Mapping competing visions of welfare amongst rightwing populist projects


Sara Swerdlyk, McMaster University

This paper offers a preliminary exploration of new and competing visions of gendered work and social welfare developing amongst contemporary rightwing populist movements. The paper builds off the scholarship of feminist sociologists using social reproduction theory to analyze the crisis of care endemic to neoliberalism, asking: to what extent is the rise of the far right intertwined with the relations of social reproduction engendered by neoliberal capitalism? As rightwing populist movements gain traction through promises of wealth redistribution, supporting families, and renewed welfare chauvinism, what new relations of social reproduction congeal within these emerging rightwing ideologies? The main task of the research is to map and analyze the specific gendered and racialized regimes of social welfare and responses to the care crisis offered in the ideas and practices of far-right political projects. While feminist sociologists continue to unpack the role of gender in consolidating illiberal political ideologies, the task remains to locate gender analyses of rightwing populist movements within the political economy dynamics of work and social reproduction structured by financialized capitalism, particularly the tensions that manifest between the neoliberal retreat of the welfare state and the competing reclamations as well as condemnations of social welfare and state spending amongst rightwing populist movements. The paper thus builds a comparative overview of contemporary rightwing populist projects and their response to the care crisis, their stance on social spending, and their proposals for social welfare. Ultimately, this research underscores the relationship between rightwing populism, neoliberalism, and social reproduction, calling attention to the issues of social spending and state welfare as relevant factors in the agendas of rightwing populist political projects.

This paper will be presented at the following session: