PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

With the electoral rise of populist radical-right parties (PRR) in European liberal democracies, scholarly attention has turned to their social-policy agendas and, to a lesser extent, also their gender, family and sexuality agendas. Research has explored PRR parties’ stances towards different groups, including access to or exclusion from social rights. ‘Welfare chauvinism’ has proven as a useful concept to understand social policy agendas of PRR parties, focused on (un)deservingness along the lines of native vs. non-native populations. This chapter argues, first, that a widened understanding of ‘welfare chauvinism’ enables a fuller investigation of different exclusionary tendencies—in terms of migration, gender, family, or sexual orientation. And second, that such welfare chauvinism goes along with specific (un)deservingness constructions, which can be captured through studying (populist) policy narratives. The chapter theorizes on ‘populist narratives’ about material inclusion or exclusion, i.e. who should be given, not given, or taken from in terms of social rights. It proposes certain plots and narrative elements which are characteristic of ‘populist narratives’. To demonstrate its usefulness for empirical research, the concept is applied to investigate the contested German family policy modernization, its populist protesters and the family policy agenda of the Alternative für Deutschland .