Social Policies and the Impact of Social Group Insecurity on Far-Right Party Support in Europe

What explains the recent rise in far right party support across Europe? Recent studies adopt a ‘culturalist’ perspective that emphasises a backlash against globalisation and the increased importance of immigration concerns, while downplaying the role of the economy and public policies. By contrast, using data from seven waves of the European Social Survey between 2002 and 2016 this paper makes four points. First, we show that both cultural and economic insecurity matter for explaining far right party support. While cultural insecurity has stronger predictive power, those with economic concerns are a numerically larger group, and hence their support is at least as important for far right party success. Second, we show that the degree of cultural and economic insecurity depends on which social group one belongs to. Third, we examine how welfare state policies shape economic insecurity. Finally, we investigate whether welfare state policies mediate the impact of being part of a social group on far right party support. These findings suggest that economic insecurity remains important to understand the rise of the far right and that future research should pay more attention to the interplay between social group characteristics and welfare state policies.