfare policies in general, but rather opt for selective expansion of benefits for ‘makers’, while aiming at retrenching benefits for ‘takers’. This welfare strategy includes pensioners and male breadwinner families but excludes migrants or long-term unemployed. The analysis furthermore shows that the central line of conflict with the centre-right ÖVP is mostly about the size of welfare policies, especially for ‘deserving’ citizens, while with the socially more left-leaning M5S it is rather centred around the deservingness dimension, e.g., benefits for takers. These results offer a more fine-grained understanding of the PRRPs’ welfare agenda and their coalitional welfare politics in office.

Re-evaluating redistributive preferences of populist radical right voters: evidence from a vignette survey experiment

“…A growing body of literature has suggested that PRRPs have developed a distinctive welfare state ideology, which combines defending a generous welfare state for 'deserving' members of the community with restrictive approache to 'undeserving' access to social benefits (Chueri, 2022;Enggist & Pinggera, 2021;Fischer & Giuliani;2023;Otjes, 2019). This literature has furthermore suggested that distinguishing 'deserving' and 'undeserving' is a function of nativist and authoritarian appeals (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016, 2018Otjes et al, 2018;Rathgeb, 2021;Abts et al, 2021).…”

“…Building on this conception, recent work on PRRPs' welfare positions has also challenged earlier claims of that the parties are 'blurring' their welfare preferences, advocating for a mix of right-and left-wing welfare policies (Rovny, 2013;Rovny & Polk, 2020). This ostensible incoherence results not from a 'blurred' welfare position but rather from a dualistic welfare platform: combining generous welfare state, based on income replacement, for the 'deserving', with upholding retrenchment, increase of conditionalities and workfare measures aimed at the 'undeserving' members of the community (Chueri, 2022;Enggist & Pinggera, 2021;Fischer & Giuliani;2023;Otjes, 2019).…”