The Missing Link - Assessing state redistribution capacity to understand the relationship between economic inequality and support for European radical right and left parties

Abstract

Income inequality is a major driver of the growth of radical parties on both the left and right, as it exacerbates citizens' economic insecurities. However, few studies have explored how welfare policies from Member states of the European Union (EU) can help reduce these economic grievances by reducing income inequalities thereby affecting the support towards radical alternatives. In this article, we aim to understand how redistribution affects radical support. We argue that redistribution policies reduce the economic insecurities caused by income inequalities, and thus, the electoral support for radical political platforms is also reduced. To test this hypothesis, we performed multinomial regression models using the European Social Survey data from 17 countries over a period of more than a decade. Our findings reveal that redistribution reduces radical voting, but only for the radical right. We contribute to the literature on welfare policies and radical support by looking at the main welfare policy outcome: redistribution. Our results highlight the importance of redistributive policies in reducing radical right support in the EU, providing valuable insights for policymaking at the European level.

Keywords

• Welfare policies
• Welfare state
• Redistribution
• Inequality
• Political behavior
• Radical left