Eight - Social policy and populism: welfare nationalism as the new narrative of social citizenship

Summary

Introduction

In recent years, ethnocentric nationalism has become a serious challenger to both social democratic and neoliberal welfare discourses. This chapter suggests that in the slipstream of the increasing popularity of the populist far-right across Europe we are also witnessing the emergence of a new social policy narrative. This new policy narrative is likely to have significant implications for the future development of social policy, as it is based on a heady mix of challenging expert knowledge as the basis of policy, prioritising the cultural claims of particular groups in society over others, and conflating the universal ‘people’ with the representatives of a particular cultural identity. Indeed, in this scenario the notion of ‘universality’ in terms of social rights becomes interpreted through a particular nationalist lens and the logic of access to welfare services rearticulated in narrower terms. What we are witnessing is a redefinition of social citizenship on the basis of welfare nationalism.

We make this claim with specific reference to the narratives employed by populist far-right politicians, and see these as a key instrument in the reframing of the welfare debate in more nationalist terms. In this chapter we investigate the narratives that influence the current reinterpretation of social policy priorities. While the argument put forward in this chapter is largely theoretical, we also draw on the case of Sweden in order to briefly exemplify the discursive strategies in play. Sweden is a particularly relevant case as in many ways it comes close to the ideal universal welfare state and multicultural society (Schierup et al, 2006), yet at the same time there has also been clear growth in welfare chauvinism from within the populist far-right (Norocel, 2016). By infusing facts with alternative meanings, the populist far-right contribute to the emergence of an alternative social policy narrative that aims at constraining social rights to native citizens.

Welfare chauvinist narratives are not new, so why are they gaining so much traction at this moment in time? One way to look at this is the merging into two crises that have generated the political opportunity structures for this to happen. First, the gradual but persistent erosion of the welfare state through its restructuring and retrenchment has resulted in the exclusion of substantial groups from long-established social rights in many European countries (Schierup et al, 2006).