Redistribution Preferences of Right-Wing Populists: Deservingness, Ideology and Selective Redistribution

Right-wing populist parties increasingly shape welfare state politics, yet whether their exclusionary conceptions of solidarity translate into concrete redistribution decisions remains unclear. We investigate this question with a third-party allocation experiment, a context that allows us to observe redistribution behavior independently of self-interest. We asked a representative sample of Germans to allocate resources between individuals who varied in citizenship (native vs. immigrant) and employment status (employed vs. unemployed). We conceptualize selective redistribution as an expression of welfare chauvinism and test whether a universalistic policy framing can attenuate such patterns by framing redistribution as a minimal-income. We find that with increasing right-wing orientation, redistribution becomes strongly selective and systematically favors native, employed recipients. Individuals with stronger rightwing populist orientations redistribute less overall and exhibit substantially greater selectivity, imposing the largest penalties on unemployed immigrants. The minimum income–like framing neither increases redistribution nor moderates the ideological differences in allocation behavior. These findings provide behavioral evidence that welfare chauvinist attitudes translate into concrete redistribution decisions and are not moderated even under a minimum income–like framing, highlighting ideological constraints on the political feasibility of universal welfare reforms.