The normalisation of welfare chauvinism

This piece discusses the normalisation of welfare chauvinism. It argues welfare chauvinism was introduced through pressure from the far-right but has since become mainstream in most European countries, including the UK. Welfare chauvinism has had and continues to have a devastating impact on poverty and inequality, human rights, dignity, and the right to life. Denmark is used as a core example because of the long-established dualistic welfare state.

‘Welfare state chauvinism’ is a term that was first coined by Jørgen Goul Andersen and Tor Bjørklund in 1990 in a pioneering article where they discussed the breakthrough of the most successful far-right parties in Europe. The forerunners of the Progress parties in Denmark (and later Danish People´s Party) and Norway were founded in 1972 and 1973 respectively. These parties have by most academics been classified as far-right or extreme right and been put in the same party family as the Front National in France or the Freedom Party in Austria. The Scandinavian parties have always resisted that comparison, but, even if they have never been as extreme, they have benefited from support from similar demographics.

The parties have played important roles in changing welfare policy and access to welfare in the two countries whose welfare regimes have long been characterised by relative generosity with universal systems where everyone benefited at certain phases of life. They grew out of liberal anti-taxation movements and soon gained support from small business owners and liberals. Their core following then translated, a couple of years later, into a broad base of male, working class support. They initially called for privatisation of welfare and for the attachment of conditions to eligibility criteria, based on ideas of deservingness. By the 1990s, they promoted, to varying degrees, dualistic or two-track welfare states, with a focus on excluding immigrants from access to welfare state support, and on stopping immigration all together.

Many parties in other European countries drew inspiration from their strategies and successes and the terminology ‘welfare chauvinism’ has since been used widely. There are several different uses and interpretations of welfare chauvinism. Here it will be used how it was intended originally by Andersen and Bjørklund, to refer to preferential access to welfare to ‘our own’.

Immigrants were portrayed through this lens by the far right and the media, they were less deserving of welfare services than citizens or native inhabitants who could prove strong connections to the nation and the land through family and identity. A history of contributing to the state through taxation was an increasingly important criteria to be seen as deserving of welfare services. In several countries, far-right parties were the first to put the need to curb immigration in their programmes in the late 1980s.They wanted to keep the welfare state but advocated reducing immigrants´ access as they turned away from liberalism in the 1990s. The call for a reduction or an end to immigration was mostly based on cost and the idea that immigrants were a ‘drain’ on the welfare state. Mainstream, neoliberal politicians were more careful but most co-opted far right policies on immigration and welfare. The far right were welcomed into several government coalitions and as support parties to minority governments. In Denmark the far right now with the Danish People's Party were supporting minority coalitons 2001–2011 and 2015–2019. In this way they were able to influence legislation with increasingly restrictive criteria and conditionalities linked to accessing welfare benefits. The focus was on deservingness rather than rights and they claimed immigrants should not have any rights in welfare states they had not contributed to. The far-right was also worried about how immigrants impacted negatively on Danish culture. They were against multiculturalism and did not want Denmark to be a country of immigration but stressed that genuine refugees should be welcome. The far right parties were careful not to appear to be racist and warned against immigration by referring to potential problems with mixing of cultures. They wanted, for example, to prevent immigrants with big families from receiving too much child benefit. The far right claimed generous welfare states were a ‘pull factor’ for refugees.

Support for the welfare state has varied across different welfare regimes. Gösta Esping- Andersen identified distinct welfare regime clusters and stressed the importance of the class character of welfare states in determining levels of public support. Middle class universal welfare states in Scandinavia and corporatist systems like Germany had the highest levels of support. Weaker public support was found in liberal welfare states as in the US, Canada, and the UK.3 While we might expect to see three different types of welfare chauvinism to mirror Esping-Andersen's three types of welfare regimes, a 2013 study that considered welfare support for migrants across several European countries found only two worlds of welfare chauvinism.4 The first was characterised by reluctance of native populations in liberal and conservative welfare states to support entitlements for immigrants, and the second by higher levels of support observed in social democratic regimes.

Denmark has transformed from being the most open and tolerant country in Europe to the most intolerant towards immigrants and immigration. This is due to the impact of the far-right as a support party to minority coalitions 2001–2011 and again the period of 2015–2019. The far-right Danish People´s Party (DPP) has proved very successful in bargaining welfare chauvinism in exchange for support of minority liberal coalitions. Over time, the DPP has lost issue ownership of immigration as other parties have adopted their approach as their own. This has continued under the Social Democrats´ watch from 2019, as they have co-opted DPP welfare chauvinism and won the 2019 elections on a platform of welfare reform, with better pensions at the top of the agenda.

It is worth noting that a large proportion of the public and populist politicians across the spectrum support and promote welfare chauvinism, even while public attitudes towards migrants across Europe are growing more positive. This shows how internalised cost concerns, welfare profiteering, and the marketisation of health and welfare have become among the public, even as optimistic outlooks on immigration and positive experiences of multiculturalism are on the increase.7 Despite these more positive attitude shifts, cross-country studies show that: “under the influence of a welfare chauvinist zeitgeist, the welfare systems are being changed in multiple and complex ways”.8 Political parties do not seem to respond to demands from ‘the people’, but instead impose ideological agendas from the top. Even where there is demand for a certain level of welfare chauvinism combined with positive attitudes to multiculturalism, welfare chauvinism is more likely to come out on top, and more likely to feature prominently in political parties’ demands. This reflects a common prioritisation by politicians and parties who consider balancing budgets more important than safeguarding food security and dignity for all – even in the richest countries in the world.

Human protection of refugees and other immigrants is low on the list of priorities of governments of rich countries, and has been replaced by economic needs. The economic argument and pressure on the welfare state is top of the agenda in immigration policies globally. Securitisation of migration has long been established EU policy, and the far-right is pushing against multiculturalism which is seen as a threat to ´indigenous cultures. Since the last European Parliament elections in 2019, the far-right holds 10 per cent of the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament); this has doubled from 5 per cent in the period of 2014–2019.11 But even the number of MEPs, MPs or local politicians from far-right parties might not matter so much anymore, as the mainstream largely agrees with them on welfare and migration.

However, it is encouraging that trade unions are attracting new members who seek an alternative to the far-right, neoliberal welfare profiteering and welfare chauvinism. Where political parties fail to kick back against welfare chauvinism, there could be an alternative in mobilising opposition through uniting forces between alternative social movements and trade unions.