** Please note: Those planning to attend events in this series should read the paper that will be posted on the CES website before the seminar.**
Since the 1990’s, most European countries have significantly reduced spending on income maintenance and early retirement. Have labor market reforms and welfare retrenchment contributed to the rising electoral fortunes of populist parties? Examining a panel of 185 elections from 1998-2017 and analyzing pooled cross-sectional data from eight waves of the European Social Survey (N=172,000), the authors find evidence that the reduction in spending on passive labor market policies may have contributed to the increase in support for populist parties of the radical right and left.
