Not a New Winning Formula: Mainstreaming of the Welfare Chauvinism in Europe

• In Event: Developments in the Politics of the Far Right

Abstract

Do the mainstream parties accommodate the welfare chauvinism of populist radical right parties? Whereas more populist radical right parties endorse welfare chauvinism as their key policy agenda, relatively less attention has been paid to its consequences on the mainstream parties’ positioning on the issue. Therefore, I examine the adaptation strategy of mainstream parties to the welfare chauvinism of populist parties using text-analytic tools with the Manifesto Project Database (MPD). The results show that mainstream parties respond to the welfare chauvinism of populist radical right parties, but their responses differ by their ideological orientation. The mainstream left parties reacted by increasing their attention to the pro-welfare position. This tendency was more pronounced 1) when the populist parties took a larger vote share in the right-wing bloc and 2) after the Great Recession of 2008. On the contrary, the mainstream right parties turned to take a more skeptical position on multiculturalism, and this trend was not affected by the economic crisis or voting results. This paper contributes to research in the field by presenting a new measurement method of the welfare state and providing evidence that conflicts with existing literature.

Author

• Woong Kwon, University of Texas at Austin