Does Performance Matter? The Influence of Attitudes Towards Welfare State Performance on Voting for Rightwing and Leftwing Populist Parties

SAXONBERG, Steven, Tomáš SIROVÁTKA and Martin GUZI. Does Performance Matter? The Influence of Attitudes Towards Welfare State Performance on Voting for Rightwing and Leftwing Populist Parties. SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIETY. ENGLAND: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2024. ISSN 1474-7464.

Basic information

• Original name: Does Performance Matter? The Influence of Attitudes Towards Welfare State Performance on Voting for Rightwing and Leftwing Populist Parties
• Authors: SAXONBERG, Steven, Tomáš SIROVÁTKA and Martin GUZI.
• Edition: SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIETY, ENGLAND, CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2024, 1474-7464.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 50400 5.4 Sociology
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 1.500 in 2022
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• Keywords in English: Welfare state performance; populism; left-wing populism; right-wing populism; welfare attitudes
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

In recent decades, populist parties and leaders have obtained great political success. Since populism plays on voter dissatisfaction with the political elite, we might expect that dissatisfaction with the welfare state should also play a role. In this study, we suggest measures to assess welfare state performance (WSP), and we examine how assessment of WSP helps to explain support for the populist political parties – both rightwing and leftwing. Our findings are based on the sixth round of European Social Survey data that has a special module on democracy, which includes questions that enables us to measure WSP. This article shows that WSP is a significant predictor in explaining support for populist parties, but the dynamics differ between how WSP influences support for leftwing populist (LWP) and rightwing populist (RWP) parties.

Links

• GA19-12289S, research and development project: Name: Explaining the Support of New forms of Populism: the Czech Republic and Slovakia in a Comparative Perspective

Investor: Czech Science Foundation