1.     Populism, the Far-Right, and Social Policy

Dorottya Szikra (CEU Vienna) 

Philip Rathgeb (University of Edinburgh) 

Leonce Röth (LMU Munich) 

The global rise of populist movements and far-right ideologies has profoundly influenced political landscapes, policy priorities and public discourse. They have become part of the political mainstream and entered government in states as diverse as Argentina (Milei), Brazil (Bolsonaro), Hungary (Orbán), Italy (Meloni), Turkey (Erdogan), and the USA (Trump). While much scholarship has examined populism and far-right movements independently, their intersection with social policy remains underexplored. Social policy represents a critical arena for far-right movements to generate electoral support and entrench themselves in power.  

This stream therefore seeks to investigate the relationship between populism, the far-right and social policy.  Key Questions of the proposed streams may be (but are not limited to) the following:

- How do populist and far-right movements conceptualize and frame social policy issues discursively?

- How does social policy affect the electoral fortunes of the far-right?

- How have populist or far-right governments changed social policies or other (re-)distributive policy domains, either as party in government or through agenda-setting in opposition? How do processes of social policy reform coincide with democratic backsliding under far-right and populist rule?

- How do parties coordinate in shaping social policy at the EU level?

- What are the socio-economic outcomes of the far-right’s social policy agendas and reforms (e.g. in terms of poverty and inequality)?

- How do mainstream political actors, civil society, and international organizations respond to the social policy demands of the far-right?

- How do populist or far-right movements and parties approach eco-social policies that link climate change policies with questions of social policy and redistribution more broadly?

We welcome contributions that examine these questions in contexts and cases across the world. Methodologically, we are open to a range of different contributions, including single case studies, comparative case studies or large-N designs. We would like to bring together contributions from different neighboring disciplines (e.g., politics; political economy; social policy; sociology) to stimulate discussion on complementary theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of populism, the far-right and social policy. Depending on the submissions received we consider pursuing a special issue publication with this conference stream.