CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Autischer, Lauritz |
|---|---|
| Title | Populist Radical Right Parties' Novel Approach to Social Policy and its Impact on Voter Dynamics - FPÖ's social policy developments from 1994-2019 and voting behavior in Austria |
| Summary | This thesis investigates the impact of social policy on the electorate of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) by the example of Austria ́s FPÖ. It is argued that the shift of European PRRPs away from a minimal, neo-liberal understanding of welfare towards a more generous but restricted social policy positioning has changed their electorate to include more working-class and female voters. It is hypothesized that these sub-groups, who are traditionally more left- leaning and typically support comprehensive redistributive efforts, should be more attracted to PRRPs when they are placing increased emphasis on social policy. By combining a qualitative content analysis of FPÖ ́s electoral programs from 1994-2019 with correlation calculations on FPÖ ́s salience of welfare issues in electoral programs and respective electoral results, a comprehensive interpretation of FPÖ ́s shift in the framing of social policy and change in voting behavior for FPÖ can be made. Even though a significant shift towards a more generous welfare understanding of FPÖ and changes in the framing of welfare in line with their core ideology of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism can be demonstrated, this research finds no empirical results that this shift impacted electoral support for FPÖ. It has been found that electoral support of women and working-class voters does not significantly correlate to an increased welfare emphasis. While there are some limitations in the methodology, these findings suggest that socio-economic considerations and a comprehensive social policy positioning may be of less importance than socio-cultural issues, such as immigration and security, to voters of FPÖ and other PRRPs. Considering these results, this research addresses a notable gap in the existing literature concerning the impact of the prominent social policy shift of European PRRPs on their electoral performance. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt |
| Department | Undergraduate Studies BA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/autischer_lauritz.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University