From Immigration Control to Welfare Controls: The Influence of Right-Wing Populism upon the Adoption of Welfare Chauvinist Measures

Welfare state policies have become increasingly racialized. Governments have placed restrictions on immigrants’ entitlement to social rights in the name of ensuring sustainability of welfare, while preventing the attraction of welfare magnets. Previous studies have argued that the increasing diversity of society has led to reduced support for social protection. Additionally, scholars claim that welfare generosity has caused the adoption of restrictions on immigrants’ access to rights. Competing explanations also exist, however. On one hand, some studies contend that immigration poses a dilemma for comprehensive welfare because of the conflict between sustainability and universality. On the other hand, it is argued that a universal welfare state increases solidarity, and support for income distribution. Recently, literature on ring-wing populism has concluded that such parties have been able to influence policy outcomes both directly and indirectly. Following such findings, this paper investigates the link between the presence of PRWP in parliaments and governments, which is mediated by the comprehensiveness of welfare policies and by immigration influx, and the adoption of restrictive measures on immigrants’ entitlement to welfare. The study relies on data from 17 Western European countries from between 1980 and 2014. The results show that government participation is the predominant mechanism influencing PRWPs’ impact on immigrants’ rights. Additionally, interaction effects show that Social Democratic States are likely to adopt welfare chauvinist measures when PRWPs are in government, but are likely to expand immigrants’ entitlement when those parties are not part of the winning coalition.