Who deserves the Welfare? the Populist Radical Right's transformation of Social Policy

Abstract

The thesis makes an important contribution to the literature on populist radical right parties (PRRPs) and on welfare state studies more broadly. It focuses on an underexplored aspect of PRRPs, namely how these parties impact social policy making when in government. So far, the literature has mainly explored how PRRPs shape policy in their core issues, migration policies for example. As shown by Chueri, PRRPs have become more supportive of welfare states since the 1990s but as argued convincingly in the thesis, these parties were able to have their own stamp on welfare reforms and have shaped the political space in coalition with other right-wing parties. Empirically, the thesis combines a quantitative and a qualitative approach in an exemplary fashion.