THE RADICAL RIGHT AND THE WELFARE STATE

Robert Misik in conversation with Philip Rathgeb

THE RADICAL RIGHT AND THE WELFARE STATE

Far-right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream throughout the Western world.
The radical right has used the various policy tools at its disposal within its political-economic arrangements to protect threatened labour market insiders and male breadwinners from decline while creating a racialised and gendered precariat. This socio-economic agenda of selective status protection re-establishes horizontal inequalities of gender and ethnicity without addressing vertical inequalities between rich and poor.
Combining insights from comparative politics, party politics, comparative political economy and welfare state research, political scientist Philip Rathgeb's latest book offers new insights into how the radical right manufactures consent to authoritarian rule by taming the socially corrosive effects of globalised capitalism for key constituencies.

Philip Rathgeb, political scientist
Robert Misik, Author and journalist

Philip Rathgeb, is Assistant Professor of Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. He was previously a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. His research interests lie in comparative political economy and comparative politics, with a particular focus on welfare states, industrial relations and party politics. His first book Strong Governments, Precarious Workers was published by Cornell University Press in 2018. Winner of the Kurt Rothschild Prize for Economic Policy.

Philip Rathgeb:
How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA
Oxford University Press, February 2024; ISBN: 9780192866332; £ 76.00