Makers against takers: the socio-economic ideology and policy of the Austrian Freedom Party

Abstract

Recent studies hold that populist radical right parties have shifted towards a leftist socio-economic position in response to growing working-class support. Based on an analysis of policy choices in government, the present article examines this ‘pro-welfare view’ through a case study analysis of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Yet, despite the ‘proletarisation’ of its electoral support base, the FPÖ’s pro-welfare impact is restricted to the mitigation of welfare retrenchment for the core workforce, whereas the party has been a protagonist of tax cuts, trade union disempowerment and, more recently, welfare chauvinism. This policy impact can be attributed to a producerist ideology arguing that tax-paying ‘makers’ (employees, employers) need to be liberated from the economic burden imposed by self-serving ‘takers’ (immigrants, ‘corrupt elite’). The article concludes with conceptual and theoretical implications for the political economy of the populist radical right.