(Un)rightful Entitlements: Exploring the Populist Narratives of Welfare Chauvinism and Welfare Nostalgia

Abstract

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.

1 Introduction

Over the past years, we have witnessed an electoral rise of populist right-wing parties in Europe, where they have entered parliaments in most countries and governments in another few. Examples include the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the Rassemblement National in France, the Danish People Party, the Freedom Party of Austria, or Italian Lega. Thus, populist-radical right (PRR) parties have become important players in European countries, and they may influence social policies either indirectly through their effect on other parties’ positions (Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016), or directly through participation in (coalition) governments (Fenger, 2018).

Until recently, scholarly attention has ‘nearly exclusively focussed on the impact of PRR parties on what is considered their ‘core issue’, that is migration policy’ (Röth et al., 2018: 325). Meanwhile, social policies, as well as the relationship of populism and ‘feminist politics has remained conspicuously understudied’ (Kantola & Lombardo, 2019: 1). Increasingly, scholarly attention has turned both to the social policy agendas (Fenger, 2018; Röth et al., 2018; Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016), and to gender and sexuality agendas of PRR parties (Kantola & Lombardo, 2019; Akkerman, 2015). Yet there is still much unknown about PRR parties’ stances towards different groups, for whom access to or exclusion from social rights is constructed in terms of deservingness or undeservingness (van Oorschot, 2000). The term ‘welfare chauvinism’ (Andersen & Bjørklund, 1990), which has proven useful to understand social policy agendas of PRR parties, is focused on their (un)deservingness constructions along the lines of native vs. non-native populations (Eick & Leruth, 2024). Meanwhile, deservingness and undeservingness constructions along the lines of gender, or traditional vs. non-traditional families have remained underexplored. This is crucial as, indeed: ‘Rather than the effectiveness of redistribution, it is the identity of the welfare state and the rightful entitlements to it that the far-right is more concerned with’ (Jawad et al., 2021: 277; own highlighting).

This chapter aims to contribute to conceptual debates through two arguments. First, that a broadened understanding of ‘welfare chauvinism’ enables a fuller investigation of exclusionary tendencies, e.g. along the lines of immigration, gender, and sexual orientation. Second, that welfare chauvinism goes along with specific (un)deservingness constructions, which can be captured by studying (populist) policy narratives.

The point of departure—discussed in Sect. 1.2—is a typology of social policy reform narratives (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2019), which distinguishes different narratives by how they draw on stories of control and helplessness (Stone, 2012), as well as the deservingness or undeservingness associated with different ‘target populations’ (Schneider & Ingram, 1993). Sect. 1.3 builds on previous research on characteristics and social policy agendas of PRR parties in liberal democracies, in order to theorize on ‘populist narratives’ on material inclusion/exclusion, i.e. who should be given, not given, or taken from in terms of social rights. It summarizes the specific storylines and narrative elements which are characteristic of ‘populist narratives’. To demonstrate its usefulness for empirical research, Section 1.4 applies this concept to the contested modernization of German family policy, its (populist) protesters and the family policy agenda of the Alternative für Deutschland. Section 1.5 draws a conclusion.

2 Narratives of Inclusion and Exclusion

Mudde (2004: 543) presented a minimal definition, which conceives of populism as ‘a thin-centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’. The ideological contours and corresponding narrative features take more shape when different types of populism are distinguished. The most-widely used distinction builds on the ‘left’ and ‘right’ spectrum (and identifies corresponding populisms), but this distinction has proven difficult to delineate analytically. Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013, 158) proposed that the ‘probably most important question discussed in the scholarly debate’ around populism is the issue of inclusion versus exclusion. While in some way, ‘populism is always inclusionary and exclusionary at the same time’ (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2011: 23), in their distinction, an ‘inclusionary populism’ focuses on the inclusion of (parts of) the in-group, whereas an ‘exclusionary populism’ focuses on the exclusion of outgroups.

2.1 Inclusion and Exclusion: The Material Dimension

Inclusion and exclusion have several dimensions. To delineate them, Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013: 148) draw on Filc (2010), who identified a material, a symbolic, and a political dimension. As this chapter’s interest is in how inclusion and exclusion is narrated in the case of social policy and social rights, the material dimension of inclusion and exclusion comes to the fore.¹ Namely, material inclusion and exclusion refer ‘to the distribution of state resources, both monetary and non-monetary, to specific groups in society’ (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013: 158). This happens, for instance, through ‘the decrease of occupational segregation, the access to benefits in kind, and the implementation of policies aiming to improve the excluded group’s situation’ (Filc, 2010: 13) as well as economic policies.

Thus, studying the material dimension of inclusion/exclusion of different groups corresponds to investigating which social rights are granted to them (or not). Material exclusion may preclude specific groups from welfare benefit access, while material inclusion may specifically target certain groups to receive support (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). Access to social rights can be understood as ‘inclusive’ when everyone affected by a certain risk category (e.g. everyone who becomes unemployed, everyone who becomes a parent etc.) is granted a (cash or in-kind) benefit (Dobrotić & Blum, 2020). More selective social rights, on the other hand, foresee ‘distinct programs for different class and status groups’ (Anttonen et al., 2012: 5), and certain ‘categories’ are excluded from benefit access, e.g. based on citizenship status. The question of inclusion and exclusion in (populist) narratives thus entails stories of who should be granted or denied certain rights, and under which conditions. When it comes to material inclusion or exclusion—e.g., who is granted eligibility in certain benefit programs and who is (implicitly or explicitly) denied this access—it is essential to remember that in most welfare states those target groups are ‘predominantly based on categories of people’ (Marchal & Van Lancker, 2018)—such as ‘the elderly’, ‘single-parent families’, ‘the disabled’, ‘the asylum seekers’, or ‘the traditional family’. Therefore, target groups and the corresponding ‘categories of people’ that are constructed play a vital role in social policy.

2.2 How to Understand Inclusion/Exclusion Through Narratives?

Narrative stories are crucial when it comes to legitimizing the granting or denial of social rights, and thus the material dimension of inclusion and exclusion. Narratives are—often highly-simplified—stories about how (good or bad) things happen. This makes them particularly prone for the case of populism, given that this has been described to ‘thrive […] on emotive simplification of reality’ (Jawad et al., 2021: 279). Generally, narratives often take the form of stories of decline² (Stone, 2012), which describe how things have got worse and can only be improved if this-and-that is done, or prospectively, how things will get worse if not this-and-that is done. Moreover, the narrative approach to public policy proposes that problem and policy definitions entail a narrative structure, and a number of recognizable narrative elements. Those core narrative elements include the setting (e.g. institutional context), characters (often distinguished into: victims, villains, or heroes), a plot and a moral, the latter often promoting a certain policy solution (see McBeth et al., 2014).

For the realm of social policy, we have presented a typology of policy narratives (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2019; Kuhlmann & Blum, 2021). It proposes, first, that narratives will systematically vary depending on whether they address old- or new-social-risks policies,³ and whether they aim at legitimizing a policy expansion or retrenchment. And that, second, this variation shows in how the different narratives draw on stories of control and helplessness, as well as the deservingness or undeservingness associated with different target populations. These considerations are based on Schneider and Ingram’s (1993) distinction of four target populations:

• Advantaged: powerful and deserving (e.g. the elderly, middle class)

• Contenders: powerful but undeserving (e.g. the rich, lobbyists)

• Dependants: weak but deserving (e.g. mothers, children)

• Deviants: weak and undeserving (e.g. welfare cheats, drug addicts)

For the typology, those groups are expected to form identifiable characters (heroes, villains, or victims) of the different narrative story types. Thereby, Blum and Kuhlmann (2019) arrive at four ideal reform cases and associated narrative stories.

For expanding old-social-risks policies, particularly (I) stories of giving-to-give are expected, which draw on the deservingness of the advantaged as (potential) welfare recipients, e.g. granting pensioners an increase in pension levels in acknowledgement of ‘what they have earned’. For expansions of new-social-risks policies, (II) stories of giving-to-promote are expected, which also draw on the deservingness of affected groups (typically: dependents), but with a view to empowerment (e.g. enabling mothers to work through childcare investments).

For retrenchment (and therewith also increased exclusionary directions), undeservingness constructions gain importance. For retrenchment of (III) old-social-risks policies, constructions of undeservingness and self-responsibility may be used in narrative stories of taking-to-take—typically more openly for (weak) deviant groups, and more hidden for (powerful) contender groups. Where undeservingness constructions are not possible, stories of taking-to-control are expected, which employ helplessness constructions to justify retrenchment, but also partly transfer the power to control the situation to (powerful) groups (e.g. ‘we all have to tighten our belts’). Finally, for retrenchment of new-social-risks policies, similarly undeservingness constructions are expected for weak and ‘undeserving’ groups in (IV) stories of taking-to-take or, in the case of ‘deserving’ groups, rather stories of taking-out-of-helplessness.

It is essential to highlight that the group delineations are socially constructed, and will thus also show variations over time, between countries, and between policy actors. Taking this into account, populist narratives should show certain specificities. The following section will distil what seems specific about populist narratives.

3 Populist Narratives of Inclusion and Exclusion

As being populist, PRR parties tend to present ‘society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”’ (Mudde, 2004: 543), and themselves as the proponents of the general will of the people:

The elite is considered to be arrogant, selfish, incompetent and often also corrupt. This critique could be directed towards a political elite (the established political order, the political ‘caste’), an economic elite (large companies, bankers in general) or a cultural elite (academics, writers, intellectuals). (Rooduijn, 2015: 4)

Typically, also the mass media are seen as part of that cultural elite, and discredited with terms such as ‘mainstream media’ or ‘fake news’.

Compared to the ‘corrupt elite’, it has been described as ‘often rather unclear who these parties consider to be ‘the people” (Rooduijn, 2015: 4). This is, however, crucial when we aim to understand PRR parties’ stances on material inclusion or exclusion. PRR parties are associated with an exclusionary populism, where the ‘prime focus lies on the exclusion of the outgroups rather than on the inclusion of (parts of) the ingroup’ (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013: 160).⁴ The following section deals with the question which target groups should be excluded from social rights, according to PRR parties’ agendas, and why.

3.1 Welfare Chauvinism Broadly Conceived: Which Social Rights for Target Groups?

While the social policy agendas of PRR parties have changed over time and they have shown a tendency to ‘act like chameleons’ (Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016: 300), welfare chauvinism has today vastly replaced earlier notions of a neo-liberal anti-welfare position. PRR parties are thus neither welfare-hostile nor welfare-friendly per se, but rather stand for welfare selectivity (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2021; Rathgeb, 2020).⁵ Welfare chauvinism depicts a set of ideas which hold that welfare services and expenditure ‘should be restricted to “our own”’ (Andersen & Bjørklund, 1990: 212). But who are ‘our own’ people (‘us’), and who are the outgroups (‘them’)?

Welfare chauvinism overwhelmingly focuses on the characterization of PRR parties as nativist.⁶ This foregrounds the idea of immigrants being less entitled to social rights than native populations, often combined with blaming the elite ‘for cutting the welfare rights of deserving ‘natives” (Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016: 302). (Un)deservingness constructions of non-natives are crucial therein.

Yet welfare chauvinism may also follow a broader understanding, which comprises the exclusionary tendencies along gender, family and sexuality lines that have more recently come to the fore in studies on populism. When formerly weaker groups are granted new entitlements—who can be migrants, but also e.g. same-sex parents being granted benefit access, or women through introduction of women’s quota—this can open the way for other groups’ ‘feeling of being pushed to the back of the queue by these groups’ (Greve, 2019: 155), and blaming them for deterioration in their standard of living. In fact, this meaning is very much captured in the term chauvinism.

With regard to gender and sexuality, the defining lines of PRR parties may be less clear than with regard to welfare rights of immigrants. This seems particularly the case for sexual orientation, as attitudes towards homosexuality differ between PRR parties (Rooduijn, 2015; Fenger, 2018).⁷ When it comes to gender, Akkerman (2015: 56) states that almost all PRR parties ‘are conservative when they address issues related to the family, such as opportunities for women on the labor market, childcare, abortion or the status of marriage’. As Engeli (2019: 226) shows, ‘gender and sexuality research has become contested, attacked and elevated to the status of the bête noire of the populist and radical right’ (e.g., in Hungary). Behind this is also a narrative that, in the consequence, serves to delegitimize corresponding social rights. Namely, gender research is then blamed for societal and social changes (Engeli, 2019; Grzebalska et al., 2017); the narrative running how an elitist gender and sexuality research actively seeks to establish ‘alternative’ family forms as the ‘new normal’ and undermine ‘the traditional family’.

Fenger (2018: 191) refers to ‘welfare nostalgia’ as ‘policy positions that are aimed at securing or reinforcing the social position of the modernization losers based on traditional economic and family patterns’ and which aim at restoring ‘traditional’ social rights. For instance, Fenger (2018) describes how the French Front National proposed to restore the free distribution of parental leave between both parents, thereby refraining from leave policies that would encourage a more gender-equal share of family responsibilities. More generally, the ‘freedom of choice’ discourse, which used to be typical of many conservative parties until the early 2000s, is now occupied by PRR parties. Kantola and Lombardo (2019: 9) describe this for the True Finns party, which stresses in its program the importance of ‘equally to respect those parents who stay home to care for their children’.

Finally, it is important that exclusionary tendencies along migration, gender, and sexuality categories are not just studied additively, but in their interrelations.⁸ In the PRR, these interrelations e.g. show in the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy, according to which parts of the ‘corrupt elite’ would strategically replace the native population (with its changing family forms and decreasing fertility rates) with non-European, in particular Muslim population. Another example is a typical ‘reversal’ of PRR programmatic, namely when gender-equality discourse is used instrumentally against immigration, by decrying how ‘young Muslim men’ bring to ‘us’ anachronistic ideas about family and gender roles. Those examples indicate recurring narrative strategies, whose populist features shall be summarized in the next section more systematically.

3.2 Populism and the Narrative Elements

What do the characteristics of PRR parties and their policy positions imply for their narrative stories in social policy, i.e. the material inclusion or exclusion from social rights based on different ‘categories’?

According to Afonso (2015: 275), the PRR parties’ electorate ‘tends to be constituted by social groups who are typically protected by classical social insurance schemes in Bismarckian welfare systems, and who may be afraid to extend these rights to outsider groups, such as immigrants and women’. In terms of Schneider and Ingram’s (1993) target groups, they belong partly to the group of advantaged (e.g. classical ‘workers’), and partly to the group of dependents (e.g. long-term unemployed, low qualified).⁹ Rathgeb (2020) introduced the notion of ‘makers’ and ‘takers’, showing for the Austrian FPÖ how it supports benefits for those portrayed as ‘makers’ (e.g. traditional male workforce), while opposing them for ‘takers’ (e.g. immigrants). In terms of gender and sexual orientations, the deserving figure per se is the (traditional) family (Engeli, 2019), and also here outsider groups—to which social rights could be or have been extended—often underly undeservingness constructions (e.g., same-sex parents, single parents, patchwork families).

As outlined above, narrative stories are marked by certain structural elements, particularly setting, characters, plot, and moral (McBeth et al., 2014; Stone, 2012).

From the literature on PRR parties, the characters of their narrative stories get particularly clear. Typical victims are ‘the pure people’, who are betrayed by the system and whose will is being ignored. Who is included or excluded from those ‘pure people’ can be understood in terms of the four types of target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1993): Included is the (dependent or advantaged) native population when affected by a certain social risk (e.g. ‘the elderly’), and ‘the traditional family’. Groups constructed as ‘deviants’ are excluded, such as non-native immigrants, deviant family forms (e.g. same-sex families)—partly also (‘lazy’) unemployed (see Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016). Villains are the ‘corrupt elite’, either political, economic, or cultural (e.g. science, media) establishment (Rooduijn, 2015). Also the excluded categories of people may be villains in individual stories (see Schumacher & van Kersbergen, 2016¹⁰). The typical heroes of populist narratives are the PRR parties themselves (often also: with a charismatic leader), presented as defenders of the ‘real’ will of the people, and as putting an end to dirty, self-serving politics (see Reinfeldt, 2000). Also other representatives of ‘the people’ may be depicted as heroes.¹¹

The setting and plot build on these characters to—most-typically—tell a story of decline, according to which things have got worse than they used to be in the ‘golden past’:

This core narrative built on recent significant structural changes around globalisation, migration and disappointments of the post-industrial era. As such, the narrative aspires a return to the ‘golden past’ of the 1960s and 1970s, and conjures up an image of a nation whose difficulties can be explained by weakening of its core cultural identity through […] globalisation and multiculturalism. (Ketola & Nordensvard, 2018: 6)

This also includes the ‘traditional family’ and male-breadwinner system as elements of that golden past. Some stories may include much more specific settings than this general context, such as typical places of the ‘pure people’ (e.g. the village, the pub), or the ‘corrupt elite’ (e.g. cities that host the government, or the financial industry). When it comes to the moral of the story, policy positions depend on the respective issue and vary, but can generally be characterized as welfare-chauvinist and/or welfare-nostalgic in social policy terms. There may be standalone welfare-nostalgic stories, or those that are combined with welfare-chauvinist counterparts.

To now characterize a ‘populist narrative’ more specifically in terms of the social policy reform narratives distinguished by Blum and Kuhlmann (2019), I should summarize PRR parties’ stance towards old- and new-social-risks policies, and towards different target populations. As described, both if PRR parties follow a welfare-chauvinist and/or a welfare-nostalgic agenda, they are not expected to support new-social-risks policies, as those indeed mean support for the transformation of labor and family forms. Rather, they should support old-social-risks policies, which imply ‘a return to the golden age of the welfare state’ (Fenger, 2018: 192), and possibly reverse previous ‘modernization’ reforms. As regards material inclusion/exclusion, narratives can be expected which advocate to ‘safeguard the position of deserving groups and/or undermine the rights of non-deserving groups’ (ibid.).

Table 1.1 summarizes the expectations for populist narratives of social policy reform. In line with the considerations above, it assumes that expansionary efforts lie mostly in the field of old-social-risks policies, and corresponding stories of giving-to-give typically take a welfare-nostalgic tone, sometimes also a purely welfare-chauvinist tone. Contrariwise, narratives to legitimize material exclusion of individual groups and retrenchment of their social rights typically tell welfare-chauvinist stories of taking-to-take. The stories of helplessness and control are greyed in Table 1.1, because they are expected to be rarer for PRR parties: As Röth et al. (2018) showed, PRR parties are no proponents of retrenchment as such in redistribution issues, but rather of welfare-chauvinist retrenchment for certain groups. Moreover, populist narratives often link between two target groups, and thereby different types or aspects of policy. Namely, welfare-nostalgic stories of giving-to-give may be linked with welfare-chauvinist-stories of taking-to-take. Welfare chauvinism and welfare nostalgia are therefore not competing, but rather often complementary. This is related to the general plot of the stories, where the rights of ‘deserving’ protégés of old-social risk policies—insider groups and their counterpart of the welfare state ‘golden age’, namely the ‘traditional family’—are endangered. Correspondingly, from whom shall be taken are the ‘threatening’ outsiders—non-native immigrants or non-traditional families. This reflects the inextricable linkages of inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies in populism (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2011).

Table 1.1 Right-wing populist narratives of social policy reform

To sum up the results of applying the typology to PRR narratives, the (un)deservingness dimension is crucial (corresponding to the predominance of welfare chauvinism). Those narratives are concentrated on certain groups and categories, while others are muted (in particular, it can be expected that expansion of new-social-risks policies is absent in those populist narratives). Having developed this characterization, the next section sets out to demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of populist policy narratives for empirical research through a case illustration.

4 Case Illustration: German Family Policy Reform and Populist Narratives

As regards policy preferences of PRR parties, family policy exemplifies not only their welfare-chauvinist, but also welfare-nostalgic positions. The German case is particularly interesting in this regard: Was its family policy long associated with support for the ‘traditional family’ and gendered work share, it has become a prime example of significant reform—which, in turn, has not remained uncontested, but gave rise to protest, e.g. through the so-called ‘family network’ (see below). Later, also the social and family policy agenda of the PRR Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been associated with antecedent family policy reforms. The case can therefore be used to see how populist opposition to welfare policy works (cf. Eick & Leruth, 2024). It is well-suited to demonstrate the analytical usefulness of populist narratives. In particular, I will focus on how linkages between welfare-nostalgic stories of inclusion, and welfare-chauvinist stories of exclusion are constructed. The case illustration presented in this section is based on a semi-structured expert interview conducted in 2009,¹² on media articles, and the AfD’s, 2016 party manifesto. A qualitative content analysis of the material was conducted, with the coding scheme build deductively on the conceptual foundations laid in Sect. 1.2 (populist narratives with their distinct elements).

4.1 Contested ‘Modernization’ of German Family Policy

Far-reaching changes have been implemented in German family policy since the mid-2000s. Those reforms were implemented by a grand coalition of conservative CDU/CSU and social-democratic SPD (2005–2009) under Chancellor Merkel and family minister von der Leyen (both CDU). In particular, an income-dependent parental-leave benefit (Elterngeld) was introduced, and public childcare was expanded—including a new right to a childcare place from age one. Coming from a conservative, familialist tradition (Leitner, 2003), those changes were significant, as family policy was redirected towards supporting women with high income and/or wish for quick return to work after giving birth to a child, and a more gender-equal division of work, incentivizing fathers to take leave.

Those changes concerned some core measures (next to parental leave and childcare e.g. also alimony law), while other measures—most notably the married-couples tax splitting—showed continuity (Blum, 2012). But while the latter exhibited continuity in terms of gender categories, major shifts occurred in terms of sexuality categories. Namely, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2013 that excluding registered same-sex partnerships from access to the married-couples tax splitting is unconstitutional. And in the run-up to the 2017 general election, Chancellor Merkel surprisingly declared the question of opening marriage to same-sex couples a ‘question of conscience’, thereby opening it up for debate. Thereafter parliament voted in favor of ‘same-sex marriage’ with the votes of the Green party, the Social Democrats, and about a quarter of the conservative CDU/CSU members of parliament.

While those policy changes cannot be studied in detail here, and have been relatively comprehensively researched, three points stand out. First, German family policy ‘modernization’ has been related to a Nixon-goes-to-China strategy, i.e. only as being a Christian-democrat might von der Leyen have been able to push the reform through against conservative resistances, which was not possible for her social-democratic predecessor (Henninger & von Wahl, 2010). Second, although finally politically agreed upon, there were strong conflicts around the reforms inside the conservative parties, and in society at large. Third, the family policy reforms have been—together with a number of other ‘modernization’ reforms under Merkel’s leadership—diagnosed to have opened electoral space at the right, and contributed to the rise of the PRR party Alternative für Deutschland (Henninger & von Wahl, 2019).

Out of protest and discontent with the government’s ‘new family policy’, a new interest organization was founded in 2005, named Familiennetzwerk (family network; the family network was dissolved in 2014). Network members and ‘friends’ contained a number of smaller associations, foundations and some prominent individual members. Many of them were former supporters of conservative CDU/CSU. It has been pointed out how anti-feminism can act as a ‘symbolic glue’ between different actors (Grzebalska et al., 2017). Indeed, the turn in family policy coincided with the beginning of a public ‘genderism’ debate in Germany. Its origin is often dated to an article published 2006 in the quality newspaper FAZ (Henninger, 2019), which protested against gender mainstreaming and the family policy reforms as a fight against the traditional family and German mothers’ ‘real’ wishes and needs (FAZ, 2006). The anti-gender debate gained traction and visibility since then, and has been increasingly incorporated by AfD since its entry in county councils and federal state parliaments (Henninger, 2019). The next section will take a closer look at the earlier narratives told by protesters of the family policy reforms, and whether they already showed features of ‘populist narratives’ as characterized above.

4.2 Counter-Narratives to the Family Policy Reforms

In the interview I conducted with a person involved in the protest groups in 2009, s/he agreed with the finding that German family policy had seen a ‘paradigmatic change’, but disapproved of this. What is lost, s/he stressed, is parents’ ‘freedom of choice’, which would be guaranteed if mothers ‘could really choose to stay at home for the first three years, which is best in terms of the interest of the child’. While the latter may be described as a familialist, welfare-nostalgic narrative of policies supporting the ‘traditional’ post-war family, it is intermingled with issues of sexual orientation and family diversity:

I even see a further deterioration for the family, simply because the married-couples tax splitting is, well, not annulled, but relativized. Since, and this is the discussion at the moment, since it should also be paid to registered partnerships. For this they suddenly have money, which has so far not been the case. (…) Of course, we all know that this is a heartfelt wish of people like [names gay politician], who…well, and of politics in general. Which doesn’t have much fondness for the traditional family. (Interview)

This quotation illustrates the linkage described above, setting groups against one another: a welfare-nostalgic story of giving-to-give ‘the family’, contrasted to a welfare-chauvinist story of undeserving same-sex couples, who are excluded from the definition of ‘family’. Linguistically, it is significant how the term ‘the family’ is used here, as the singular indicates a homogenous group and interest instead of a plurality of lifestyles. Labelling the policy as the ‘heartfelt wish’ of an individual politician insinuates self-serving politics as the villain of this story. Yet there are other villains, too:

There is an anti-mood in the establishment in politics and media, which is against the family, the traditional family. And therefore, the published opinion is completely different from the real public opinion. This gets crystal-clear in the case of the cash-for-care benefit, and therefore the media are the allies of the state-thinking, of the ideologists. (…) But there is a new phenomenon now (…), namely since a few years parallel publics are emerging in the internet. (…) And we try to break through these walls of silence and ideology. And over time we will succeed. (Interview)

The narrative told here bears characteristics of a populist narrative, as a story is told of ‘the pure people’ (the public whose opinion and voice cannot get through) against the corrupt elite, namely the ideologized establishment in politics and media.¹³ The reform protesters on the opposite are presented as the hero of the story, who fight for the general will of the people, and will restore order (‘we will succeed’).

The German weekly Junge Freiheit—described as the organ of the ‘new right’ (Die Zeit, 2017)—frequently reported about the family network, and protesters of the family policy reforms also published articles in Junge Freiheit. As in the interviewee’s narrative above, there is typically a linkage between the ‘official family policy’, which is described as misaligned with the ‘real needs’ of families (children in particular). Exemplary of this is the following report of a Junge Freiheit article from a conference organized by Familiennetzwerk:

It would be important that parents are informed about the mental and physical risks of early-childhood alienated care,¹⁴ no matter how they decide in the end. At the moment, however, the government acts as if childcare was good for children [said the family network chair; author]. ‘Since months, there is a tendency in politics to openly withdraw rights from parents – and, strangely enough, most media remain uncritical allies of this’, said the child doctor and psychiatrist Johannes Pechstein in his conference talk. ‘That’s why we have to encourage parents to remain suspicious and wakeful vis-à-vis the actions of the state’. (Junge Freiheit, 2007a)

Again, above the familialist notion, the narratives of both speakers here exhibit the populist element of the ‘pure’ families on the one hand, and elitist, untrustworthy politics and media on the other. Regularly, also science is already named as a villain of the ‘establishment’ (cf. Engeli, 2019). For instance, when the Bertelsmann Foundation, in 2008, published a report which identified educational gains from visiting childcare facilities, the study was refused as a ‘scientifically untenable, unreliable propaganda study’ (Junge Freiheit, 2008). It has been shown how the ‘demographic argument’ was used to win political support for the family policy modernization reforms (Blum, 2012). Yet also a demographic ‘story of decline’ has been told, by linking issues of fertility and immigration, and therewith fertile ground for linking different exclusionary tendencies. The term used for that was that of a ‘demographic catastrophe’, since ‘Germany is the most rapidly ageing society in the world, has most childless households, and the proportionately highest immigration rate’ (Junge Freiheit, 2007b).

To conclude, with the family policy reforms, counter narratives were developed, which showed not only familialist and strongly conservative positions, but features of populist narratives, including welfare chauvinism and welfare nostalgia as the story’s moral. Next, the AfD’s family policy narratives serve as a further demonstration case.¹⁵

4.3 Alternative für Deutschland

The AfD was founded in 2013, the founders’ main motive being dissatisfaction with the Euro, and the Eurocrisis policy of the German government (Zeitmagazin, 2017). In 2017, only four of the 18 founding fathers were still party members, none of them in a leading position. While Euro- and EU-skepticism is still characteristic of the party, its different streams have successively developed towards a national-conservative PRR party.

This section looks at the AfD’s, 2016 party manifesto to illustrate how narrative stories are spun in family policy,¹⁶ and which constructions and categories of ‘(un)deservingness’ they entail. Not surprisingly, the main deserving character is the ‘traditional family’:

Appreciation of the traditional family is increasingly lost in Germany. It has once again to become the main focus of family policy to meet the needs of children and parents. The increasing transfer of educational tasks to public institutions such as nurseries and all-day schools, the implementation of the ‘gender mainstreaming’ project and the general emphasis on the individual undermine the family (…). It has to be once again desirable to get married, raise children, and spend as much time with them as possible. (AfD, 2016: 80)

This story alludes to several narrative elements: One classical element is that of the ‘real needs’ of parents and children, of ‘the traditional family’ (also here used solely in the singular), which are currently not met. It involves a welfare-nostalgic narrative of giving-to-give, linguistically grasped in using twice the expression of how ‘once again’ things should become. The ‘traditional family’ is ‘positively’ defined as married couples with shared gender roles, where the mother takes care of the child instead of public institutions—which also alludes to a ‘negative’ definition of ‘non-traditional’ family, but it is not yet spelled out who falls under those. The AfD presents itself as the hero, who fights for the appreciation and needs of the traditional family. Its counterpart, the villain responsible for the alleged ‘stigmatization of traditional gender roles’, is not yet named. Both narrative elements are further filled in the following:

The Alternative für Deutschland wants to correct the financial burdens for single parents, and those liable for alimony payments. (…) We emphatically turn against any attempts of organizations, media, and politics to propagate one-parent-families as a progressive or even desirable way of living. (AfD, 2016: 86)

Here, single-parent families shift between a construction as dependents (whom should be given-to-promote by weakening financial burdens, but not without also naming the financial burdens of alimony payers), and a construction as deviants, who are at least ‘undeserving’ of depicting their ways of living as desirable. The villains of such propagation are also blamed, namely the ‘corrupt elite’ media and politics. Politics are concretized as ‘current governing parties’ in the following villain characterization:

To counteract the striking demographic trends, the current governing parties rely on a continued (…) mass immigration from mainly Islamic countries. Previous years have shown that in particular Muslim migrants in Germany only reach below-average educational and employment levels. That the fertility rates of migrants (with 1.8 children per woman) lie significantly higher than that of women from German origin, intensifies the ethnic-cultural changes in population structure. (AfD, 2016: 82)

This narrative tells a twofold story-of-decline: through demographic shifts (with decreasing fertility rates and population ageing), and ‘mass immigration from mainly Islamic countries’. Drivers for the demographic shifts are not portrayed as structural or external pressures, but an internal strategy of ‘current governing parties’—with the far-right conspiracy of a planned ‘great replacement’ looming in the background. A linkage of ‘deserving native families’ versus ‘undeserving Muslim families’ is spun between the lines. A final quotation serves to demonstrate another villain:

We reject the one-sided emphasis on homo- and transsexuality in school instruction, as well as ideological manipulation through ‘gender mainstreaming’. The traditional family image must not be destroyed through his. Our school children must not become hostages of the sexual orientation of a loud minority. (…) The gender-ideology and the associated early-sexualization, public expenses for pseudo-scientific ‘gender studies’, gender quota, and the deformation of the German language must be stopped. (…) Many of the opinions advocated in the area of ‘gender mainstreaming’ contradict the results of natural sciences, developmental psychology, and common sense. We thus turn against any public funding of ‘gender studies’. (AfD, 2016: 109)

This narrative contains an exclusionary construction of ‘homo- and transsexuals’ (who are set against the ubiquitous image of the traditional family), but also depicts the last of the three main villains forming the ‘corrupt elite’, namely science. This is not extended to all sciences, as natural sciences and developmental psychology are set up against gender studies. Yet not only are the latter discredited as ‘pseudo-scientific’; moreover, an anti-science notion is involved in putting forward ‘common sense’ knowledge (such as own experiences and emotions; note that the AfD calls itself ‘party of common sense’ in the manifesto) to ‘trump’ scientific knowledge (see also Kuhar, 2015).

5 Conclusions

This chapter argued that a focus on populist narratives and their characteristics helps to illuminate the material inclusion/exclusion of ‘categories of people’ involved. This can be combined with a broadened understanding of welfare chauvinism (and, relatedly, of welfare nostalgia). The outgroups (‘them’) are not restricted to non-natives, as research into gender and sexuality agendas of PRR has shown, but extends to other categories. For instance, already Reinfeldt (2000) showed how Austrian FPÖ ‘othered’ lazy benefit scroungers (vis-à-vis ‘us’, the strenuous Austrians)—a category that seems to have lost importance with the turn of PRR parties from an anti-welfare to a welfare-chauvinist course (see Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016 for FPÖ). ‘Populist narratives’ can thus capture how deserving and undeserving ‘categories of people’ (Marchal & van Lancker, 2018) are distinguished not only along immigration, but also e.g. along gender and sexuality lines (e.g. non-traditional families, divergent sexual orientations). Set in a book that advances understanding of bordering/othering processes through intersectional analyses (see Vuckovic Juros et al., in this volume), this chapter thus contributes on how the narrative constructions of these processes work, and how they can be empirically investigated.

Typical storylines of these narrative stories are welfare-chauvinist stories of taking-to-take, and welfare-nostalgic stories of giving-to-give. Linkages between these stories are often used, when the extension of social rights to outgroups is described as threatening for in-groups—the traditional ‘golden age’ protégés of the welfare state, which have become main voter groups of PRR parties (Afonso, 2015). In the case illustration, this e.g. showed in the interview quotation, where ‘for this’ (i.e. granting benefits to ‘undeserving’ registered partnerships) ‘they’ (i.e. the corrupt elite) suddenly ‘have money, which has so far not been the case’ (i.e. for the ‘deserving’ traditional family). Thus, the linkages between inclusionary and exclusionary directions are important, but so are the linkages between different possible categories of exclusion. In the case illustration, this e.g. showed in the AfD’s (2016: 82) narrative, whereto ‘the current governing parties’ (i.e. corrupt elite as villain) would rely on a continued ‘mass immigration from mainly Islamic countries’, these families in Germany then reaching ‘below-average education and employment’, but high fertility rates. Several ‘undeservingness’ categories are interlinked in this narrative: non-native status (Islamic), social behavior (not-working/contributing), and family form (extended families as ‘deviant’ form).

‘Policy narratives’ and their structural elements are clearly conceptualized and measurable, which may give them analytical advantage vis-à-vis broad, and arguably often ambiguous concepts such as policy paradigms (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2019, 2023). The proposed concept of ‘populist narratives’ thus offers a systematic and measurable approach to the rhetoric around inclusion and exclusion. It can be applied to speech and text, but also e.g. to visual images (compare, for the latter, e.g. Freistein & Gadinger, 2020; Bonansinga, 2024). This chapter focused on the context of European liberal democracies, where PRR parties are prevalent. Future work would need to extend this to other contexts, e.g. with view to populist-radical left parties, and to settings where the old-social-risks vs. new-social-risks divide is historically absent. Exact storylines, or character portrayals can be expected to vary in other contexts. Yet the storylines (such as giving-to-give, or taking-to-take) and structural narrative elements are applicable to analyze such different patterns across contexts.