What distinguishes radical right welfare chauvinism? Excluding different migrant groups from the welfare state

Abstract

Literature posits that mainstream right-wing parties have adopted restrictive positions on immigrants’ entitlements to social rights to avoid losing votes to populist radical right-wing parties (PRRPs). Although studies recognize that this co-option is only partial, we know little about the remaining differences between PRRPs’ and mainstream right-wing parties’ welfare chauvinism strategies. This article fills this knowledge gap by comparing how mainstream and populist right-wing governments approach different migrant groups’ entitlements to social rights. The article combines an event history analysis of the Determinants of International Migration Policy database with a qualitative examination of the indexation of family benefits in selected European Countries to compare PRRPs’ and mainstream parties’ impact on the social rights of different migrant groups. The results reveal that the main difference between PRRPs and mainstream right-wing parties in Western Europe is the formers’ support for restrictions on intra-EU migrants’ entitlements to social benefits. This finding has important implications for the study of the European social policy agenda, as PRRPs’ increasing politicization of intra-EU migrants’ access to social rights may compromise the future of intra-European solidarity.