The project Intersectional Analyses of Welfare Chauvinism in Europe (INWELCHAV) examined how populist radical right parties have reshaped through their public interventions the collective identity and the terms of being included into such collective, in the political system in which they activate in the past decade in Europe. The political activity of these parties is understood against the present context, in which Europe has to deal with a complex situation that consists of overlapping and ongoing crises. More clearly, the European debt crisis, which ensued in late 2009 as a result of unrestrained neoliberal economic pursuit, added uncertainty to the political crisis that already affected the democratic legitimacy of national institutions (such as national parliaments and governments), and of those overarching institutions at European level (such as the European parliament and the European Commission). To complicate matters further, the refugee reception crisis, which unfolded in Europe in the aftermath of the humanitarian crisis in late 2015, provided an opportunity for populist radical right parties to redraw the political boundaries in national and European politics.
Using their mobilization in the name of defending the collective identity in their country, these parties have sharpened the public debate concerning the future of the welfare state. They argued for a separation between the “natives” of the ethnic majority in their respective countries, as self-evident and exclusive beneficiaries for full welfare provision, and those belonging to a generic “other”– a category that lumped together such diverse people as migrants, ethnic minorities, racialized groups, and people with alternative lifestyles.
INWELCHAV had as a primary objective to examine critically how populist radical right parties reshaped the collective identity discussion and welfare issues debate from a so-called intersectional perspective. Intersectionality is the academic term for an analysis that takes into account how such diverse elements as one’s gender and sexuality, ethnicity and race, and social class interact in determining one’s position in society. INWELCHAV achieved thus two objectives: it analyzed how these two matters were approached by selected populist radical right parties in both national contexts, more clearly several national elections in Finland, Romania, and Sweden in the past decade; and at European level, in the two most recent elections for the European parliament.
INWELCHAV was highly innovative, because it provided a complex analysis of the topic by applying a unique scholarly approach, bridging the disciplinary boundaries between gender studies, political sciences, and sociology. In other words, INWELCHAV responded to an actual problem that confronts various societies across Europe. INWELCHAV pushed the boundaries of knowledge on the topic, providing through a series of articles, book chapters, conference presentations and keynotes, an innovative perspective on the topic.
