Presenter Information

Catharine Carstens

Start Date

4-12-2019 4:00 PM

End Date

4-12-2019 4:15 PM

Description

Welfare chauvinism first appeared in academic literature when Norwegian and Danish political parties began framing immigration as a threat to the social democratic system’s survival; since then, it has become a cornerstone of populist ideology in Europe. A form of quasi-retrenchment, welfare chauvinism has been advanced in Denmark by the Danish People’s Party (DF), which sees immigration as a threat to the welfare state and presents chauvinism as the cure – pursuing one form of retrenchment to “prevent” another. DF’s electoral popularity puts the Social Democratic party (S) between a rock and a hard place, torn between the electoral necessities of accommodating chauvinism and maintaining support for the welfare state. In this paper, I argue that indirect retrenchment is too politically costly an option for S to pursue; instead, it will accommodate DF’s chauvinism by supporting direct retrenchment. I hypothesize that, via votes in the Danish parliament from 2004 to 2019, S has attempted to make it more difficult to obtain citizenship and residency rights (thus making it more difficult to obtain benefits) and make it easier for these rights, and thus the benefits, to be revoked. My findings broadly, but tentatively, support this claim. I also find that S has supported a third form of direct retrenchment: encouraging repatriation of foreigners to their home countries, which would entail a loss of benefits.

Chair

Helen Callaghan

Discussant

Per Andersson & Jens van’t Klooster

Session Type

Panel 4

Topic

Social and Welfare Politics

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Apr 12th, 4:00 PM Apr 12th, 4:15 PM

Putting Up…or Shutting Out? Accommodation of Welfare Chauvinism by Denmark’s Social Democrats

Welfare chauvinism first appeared in academic literature when Norwegian and Danish political parties began framing immigration as a threat to the social democratic system’s survival; since then, it has become a cornerstone of populist ideology in Europe. A form of quasi-retrenchment, welfare chauvinism has been advanced in Denmark by the Danish People’s Party (DF), which sees immigration as a threat to the welfare state and presents chauvinism as the cure – pursuing one form of retrenchment to “prevent” another. DF’s electoral popularity puts the Social Democratic party (S) between a rock and a hard place, torn between the electoral necessities of accommodating chauvinism and maintaining support for the welfare state. In this paper, I argue that indirect retrenchment is too politically costly an option for S to pursue; instead, it will accommodate DF’s chauvinism by supporting direct retrenchment. I hypothesize that, via votes in the Danish parliament from 2004 to 2019, S has attempted to make it more difficult to obtain citizenship and residency rights (thus making it more difficult to obtain benefits) and make it easier for these rights, and thus the benefits, to be revoked. My findings broadly, but tentatively, support this claim. I also find that S has supported a third form of direct retrenchment: encouraging repatriation of foreigners to their home countries, which would entail a loss of benefits.

 

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