Welfare Chauvinism? Refugee Flows and Electoral Support for Populist‐Right Parties in Industrial Democracies

Abstract

ObjectivesThe objective of this article is to examine whether refugee flows are associated with an increase in electoral support for populist‐right parties. The empirical evidence on this so far remains mixed. This article argues that refugee inflows alone are an inaccurate predictor of the success of populist‐right parties. Rather, refugee inflows can lead to a rise in electoral support for populist‐right parties where traditional welfare states are expansive—the so‐called welfare chauvinism argument, wherein natives already dependent on high levels of social welfare are likely to see refugees as interlopers who free‐ride on welfare and thereby threaten the welfare of locals.MethodsThis article deploys Tobit and OLS fixed effect estimators in panel data covering 27 OECD countries during the period 1990–2014 (25 years).ResultsThere is no evidence to suggest that refugee inflows per se increase electoral support for populist‐right parties. However, a positive effect of refugee inflows on electoral support for populist‐right parties is conditional upon a higher degree of social welfare spending, which supports the propositions of “welfare chauvinism.” Moreover, support for populist‐right parties increases when the degree of labor market regulation and welfare spending is high. These results are robust to alternative data, sample, and estimation techniques.ConclusionThe results suggest that societies with higher levels of social protection through high taxes might fuel “welfare chauvinism,” in which the segments of native population fear significant welfare losses from inflow of refugees.