Singing from the same hymn sheet? The coherence of the populist radical right’s economic agenda beyond welfare policies

The socio-economic agenda of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has received increasing attention. Academics still debate whether PRRPs blur their economic positions, whether they shifted towards the ‘left’, or whether their agenda is mainly structured by the party family’s core tenets: nativism, authoritarianism and populism. Inconsistent findings stem from an imprecise understanding of PRRPs’ economic agendas, where welfare policies are often conflated with more general stances on economic issues. This paper examines the economic programmes of four European PRRPs, focusing on the different dimensions of domestic market regulation, labour relations, international market, public spending and taxation. It concludes that, cross-case and over-time variation notwithstanding, PRRPs combine pro-market positions which are qualified by nationalist-protectionist stances that are discursively supported by a mix of economic chauvinist, populist and producerist frames. This suggests that there is more coherence to the PRR’s socioeconomic agenda than is often assumed.