The makers get it all? The coalitional welfare politics of Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. The case studies of Austria and Italy

Abstract

The article investigates whether and to what extent the welfare policies of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) vary in diverse government coalitions. Relying on a multidimensional framework differentiating coalitional politics along the welfare size and deservingness dimension, we conduct a comparative case study analysing welfare reforms of the ‘standard’ centre-right/PRRP government coalition ÖVP-FPÖ in Austria and the ‘new’ populist government coalition M5S-Lega in Italy. We find that both PRRPs do not promote pro-welfare policies in general, but rather opt for selective expansion of benefits for ‘makers’, while aiming at retrenching benefits for ‘takers’. This welfare strategy includes pensioners and male breadwinner families but excludes migrants or long-term unemployed. The analysis furthermore shows that the central line of conflict with the centre-right ÖVP is mostly about the size of welfare policies, especially for ‘deserving’ citizens, while with the socially more left-leaning M5S it is rather centred around the deservingness dimension, e.g., benefits for takers. These results offer a more fine-grained understanding of the PRRPs’ welfare agenda and their coalitional welfare politics in office.