The Rise of Right-Wing Populist Parties in Response to Deteriorating Conditions

Another feature of neoliberal capitalism with adverse effects upon the objective of achieving health equity is the rise of right-wing populism in many nations including Canada, USA and the UK and several European nations.161,162 It is associated with the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment, distrust of government and endorsement of authoritarian leaders as manifested in the USA, Hungary, Poland, and even the Nordic nations. 163

Rinaldi and Bekker argue that right-wing populist parties threaten progressive health policy by calling for restricting access and eligibility to welfare programs for marginalized immigrants and minority groups. 164 Since welfare generosity is related to population health outcomes, the rise in strength of right-wing populist parties is likely to adversely affect the achievement of health equity. Similar conclusions are reached by Stronks and Agyemang who direct focus to discrimination in interpersonal relationships and weakened public support for equity-oriented health policies. 165

The rise of right-wing populist parties has been attributed to the deteriorating living and working conditions in the current polycrisis of neoliberal capitalism and to the failure of politicians and leaders of the left to provide an alternative vision of society.161,162,166 While social democratic parties were initially organized to seek improvements in living and working conditions through parliamentary democracy with the ultimate goal of a post-capitalist socialist society, most – and this is especially the case in liberal welfare states -- eschewed this latter hope in favor of managed reforms within a capitalist economy. 167 More recently, these parties have embraced neoliberal approaches to governance providing little distance between them and traditional pro-capitalist political parties.168,169 Przeworski terms these successive phases of social democracy as revolution, revisionism, remedialism, and resignation which now offers few means of countering the neoliberal resurgence now adversely affecting people’s lives. 170 What such alternative visions would look like are provided in later sections.