Right-wing populists and welfare policies - Online supplement - detailed analysis of party manifestos.docx
Creators: name: Natili, Marcello
name: Pavolini, Emmanuele
name: Jessoula, Matteo
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: 160512 Social Policy
subject: FOS: Political science
subject: FOS: Political science
subject: 160699 Political Science not elsewhere classified

description: In the present document, we report in a detailed way, party by party, policy by policy and election by election, what the parties considered in our article have written in their manifestos in relation to social and labour policies. The parties’ positions were coded for each social policy field in a given year. Parties’ positions were coded on four dimensions: 1) the ‘salience’ of social policy proposals; 2) the attitude toward welfare state expansion; 3) the attitude toward the role the market should play in welfare systems; 4) the degree of “welfare chauvinism”.We have measured salience by looking at the content of social policy proposals in each policy field within party manifestos. In particular, we assess whether and to what extent party manifestos offered: a) an in-depth diagnosis - reporting a detailed analysis of the main issues and problems at stake in the policy field; b) detailed solutions – including specific policy proposals, not just general aims (therefore, including in the manifesto which funding mechanisms would be used, which ways to implement the policy innovation, etc..). Salience was thus coded on a scale from 0 to 2: 0 means that, in a given year in a given policy field, the party manifesto neither provided a detailed diagnosis nor clear and detailed solutions. 1 means that the party manifesto, in a given year and field, provided only a clear diagnosis, but not detailed solutions. 2 means that it provided both detailed diagnosis and policy proposals.The attitude toward welfare state expansion measures if the party, in a given policy field, is in favour of cutting social programmes (coded -1), or increasing coverage and generosity (+1), or rather maintaining the status quo (0). The attitude toward the role the market should play in welfare systems measures if the party, in a given policy field, is in favour of a bigger role in provision and/or funding of private actors (coded +1), or a smaller role (-1), or rather maintaining the status quo (0). The same coding was applied in order to analyse labour market regulation proposals: a flexibilization / deregulation of the labour market received +1, whereas a stronger role of regulation received -1.The degree of ‘welfare chauvinism’ was assessed in terms of how much a given party manifesto, in relation to a specific social policy field: a) framed socio-political and social policy issues in terms of a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites (including welfare state professionals and institutions) and dangerous ‘others’ (migrants and international institutions); b) used a discourse based on the “rhetoric of fear”, proposing scapegoats blamed for damaging the country’s welfare state; c) advocated for difference in social protection between ‘the nationals’ and ‘the others’. In particular, the degree of right-wing populism was coded on a scale from 0 to 2, with a value equal to 2 assigned when at least two of above three facets were present in the manifesto.<br>