Table 1 presents the mean and standard deviations for welfare chauvinist preferences for different parties’ electorate. It shows that voters of radical right parties generally prefer welfare chauvinist policies. Interestingly, voters of the centre-left and centre-right also prefer welfare chauvinist policies, on average. The standard deviations of centre-left and centre-right parties nevertheless reveal that these parties’ electorates are divided between voters who prefer welfare chauvinist policies, and those who do not. Descriptively, it would seem that supporters of welfare chauvinism are as likely to vote for centre-left, centre-right, and radical right parties (de Koster et al. 2012). Put simply, voters supporting welfare chauvinism may not automatically prefer radical right parties. Rather, they do so when they prioritise their welfare chauvinist preferences. They may do so when they face economic risk in the form of employment insecurity arising from insecure contracts.
Table 1 Breakdown of welfare chauvinist support by party family Table 2 presents results from the regression analyses. I turn first to Model 1 which consists only of control variables. Younger, less-educated, less-religious, non-ethnic minority individuals with rightist political views are significantly more likely to vote for radical right than centre-left parties. Likewise, younger, less-educated, less-religious, unmarried men in lower income households whose partners are not in paid work are significantly more likely to vote for radical right than centre-right parties. Most of these associations remain significant after adding welfare chauvinist preferences, employment insecurity, and their interaction term.
Table 2 Regression results In Model 2, I added individuals’ support for welfare chauvinism to the model. I find that voters who support welfare chauvinism are significantly more likely to vote for radical right than centre-left and centre-right parties. These associations remain significant even in Model 3 which includes differences in employment contracts.
Model 3 shows the direct effects of different employment contracts. Workers on permanent and temporary contracts, part-time workers, the unemployed, and the non-employed are all significantly more likely to vote for radical right than centre-left parties in comparison with upscales. Similarly, workers on permanent, or temporary contracts, in part-time work, or unemployed are all significantly more likely to vote for the radical right than the centre-right, in comparison with upscales. Among the employed, workers on temporary contracts have the biggest coefficient, which could indicate that individuals facing higher employment insecurity are more likely to vote for radical right than centre-left and centre-right parties.
Model 4 includes an interaction term composed of welfare chauvinist preferences and employment insecurity. As interaction terms are challenging to interpret, Fig. 1 illustrates the results. It is based on a modified version of Model 4 (see Online Appendix Table A3). I recoded welfare chauvinist preferences into a binary variable for easier interpretation. Presenting partial effects of employment insecurity at different levels of welfare chauvinist support (as a continuous variable) would be graphically overwhelming and difficult to interpret. I recoded welfare chauvinist preferences such that respondents with values above 5 are considered supporters of welfare chauvinism, and vice versa. Figure 1 presents discrete effects for a change in type of employment contract, conditional on individuals’ support for welfare chauvinism. In other words, it presents the level of change in vote probability between upscales and other employment contracts. All other covariates are held at mean values.
Figure 1 shows that differences in employment insecurity generally do not have significant impact on centre-left and centre-right support, regardless of welfare chauvinist support. By contrast, employment insecurity significantly moderates the impact of welfare chauvinist support on radical right vote. Unemployed voters who support welfare chauvinism are more likely to support radical right parties than upscale ones by 14.8% points. Temporary workers who support welfare chauvinism are more likely to vote for radical right parties than upscales who support welfare chauvinism by 9.2% points. By contrast, the difference in support is smallest between upscale and part-time workers who support welfare chauvinism at 5.5% points.
It is also interesting to examine how non-employed voters who support welfare chauvinism vote for radical right parties relative to other groups. Non-employed voters who support welfare chauvinism are 7.9% points more likely to vote for radical right parties than upscale workers who support welfare chauvinism. Non-employed is a crude category consisting of all non-labour market participants. Nevertheless, it serves as a benchmark to examine if certain groups of voters are more likely to vote for radical right parties than the rest of society. Temporary workers and the unemployed who support welfare chauvinism have higher propensities of voting for radical right parties than similar non-labour market participants. By contrast, permanent, part-time, and upscale workers who support welfare chauvinism have lower propensities of voting for radical right parties than similar non-labour market participants. I checked if these results are sensitive to attitudes towards immigration, satisfaction with democracy, unemployment rate, and migration inflows (Golder 2003). There are no substantive differences (see Online Appendix Tables A5 and A6).
Figure 2 presents predicted probabilities of voting for radical right parties across different levels of support for welfare chauvinism and for different employment contracts. It is based on Model 4 and uses the original welfare chauvinism variable as a continuous variable. Figure 2 reiterates results in Fig. 1. Among voters who support welfare chauvinism, the unemployed and temporary workers have highest propensities of voting for radical right parties. Among voters who strongly support welfare chauvinism (welfare chauvinism = 10), temporary workers are 3.1% points more likely to vote for radical right parties than the unemployed.
By contrast, upscales who support welfare chauvinism are least likely to vote for radical right parties. Permanent and part-time workers who support welfare chauvinism are more likely to vote for radical right parties than their respective counterparts who do not support welfare chauvinism. But they are substantially less likely to vote for radical right parties in comparison with temporary workers and the unemployed who support welfare chauvinism. Permanent and part-time workers who strongly support welfare chauvinism are 11.3 and 12.1% points less likely to vote for radical right parties than temporary workers who have similar support for welfare chauvinism. They are also 8.2 and 9.0% points less likely to vote for radical right parties than unemployed supporters of welfare chauvinism, respectively.
Figure 3 demonstrates that supporters of welfare chauvinism generally turn away from centre-left parties in support for radical right parties. Crucially however, temporary workers who support welfare chauvinism are least likely to support centre-left parties, and most likely to vote for radical right parties. Figures 1, 2, and 3 cumulatively show that employment insecurity, in the form of employment contracts, conditions the impact of welfare chauvinist preferences on radical right support. Namely, workers who support welfare chauvinism and face greater employment insecurity are more likely to vote for radical right parties.