Welfare State Regimes: Window for Party Politics?

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Organizations and Parties

Abstract

As a global trend, the vote share of populist parties, which can be defined as anti-elite parties with a thin ideology, has rapidly increased in recent years. Not surprisingly, scholars studying political parties and voting behavior have provided articles to understand the emergence of these parties, their policy positions and the reasoning behind their support from the voters. One factor that has been mostly neglected in this research agenda is the effect of welfare state regimes. In this research project, I pursue the research question of whether the welfare state policy environment affects populist parties’ policy promises and strategies related to welfare. My main argument is populist parties consider the welfare state policy environment into consideration for vote-maximization. I expect populist parties in stingy and selective welfare regimes to be more likely to favor generous and inclusive welfare provisions than populist parties in generous welfare regimes. I argue this is because populist parties aim to maximize their votes by promising the economic security that less generous and exclusive welfare states do not provide. To test these expectations, I utilize a mixed-method design which combines a large-N quantitative study with a qualitative case study approach. The cases for the qualitative study are France, Denmark, Italy, Greece and Turkey. This research is expected to contribute to the literature by bridging welfare state and party politics literatures, and hence providing a new perspective to understand the rise of populist parties in Europe.

Author

• Almila Basak, Syracuse University