Who’s to Blame? Populist Right-Wing and Mainstream Party Roles in the Adoption of Chauvinist Welfare Policies

The literature shows that significant effort has been devoted to determine radical right-wing parties’ (RRWP) policy position on welfare state. There is a consensus that most of these parties have abandoned the right-wing position regarding distributive issues and embraced a welfare state defense. However, this position differs from that of traditional left-wing parties and usually combines nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. Accordingly, studies have confirmed that welfare chauvinism is an important element of the RRWP attitude in the domain of social policy. Not surprisingly, quantitative analyses have found a positive relationship between the government participation of RRWPs and the adoption of restrictions on immigrant entitlement to social rights. The assumed causal mechanism behind this is that mainstream parties give RRWPs policy latitude in exchange for support of their own agenda. However, qualitative studies suggest that the translation of the policy preferences of RRWPs into policy outputs is more complex. The literature has identified the role of institutions, the bargaining power of RRWPs, and the policy positions of mainstream parties to explain the changes to immigrant social rights. This piece aims to clarify the relationship between RRWP government participation and the adoption of chauvinist welfare policies. It relies on an in-depth study of two cases from Austria and Denmark. Both countries experienced several years of RRWP government participation, which allows for analysis of the policy negotiation and bargaining power of RRWPs in two distinct contexts and institutional frameworks. Additionally, relatively long period of time coverer allows me to take into account changes in parties’ policy positions. The conclusion is that the accommodation of mainstream parties of RRWP policy positions is central to explain the extent of the adoption of chauvinist welfare policies. Additionally, the Danish Peoples’ Party status of external legislative supporter party increased its ability to influence policy outcomes.