Welfare Chauvinism Research Articles

Hostile Environments: Housing and Asylum Policies as Drivers of Energy Deprivation Among UK Refugee Communities

ABSTRACT Although refugees in the UK are highly susceptible to the triad of factors – low income, poor housing and high energy bills – that produce vulnerability to energy deprivation, literature on this issue is rare. We therefore propose a framework towards understanding the role of “non-energy” policies as drivers of energy deprivation among UK refugees, using the conceptual lenses of deservingness, welfare chauvinism and domicide to demonstrate how the condition has been deliberately produced under the UK government’s Hostile Environment approach. We argue that this approach not only damages the physical materiality of housing and the emotional space of home, but also deleteriously impacts upon refugees’ ability to access adequate energy services. Energy deprivation thus emerges as a hidden consequence of policies that normalize precarious housing, a denial of rights, and inadequate incomes, in which “home” becomes a site of exclusion that achieves the Hostile Environment’s goal – making everyday life unbearable.

Politicised at Home but not in Council: The European Coordination of Social Security Systems

After seven years of negotiations, the European Parliament and the Council have yet to agree on the reform of one of the most essential regulations facilitating cross-border worker mobility in the EU: the Coordination of Social Security Systems (EC 883/2004). The lack of agreement remains puzzling, as all negotiating partners are generally in favour of the reform. Similar proposals on social policy, such as the Posting of Workers Directive or the Minimum-wage Directive, were also challenging to achieve but could be agreed upon. This article tests whether “unpolitics”—a destructive approach by populist governments in the Council to undermine EU policymaking—is the reason for the persisting deadlock on the file. The central finding of this article is that the interplay of populism and the status of member states as sending or receiving workers shape unpolitical behaviour. Contrary to expectations, unpolitics is largely absent in the behaviour of populist and non-populist governments. Unpolitical behaviour does not promise high gains for the populist governments from Central and Eastern Europe because these member states send workers. The smooth functioning of the freedom of workers is essential for them and their national discourses do not discuss the freedom of movement in the context of welfare chauvinism. Welfare chauvinism is much stronger in countries that receive workers, however, populists were not in power in these member states and therefore there was no unpolitical behaviour. The findings show that unpolitical behaviour is not used by mainstream governments, not even when it would seem likely from the nature of the policy issue. This article highlights that the probability of unpolitical behavior is influenced not only by the nature of the policy issue itself but also by domestic institutional and structural factors, as well as the national discourse.

A path forward: social democratic strategies and responses to far-right populist challenges

ABSTRACT Social Democratic parties have been in crisis across Europe in recent decades. The once dominant party family has struggled to adapt to the structural challenges of post-industrialization, changes in its core constituency, and increased political competition from alternative parties. This article analyzes the welfare chauvinist shift embraced by some Social Democratic parties to assess its viability as an electoral strategy in response to this changing political landscape and far-right party challenges. The article analyzes individual-level data from 26 European countries from successive European Voter Survey rounds for 2014 and 2019. This article tests the relationship between voter positions on government intervention, redistribution, and immigration and support for Social Democratic parties. Issue salience data is also examined to identify the importance granted by the public to different concerns over time. Despite claims that welfare chauvinist approaches represent a path forward for Social Democrats, this research finds that this strategy is not a broad winning formula. Rather there are incentives for Social Democrats to return to their egalitarian and progressive roots on key socioeconomic and sociocultural issues.

Ökonomische Ungleichheit und das Erstarken des rechten Randes – die empirische Suche nach einem Zusammenhang

Abstract The observation of the remarkably stable development of inequality indicators in Germany in the relevant period suggests that it is unlikely that they represent a major explanatory factor for the rise of the AfD. Furthermore, in an EU comparison, the success of radical right-wing parties appears to be quite independent of the classification of their level of inequality. In Germany, AfD supporters are also rather critical of a (flat-rate) expansion of redistribution policies. Their view of the welfare state is characterised by welfare chauvinism and status orientation, and therefore their view of socio-economic indicators is rather pessimistic. A more powerful reception of positive outcomes may help to develop a socio-politically stabilising effect.

Who would never grant them equal rights? A comparative analysis of welfare chauvinism in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT Welfare chauvinism is often understood as the sentiment that the benefits and services of the welfare state should primarily be given to the native population and not immigrant minorities. Using linear regression on data from the 8th wave of the European Social Survey, this study explores how political attitudes and negative attitudes towards different immigrant groups affect welfare chauvinistic attitudes in six countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia. In contrast to other studies, we do not find a clear ‘East-West’ distinction between the amount of welfare chauvinistic attitudes found in the six countries compared to Western Europe. Additionally, we find that hostility towards immigrants of a different ethnicity is a strong predictor of welfare chauvinistic attitudes in five of the sampled countries, while in Lithuania, there is an opposite effect, where hostility towards ethnically similar immigrants seem to be a much stronger predictor. Furthermore, we find evidence that individuals with more right-leaning values and political orientation cannot be said to be more welfare chauvinistic. This may indicate a broad agreement in these societies on the exclusion or minimisation of immigrants’ rights to social benefits.

In the Name of “Freedom” and “Democracy”

This article examines the rise of the populist radical right in the Czech Republic, where this party family had no parliamentary representation for many years. We show that by clarifying its ideological profile, the SPD achieved results in accordance with the social marginality and welfare chauvinism hypothesis. This is also confirmed by a spatial analysis, which shows that success of the SPD relied especially on mobilizing voters in traditional strongholds of the Czech left. In contrast, the Czech case yielded only very small support for the group threat effect and only mixed results for a U-shaped effect of age.

A farewell to welfare? Conceptualising welfare populism, welfare chauvinism and welfare Euroscepticism

This conceptual article and special issue introduction argues for the importance of studying three policy paradigms surrounding welfare policy opposition. The first is welfare populism, the opposition to welfare policies that do not benefit the ‘common people’. The second is welfare chauvinism, the opposition to welfare policies for non-natives within a nation-state. The third is welfare Euroscepticism, the opposition to welfare policies at the European Union level. These paradigms have distinct causes and consequences that should be studied in more detail across different political actors. And while welfare policy opposition may not lead to a complete farewell to welfare, they have been shaping and will continue to shape welfare state recalibration. This article offers summaries of the special issue contributions with empirical snapshots of welfare policy opposition and concludes with avenues for future research.

How Populism Affects Bioethics.

This article aims at raising awareness about the intersection of populism and bioethics. It argues that illiberal forms of populism may have negative consequences on the evolution of bioethics as a discipline and on its practical objectives. It identifies at least seven potential negative effects: (1) The rise of populist leaders fosters "epistemological populism," devaluing the expert and scientific perspectives on which bioethics is usually based, potentially steering policies away from evidence-based foundations. (2) The impact of "moral populism" is evident in legislative prioritization of the "morality of common people," often solicited through popular consultations on issues like abortion, drug legalization, or LGBT issues. (3)Populist distrust in autonomous governmental agencies and advisory bodies, including national bioethics commissions, can compromise expert advice, challenging both their authority and decisions. (4) Populists may erode transparency by undermining institutions responsible for it, hindering access to vital information for bioethical research. (5)"Medical populism" creates adversarial dynamics, prompting politicians to make simplistic healthcare policy decisions based on political rather than informed criteria, adversely affecting vulnerable populations. (6)Radical-right populist parties' "welfare chauvinism" may shape healthcare policies, impacting service access and resource allocation, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as migrants, but indirectly affecting the rest of the population. (7)Nationalist sentiments associated with populism may obstruct international collaborations, posing challenges for global bioethics that seeks to address ethical concerns beyond national borders. In summary, these dynamics raise significant bioethical concerns encompassing evidence-based decision-making, transparency, healthcare equity, and global collaboration. How bioethicists may respond to these challenges is discussed.

Building a wall around the welfare state, or around the country? Preferences for immigrant welfare inclusion and immigration policy openness in Europe

Existing research on welfare chauvinism, which involves preferences about the inclusion or exclusion of immigrants in welfare programmes, often overlooks individual preferences regarding immigration policy openness (the number of immigrants allowed into a country). This article posits that these two dimensions should be considered together. The reason is that the implications of including or excluding migrants in welfare programmes vary significantly depending on whether a country admits few or many immigrants. Utilizing data from two waves of the European Social Survey across 23 European countries, we develop a typology of individual stances that encapsulate attitudes towards both immigration policy openness and immigrant inclusion in the welfare state. Our analysis reveals that the distribution of these stances varies considerably across European nations. We further examine how the probability of endorsing one of these typologies correlates with individual socio-economic characteristics, especially education. We find that higher education levels are linked to a higher likelihood of supporting either a combination of openness and inclusion or, to a lesser extent, openness paired with welfare exclusion. Additionally, more exclusionary attitudes are observed in countries where welfare usage by migrants is higher.

Welfare Euroscepticism and socioeconomic status

While the European Union (EU) increasingly strengthens its social integration, opposition towards this process can also be observed, here defined as ‘welfare Euroscepticism’. To better understand this newly defined policy paradigm, this article aims to explain longstanding cleavages in both social policy and EU research: socioeconomic status (SES) divides. Contrary to the literature on public support for European integration, this article argues that higher SES groups are more likely to be welfare Eurosceptics than lower SES groups. This argument and its underlying explanations are examined through a multilevel approach using European Social Survey data from 18 EU member states, using the example of a potential EU-wide minimum income scheme. First, the results demonstrate that welfare Euroscepticism is indeed more prevalent among higher SES groups than lower SES groups (measured through occupation, education, income, and employment). The results indicate robust self-interest patterns among higher SES groups that do not want to carry (perceived) financial burdens of EU social policies. The opinion patterns also emphasize the multidimensionality of attitudes towards EU policies since the SES cleavages can reverse, depending on the policy in focus. Overall, the results indicate much potential to mobilize the larger proportion of the public to support EU social policies, that is, lower SES groups. However, potential conflicts may arise when the EU expands on policies that their traditional supporters – higher SES groups – are more likely to oppose. The article also shows that welfare solidarity on the individual and the country level can mitigate such conflicts. This is because higher levels of welfare generosity and lower levels of welfare chauvinism on the individual and the country level are related to smaller SES cleavages.

The political economy of populists in power, between policy and polity: Evidence from the Israeli case

This paper explores the connection between the current wave of populism, economic policies and governance practices. We first review the different ways in which populist political economy has been conceptualised, focusing on the relationship between populism and neoliberalism in terms of both policy and polity. We then briefly discuss right-wing populist governments’ recent economic policies and institutional changes. We argue that, while representing a continuation of neoliberalism in some areas, right-wing populism may, when in power, undermine neoliberal economic policies and institutional power by subverting governance norms and reintroducing the state as a major actor in the economy. To demonstrate and support our argument, we analyse the Israeli case, in which the right-wing populist leader Benjamin Netanyahu led three governmental coalitions between 2009 and 2019. We focus on the Israeli government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis and the housing crisis. We show that the populist Israeli government went beyond clientelism and welfare chauvinism and moved towards a more redistributive and expansionist economic agenda. To finance and legislate this agenda, it used unorthodox, short-term governance practices to bypass or overcome institutional limitations.

Partisan preference divides regarding welfare chauvinism and welfare populism – Appealing only to radical right voters or beyond?

Welfare chauvinism and welfare populism as characteristic features of radical right parties’ welfare stances have become challenges to the welfare state. However, in order to understand how these claims may indeed affect welfare politics, it is essential to study whether welfare chauvinism and welfare populism attract voters beyond the radical right, especially among the mainstream right or even parts of the left. Results based on original public opinion data in eight Western European countries show that, contrary to widespread assumptions, welfare chauvinism and welfare populism divide the right more than the left. Electorates of not only green, but also most social democratic and radical left parties are consistently most opposed to discriminating welfare rights between natives and immigrants, although this opposition is weaker among left working-class voters than among left middle-class voters. Even voters of most mainstream right parties show only moderate support for welfare populism and welfare chauvinism, leaving the fervent support of radical right voters for welfare chauvinism and populism unmatched by any other electorate. These findings have important implications for the strategic situation of left parties and for understanding how welfare chauvinism and welfare populism may challenge welfare states.

Agency, institutions, and welfare chauvinism: Tracing the exclusion of European Union migrant citizens from social assistance in Germany

What explains welfare chauvinistic policy reform, that is, targeted exclusion of non-citizens from welfare? Existing research suggest that contextual factors like far-right party success, perceived immigration pressures, party ideologies and institutions could spur such reform, but the processes behind reforms remain understudied. This article draws on public policy literature to call attention the critical role of agency and institutions in welfare chauvinist reform. It focuses on a law excluding migrant EU citizens from social assistance in Germany. Through process tracing and inductive reconstruction of the policy process, based on political documents, interviews, media reporting and descriptive statistics, we show that the policy proposal originated from German city administrations; that the city of Hamburg was key in pushing for exclusions; and that Hamburg’s success in doing so crucially depended on the city’s mayor. Several comparable German cities (in terms of party politics and levels of immigration) were equally concerned with ‘welfare immigration’ and complained about problem pressure, but only Hamburg had a committed mayor with the right political networks and institutional resources to lobby for welfare exclusions at the federal level.

Does the Framing of Immigration Induce Welfare Chauvinism? The Effects of Negativity Bias and Motivated Reasoning

AbstractShould immigrants have the same access to welfare as the native population? Fuelled by the populist radical right, the notion of restricting access to benefits to native citizens – welfare chauvinism – has been increasingly prominent in political debates. But can welfare chauvinistic attitudes be induced (or attenuated) by the negative (or positive) information individuals receive about immigrants? Combining insights from research on negativity bias and motivated reasoning, we argue that negative frames which emphasize fiscal costs of immigration are more consequential than positive frames that emphasize fiscal benefits, but this effect is primarily visible among those whose ideological priors are congruent with the negative information. Since more extreme attitudes are associated with increased selective judgement, those who occupy a more extreme ideological position should be particularly affected. A survey experiment in Germany supports this argument and shows that while a negative frame is stronger than a positive frame, this effect is moderated by one’s ideology and is most evident among more extreme ideologues who hold frame-congruent attitudes. We also show that ideology, rather than economic circumstances, is a more important moderator of framing effects.

The ethnic penalty in welfare deservingness: A factorial survey experiment on welfare chauvinism in pension attitudes in Germany

This study investigates whether pensioners with a foreign ethnic background are perceived as less deserving to receive a pension than are native pensioners. It focuses on Germany as an example with a strongly achievement-oriented social insurance system which closely links benefits to previous contributions. Hence, the system prevents a citizen from receiving benefits without having contributed. Our study thus adds to existing research by examining a less likely case to find welfare chauvinistic attitudes. To test our expectations, we rely on a factorial survey design and a probability sample of the German population in 2019. Survey respondents decide on the amount of pension benefits that a hypothetical pensioner should receive. Characteristics of the hypothetical pensioner – ethnic background, gender, last income, contribution years, the number of children and other dependents – are randomly varied. Our study finds support for welfare chauvinist attitudes in an achievement-oriented social insurance system. Even for the same achievement, that is, same income, contribution years and number of children, natives grant lower pensions to pensioners with a foreign ethnic background than to natives. Also, even if migrants show the most favourable behaviour (that is, having contributed to the pension system for many years and with a high income), the ethnic penalty in pensions remains significant.

What do stances on immigrants' welfare entitlement mean? Evidence from a correlational class analysis.

Recent in-depth qualitative research indicates that different people ascribe different meanings to their apparently similar stances on immigrants' entitlement to welfare. We are the first to investigate such variation quantitatively among the public-at-large, applying the novel method Correlational Class Analysis to an original survey fielded among a representative sample in the Netherlands (n=2138). We uncover five ways of looking at immigrants' entitlement to welfare, each including both people who oppose that entitlement and those who support it. People who adhere to these different viewpoints substantially differ when it comes to income, education, religious denomination, and political preference. We interpret these unique findings and discuss them in relation to the extant literature on welfare chauvinism. Moreover, uncovering what people's stances regarding immigrants' entitlement to welfare mean not only advances the scholarly debate on welfare chauvinism, but also provides a stepping stone for meaning-oriented sociological research on public opinion more generally.

Welfare chauvinism in times of crises: The impact of the radical right political discourse

This article examines the impact of the radical right political discourse on welfare chauvinistic attitudes over time. Using data from two rounds of the European Social Survey (2008/09 and 2016/17), the Comparative Political Data Set and the Manifesto Project for 17 European countries, our analyses show that radical right mobilization and the salience of political rhetoric framed on cultural diversity and immigration issues have a significant positive effect on welfare chauvinist attitudes. Although in the years after the Great Recession and the refugee crisis, welfare chauvinism remained fairly stable among the general European public, the influence of radical right mobilization and negative political discourse on welfare chauvinism has significantly increased. Furthermore, we find that when radical right parties become stronger and the political rhetoric regarding cultural diversity and immigration becomes more salient, differences in welfare chauvinist attitudes between people with different political affiliations become more polarized. These results contribute to a broader understanding of the mechanisms underlying welfare chauvinistic attitudes and mark the importance of the inclusion of political factors in studies on welfare chauvinism.

Bordering social reproduction: The welfare/immigration regimes of Quebec and Ontario in Canada

This article makes three crucial, related arguments. First, most European analyses of immigration and social welfare fail to consider how these policies intersect to shape the social reproduction of populations, instead sticking to notions of welfare chauvinism, social citizenship, and deservingness. Second, welfare/immigration analyses are usually set at the national level, but subnational comparisons can challenge tidy welfare state regime categorizations, revealing both nuance and policy opportunities. Third, a focus on social reproduction regimes that includes welfare and immigration policies reveals how jurisdictions border the extraction of social reproductive labour, with impacts on who gets in and under which conditions, and on the distribution of paid and unpaid social reproductive work within immigrant and established families in Canada. Developing our feminist border analysis, we illustrate our approach through a comparative analysis of Quebec and Ontario to show how social reproductive borders extract care labour and from whom, under diverging policy regimes.

The micro-foundations of social democratic welfare chauvinism and inclusion: class demand and policy reforms in Western Europe, 1980−2018

Abstract In Western European welfare states, research shows that support for welfare chauvinism, or the notion that welfare benefits for immigrants should be restricted, is highest among white, blue-collar working-class voters. On the other hand, higher-educated, middle-class voters are more likely to reject welfare chauvinism and support the inclusion of immigrants into the welfare state. For social democratic parties, this might pose an electoral dilemma between generous welfare states and open borders: They rely on both middle- and working-class constituencies and are ideologically tied both to a universal welfare state and the protection of (national) workers. To what extent does such an electoral dilemma between classes exist for social democratic parties? How do social democratic parties solve this dilemma when in government? In this paper, we postulate that a class divide around welfare chauvinism exists within the electorate for social democratic parties and that these parties’ policies in government reflect these divides: If the social democratic electorate has a high share of working-class voters, they should act more welfare chauvinist than if their electorate is mostly middle class. We test these hypotheses by combining survey and macro-level policy data in 14 Western European countries from 1980 to 2018. We find consistent evidence of the existence of a working-class/middle-class divide regarding welfare chauvinism, even within social democratic electorates. On the macro-level, we find partial evidence that social democratic parties in power respond to the class demands of their electorate: They are less welfare chauvinist when they have a higher proportion of middle-class voters, whereas their working-class vote share does not significantly condition their policies at all, contrary to assumptions in the literature. We therefore conclude that as social democratic parties become parties of the middle classes, the likelihood that they will retrench immigrant welfare rights reduces.

Does informing citizens about the non-meritocratic nature of inequality bolster support for a universal basic income? Evidence from a population-based survey experiment

ABSTRACT Despite citizens’ precarization and policymakers’ enthusiasm for a universal basic income (UBI), this alternative to targeted welfare has, curiously, received limited popular support. We theorize that this is due to people overestimating society’s meritocratic nature. Accordingly, we field a randomized survey experiment with a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 1,630) to investigate the impact of information provision about the non-meritocratic nature of wealth and ethnic inequality on support for a UBI. Informed by extant research indicating that citizens respond differently to the same information because of material circumstances or different worldviews, we further estimate conditional average treatment effects to explore moderation by (1) income, (2) economic egalitarianism, (3) welfare chauvinism and (4) institutional trust. We find that support for a UBI is higher among individuals with lower incomes and those who are more egalitarian and less welfare chauvinistic. Nonetheless, while exposure to our factual treatment makes participants more concerned about inequality and supportive of economic redistribution in general, it neither directly nor conditionally affects their support for a UBI. Our findings suggest that a UBI may be deemed too radical an approach to addressing inequality. We discuss theoretical and policy implications and provide suggestions for future research.