Migration as Democratic Boundary-Making: Far-Right Normalization in Europe

Abstract

Over the past decade, far-right parties have moved from the political margins into the mainstream of several European democracies. This article examines how migration functions not primarily as a demographic driver of electoral change, but as a discursive resource through which democratic boundaries are redefined. Drawing on a qualitative comparative analysis of political speeches, party manifestos, and public debates in selected European countries between 2014 and 2022, the study investigates how migration is constructed as a threat to welfare systems, national cohesion, and liberal-democratic order. The analysis integrates three complementary frameworks of ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism to demonstrate how exclusion is legitimized through moralized appeals to culture, fairness, and liberal values. Rather than rejecting democracy outright, far-right actors reinterpret concepts such as citizenship, solidarity, and equality in conditional and culturally bounded terms. Migration thus operates as a symbolic condensation of broader anxieties related to globalization, economic insecurity, and political distrust. The findings show how democratic language itself can normalize exclusionary interpretations of membership, contributing to gradual forms of democratic erosion across Europe.

1. Introduction

Over the past decade, European democracies have witnessed notable shifts in their political landscapes. Far-right and populist radical-right parties, once confined to the margins of electoral politics, have become normalized actors within parliamentary systems and, in several cases, governing coalitions (Mudde 2019; Eatwell and Goodwin 2018). This shift has unfolded across diverse political, economic, and welfare regimes, including countries long regarded as stable liberal democracies (Halikiopoulou and Vasilopoulou 2018). The electoral consolidation of far-right parties has coincided with intensified public debates on migration, welfare, security, and national identity, raising questions about the resilience of democratic norms, inclusive citizenship, and political participation in Europe (Mair 2013; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018).

The rise of the far right is frequently explained through reference to mass migration, particularly following the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015 and subsequent migration-related events. While migration has become one of the most salient political issues across Europe, existing research increasingly demonstrates that the relationship between migration and far-right success is neither linear nor deterministic (Norris and Inglehart 2019; Mudde 2019; Arzheimer 2018; Betz 2019). Comparative studies drawing on European Social Survey and Eurobarometer data consistently show that levels of immigration alone do not reliably predict electoral support for far-right parties (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014, p. 225; Dennison and Geddes 2018). Instead, perceptions of migration, mediated through political discourse, media representation, and institutional framing, appear to play a far more significant role in shaping political attitudes and voting behavior (Wodak 2015; Rydgren 2018; Entman 1993; Snow and Benford 1988), a dynamic not limited to far-right actors alone but also observable among smaller parties mobilizing migrant constituencies (e.g., Nyans in Sweden). The normalization of far-right actors across European democracies is increasingly understood not as a temporary backlash but as a enduring political transformation. As López-Rodríguez and Benítez-Baleato (2025) note, “the emergence and institutional consolidation of the Populist Radical Right (PRR) is among the most consequential developments in European politics in the 21st century”.

While existing scholarship has made significant progress in explaining the rise of far-right parties through attitudinal, economic, and cultural variables, less attention has been paid to the mechanisms through which migration is discursively constructed as a central political problem across different national contexts. In particular, there remains a gap in understanding how distinct discursive logics—cultural, economic, and normative—are combined into coherent narratives that redefine the boundaries of democratic membership. This article addresses this gap by shifting the analytical focus from explanatory variables to processes of meaning-making and boundary construction.

This article explicitly distances itself from deterministic explanations that treat migration flows as a direct causal driver of far-right electoral growth. Rather than asking whether migration “causes” the rise of the far right, the analysis shifts the focus toward understanding how migration is discursively constructed as a political problem and how this construction facilitates the normalization of exclusionary politics within democratic regimes (Krzyżanowski and Ekström 2022). Migration is approached here not as an objective demographic variable but as a symbolic and moralized category through which broader anxieties related to globalization, welfare redistribution, sovereignty, and democratic trust are articulated (Brubaker 2017; Bauman 2016).

Liberal democracy is treated here as more than a system of electoral competition. It combines majority rule with the protection of individual rights, the inclusion of minorities, and the rule of law. Following Dahl’s notion of polyarchy and subsequent scholarship (Dahl 1989; Mounk 2018), it rests on two core logics: political contestation and participation on the one hand, and the protection of equal membership on the other.

This point is analytically important for the present study. The argument developed in the following sections is not that far-right actors reject democracy, but that they selectively reinterpret these principles. Inclusion, rights, and solidarity are increasingly framed as conditional upon cultural conformity and national belonging. The analysis therefore focuses on how liberal-democratic norms are rearticulated within contemporary political discourse.

To address these issues, the article is guided by the following research questions:

(1)

How is migration discursively constructed as a political problem across different European contexts?

(2)

How do these constructions contribute to the redefinition of democratic boundaries of inclusion and exclusion?

(3)

How do distinct discursive logics—ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism—interact in the normalization of exclusionary politics within democratic frameworks?

Building on scholarship in political sociology, nationalism studies, and critical discourse analysis, the article conceptualizes migration as a symbolic catalyst that condenses multiple sources of political anxiety (Wodak 2015; Eatwell and Goodwin 2018). Far-right actors strategically frame migration as a threat to cultural cohesion, welfare sustainability, public security, and democratic self-determination (Mudde 2007; Halikiopoulou et al. 2013). In doing so, they frequently anchor these claims in broader civilizational narratives, where Christianity is mobilized not primarily as a matter of personal faith but as a cultural marker of belonging and exclusion, symbolically opposing “European values” to non-European migration (Mandelc 2025; Marzouki et al. 2016; Roy 2019; Morieson 2021; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022). Through these intertwined frames, migration becomes a vehicle for translating diffuse social insecurities into morally charged political claims that challenge liberal democratic principles while remaining formally embedded within democratic institutions (Runciman 2018).

The main contribution of this article is twofold. First, it develops an integrated analytical framework that brings together ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism as mutually reinforcing discursive mechanisms of democratic boundary-making. While these concepts have been studied individually, their combined operation as a coherent mechanism of normalization has not been systematically examined. Second, the article conceptualizes migration not merely as a policy issue or attitudinal trigger, but as a high-salience symbolic condensation through which broader anxieties about globalization, redistribution, and sovereignty are translated into exclusionary democratic claims. While this second contribution redefines migration as a key symbolic site of political contestation, the primary novelty of the study lies in demonstrating how these discursive logics operate together within concrete political discourse as an integrated and mutually reinforcing mechanism. In doing so, the article contributes to ongoing debates on democratic erosion by showing how illiberal outcomes can emerge through the reinterpretation, rather than rejection, of democratic norms, and how the convergence of these discursive logics enables the normalization of exclusion within democratic language.

Building on this integrated framework, the article advances three interrelated analytical perspectives to examine this process. First, the concept of ethno-pluralism captures the shift from biological racism toward culturalist forms of exclusion, in which separation rather than hierarchy is presented as the legitimate basis for preserving diversity (Zaslove 2004; Taguieff 1990, pp. 111–12). Second, welfare chauvinism explains how far-right parties combine social protection for the national in-group with the exclusion of migrants from welfare entitlements, thereby linking cultural boundaries to material distribution (Ennser-Jedenastik 2020, p. 11; Golder 2016). Third, civic nationalism highlights how far-right actors appropriate liberal values such as gender equality, secularism, and freedom of expression to justify exclusionary policies against groups deemed culturally incompatible (Halikiopoulou et al. 2013; Brubaker 2017). Together, these frameworks illuminate how exclusion is increasingly legitimized through moral and ostensibly liberal arguments rather than overtly authoritarian or racist rhetoric.

Methodologically, the article employs a qualitative comparative discourse analysis of political speeches, party programs, and public debates in selected European countries between 2014 and 2022. The selected cases represent variation in welfare regimes, migration histories, and political contexts, allowing for an examination of how far-right narratives adapt to different national settings while sharing common discursive structures (Wodak 2015; Mudde 2019). The aim is not to establish causal relationships between migration levels and electoral outcomes, but to analyze the mechanisms through which political discourse transforms migration into a central axis of democratic contestation. The study therefore adopts an interpretive, discourse-analytical approach focused on meaning-making rather than causal inference, in line with established traditions in political discourse analysis (Wodak 2015; Krzyżanowski 2020).

By focusing on discourse and normalization rather than causality, the article contributes to broader debates on democratic erosion and political polarization (Mair 2013; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Krzyżanowski and Ekström 2022). It demonstrates how far-right parties reshape the boundaries of legitimate political participation by redefining citizenship, solidarity, and democratic responsibility in exclusionary terms. In doing so, the study sheds light on the processes through which illiberal ideas gain democratic legitimacy, often without openly rejecting democratic procedures themselves (Mudde 2019; Runciman 2018).

The next section outlines the theoretical framework, clarifying the concepts of ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism and situating them within existing research on far-right politics. This is followed by a methodological section detailing the comparative discourse-analytic approach and case selection. The empirical analysis then examines how migration is framed across different national contexts and how these frames contribute to the normalization of far-right politics. The concluding section discusses the implications of these findings for democratic resilience, social cohesion, and the future of citizenship in Europe.

2. Theoretical Framework: Migration, Discourse, and the Moralization of Exclusion

A growing body of scholarship emphasizes the role of political discourse, moral framing, and symbolic boundary-making in shaping exclusionary politics within democratic systems (Mudde 2007; Wodak 2015; Norris and Inglehart 2019; Moffitt 2017; Krzyżanowski 2020). Building on this perspective, this article conceptualizes migration as a discursively constructed political problem through which democratic norms, citizenship, and social solidarity are reinterpreted and contested.

To analyze these processes, the article employs a theoretical framework integrating three interrelated concepts: ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism. Together, these perspectives explain how far-right actors legitimize exclusion not through overtly anti-democratic or explicitly racist claims, but through moralized arguments articulated in the language of democracy, fairness, and collective responsibility.

2.1. Ethno-Pluralism and Cultural Boundary-Making

One of the defining ideological shifts of the contemporary far right is the transition from biological racism to culturalist forms of exclusion. This transformation is commonly captured by the concept of ethno-pluralism, which emerged from the intellectual milieu of the French Nouvelle Droite and has since become central to far-right discourse across Europe (Taguieff 1990; Zaslove 2004). Ethno-pluralism rejects hierarchical notions of racial superiority and instead promotes the idea that all cultures are equal but must remain separate in order to survive. In this framework, exclusion is justified not as domination but as preservation. Cultural mixing is portrayed as a threat to diversity itself, while separation is framed as a respectful acknowledgment of difference. This rhetorical shift allows far-right actors to distance themselves from explicitly racist language while continuing to advocate restrictive immigration and integration policies (Mudde 2007; Brubaker 2017).

Migration plays a crucial role within ethno-pluralist discourse. Migrants are constructed as culturally incompatible with the host society, particularly when associated with Islam, which is frequently portrayed as irreconcilable with European values such as secularism, gender equality, and individual freedom (Zaslove 2004; Wodak 2015). These claims do not rely on biological arguments but on essentialized cultural differences, thereby normalizing exclusion within the bounds of democratic discourse.

More broadly, this shift reflects a wider discursive transformation in which migration is framed as a cultural and civilizational issue rather than a demographic or economic one. Across European contexts, exclusion is articulated through the vocabulary of cultural difference, incompatibility, and preservation. In empirical terms, this logic becomes visible in political discourse that presents migration as a threat to cultural continuity, social cohesion, and democratic order, thereby preparing the ground for the case-based analysis that follows.

2.2. Welfare Chauvinism and the Nationalization of Social Rights

A second key mechanism through which far-right parties legitimize exclusion is welfare chauvinism. This concept refers to the political stance that social rights and welfare benefits should be reserved primarily or exclusively for members of the national in-group, while migrants and non-citizens are portrayed as undeserving or burdensome (Ennser-Jedenastik 2020; Golder 2016).

Welfare chauvinism enables far-right actors to combine economically interventionist or protectionist positions with nativist exclusion. Rather than opposing the welfare state as such, far-right parties frequently present themselves as its defenders against alleged abuse by outsiders. In this way, cultural boundaries are translated into distributive ones, and social solidarity is redefined along national lines (Mudde 2007).

Importantly, welfare chauvinism does not depend on empirical evidence of migrants’ actual use of welfare systems. Numerous studies demonstrate that perceptions of competition and deservingness are shaped primarily by political narratives rather than material realities (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014; Dennison and Geddes 2018). Migration thus functions as a symbolic reference point through which broader anxieties about economic insecurity, redistribution, and social cohesion are articulated.

2.3. Civic Nationalism and the Moralization of Liberal Values

The third analytical pillar of this framework is civic nationalism, understood here as the strategic appropriation of liberal-democratic values to justify exclusionary policies. Far-right actors increasingly frame themselves as defenders of gender equality, secularism, freedom of expression, and democratic order against groups depicted as illiberal or incompatible with these norms (Halikiopoulou et al. 2013; Brubaker 2017, p. 30).

This form of civic moralization allows far-right parties to reposition exclusion as a necessary act of democratic self-defense. Migrants, particularly Muslims, are constructed not merely as cultural outsiders but as threats to liberal achievements. As a result, exclusionary measures can be presented as protective rather than discriminatory, and as compatible with democratic values rather than opposed to them (Wodak 2015).

Civic nationalism thus completes the discursive transformation initiated by ethno-pluralism and welfare chauvinism. Exclusion is no longer justified through appeals to race or tradition alone, but through a moral narrative that frames national boundaries as safeguards of democracy itself.

2.4. Migration as a Discursive Catalyst

Migration functions here as a high-salience signifier that bundles welfare, cultural, and sovereignty anxieties into a single moral claim (Bauman 2016; Eatwell and Goodwin 2018). The core analytical point is therefore not demographic causality but the discursive translation of diffuse insecurities into exclusionary democratic language. This provides the comparative lens for tracing how cultural, distributive, and liberal-normative vocabularies are aligned to normalize boundary-making across cases.

3. Methodology and Case Selection

This article adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design aimed at analyzing how migration is discursively constructed as a political and moral problem within contemporary European far-right politics. Rather than seeking to establish causal relationships between migration levels and electoral outcomes, the analysis focuses on the mechanisms through which political discourse translates diffuse social anxieties into exclusionary democratic claims. This approach aligns with constructivist and discourse-analytical traditions in political sociology and nationalism studies, which emphasize how political actors actively shape perceptions of social reality (Brubaker 2017; Rydgren 2018).

3.1. Discourse Analysis as an Analytical Strategy

The empirical core of the article is based on qualitative discourse analysis of political texts produced by far-right parties and their leading representatives. Discourse analysis is particularly suited to examining how migration is framed as a threat to democracy, welfare, and national cohesion, as it enables the identification of recurring narratives, metaphors, and moral oppositions through which exclusion is legitimized (Wodak 2015). More specifically, the analysis follows an interpretive tradition of political discourse analysis, drawing on insights from the discourse-historical approach (Wodak 2015) and related strands of critical discourse studies that emphasize context, framing, and the strategic construction of political meaning.

The empirical corpus was constructed as a small-N, high-salience dataset consisting of programmatic texts, parliamentary speeches, and campaign interventions produced by leading actors of the European populist right in the period covered by the study. The selection follows a purposive logic: documents were chosen where actors articulated migration, welfare, and sovereignty positions in condensed, programmatic form rather than in routine communication. This approach prioritizes discursive crystallization over statistical representativeness, consistent with interpretive political discourse analysis.

All documents were treated as performative political texts rather than factual records, meaning that the analysis focuses on how claims are constructed, justified, and legitimized, not on their empirical accuracy. Where official transcripts were unavailable, speeches were analyzed through verified media reports reproducing direct statements.

Analytically, particular attention is paid to three dimensions. First, how migration is framed in relation to cultural difference and incompatibility. Second, how welfare and social rights are nationalized and moralized through discourses of deservingness. Third, how liberal-democratic values are mobilized to justify exclusionary boundaries. These dimensions correspond to the theoretical framework outlined in the previous section and provide a consistent comparative lens across national contexts.

To ensure analytical transparency, the study follows a three-step interpretive coding procedure. The coding process was iterative and abductive, allowing for refinement of categories in interaction with the empirical material, while remaining anchored in the theoretical framework. First, all selected texts were systematically read to identify passages in which migration is explicitly or implicitly framed as a political problem. Second, these passages were coded according to the three analytical dimensions derived from the theoretical framework: (1) cultural boundary-making (ethno-pluralism), (2) welfare-based deservingness (welfare chauvinism), and (3) normative boundary-making through liberal values (civic nationalism). Third, the coded material was compared across national cases in order to identify recurring discursive patterns, similarities, and context-specific variations. This procedure allows the analysis to move from individual textual instances to broader interpretive findings while maintaining consistency across cases.

3.2. Case Selection

The study employs a comparative case-study approach, selecting a limited number of European countries that differ in welfare regimes, migration histories, and political trajectories, yet share a common pattern of far-right normalization. The cases were chosen purposively rather than statistically, with the aim of capturing variation while maintaining analytical depth (Gerring 2007).

The selected cases include France, Italy, Sweden, and Hungary. These countries represent distinct configurations of political economy and democratic experience. France exemplifies a long-standing tradition of republican universalism and a far-right party that has successfully rebranded itself through civic and cultural arguments. Italy illustrates the normalization of far-right politics within government and the fusion of welfare chauvinism with nationalist rhetoric. Sweden offers a case of far-right consolidation within a traditionally strong welfare state and liberal democratic culture. Hungary represents an extreme case in which exclusionary migration discourse has been institutionalized through illiberal governance.

The purpose of this selection is not to rank countries or to claim representativeness of Europe as a whole. Rather, it allows for an examination of how similar discursive mechanisms operate across different institutional and cultural settings, and how far-right narratives adapt to national contexts while retaining a shared ideological core (Mudde 2019; Halikiopoulou and Vasilopoulou 2018).

3.3. Time Frame and Empirical Material

The analysis covers the period from 2014 to 2022. This time frame encompasses several critical junctures in European politics, including the 2015 refugee crisis, subsequent debates on border control and integration, and the broader normalization of far-right participation in democratic institutions. It also allows for the observation of discursive shifts over time, particularly the movement from overtly exclusionary rhetoric toward more moralized and liberal-appearing justifications. The empirical corpus consists of seven key texts selected across the four national cases, including programmatic documents, parliamentary speeches, and high-salience campaign interventions. The selection prioritizes analytically dense and politically influential texts in which migration is explicitly articulated as a central political issue, enabling the identification of recurring discursive patterns across different contexts. Rather than aiming for statistical representativeness, the corpus is designed to capture discursive crystallization in key political moments.

Table 1. Overview of the empirical corpus and analytical categories.

Country	Actor	Year	Type of Document	Source	Key Theme	Analytical Category
France	Marine Le Pen	2017	Campaign speech	Rassemblement National website	Civilizational threat; national preference	Ethno-pluralism
Italy	Giorgia Meloni	2022	Senate speech	Senato della Repubblica	Legality; asylum distinction	Civic nationalism
Italy	Matteo Salvini	2017	Congress speech	TG24 Sky	Welfare protection; security	Welfare chauvinism
Sweden	Jimmie Åkesson	2014	Campaign speech	Svenskatal	Moralized exclusion; welfare strain	Civic nationalism
Sweden	Sweden Democrats	2014	Election manifesto	Swedish National Data Service	Assimilation; cultural adaptation	Ethno-pluralism
Hungary	Viktor Orbán	2015	Parliamentary speech	Hungarian Government archive	Sovereignty; legal distinction	Civic nationalism
Hungary	Official government briefing (János Lázár)	2018	Press briefing	Official government communication	Welfare threat; labour market pressure	Welfare chauvinism

provides a structured overview of the empirical corpus, including country cases, actors, text types, sources, key themes, and their analytical categorization.

Empirical material was collected from publicly available sources, including official party websites, parliamentary records, and major media interventions by party leaders. The selection of texts prioritized moments of heightened political salience, such as election campaigns, parliamentary debates on migration and welfare, and responses to major political or security events. To operationalise the qualitative comparative discourse analysis in an auditable manner, the empirical corpus was structured as a small, triangulated set of high-salience texts (2014–2022), balancing programme documents with performative speech acts and parliamentary “public debate” records. For France, the corpus draws on major speeches by Marine Le Pen (Lyon 2017) published on the Rassemblement National website (Le Pen 2017). For Italy, it includes the 2022 centre-right programme text (published by Fratelli d’Italia) and Giorgia Meloni’s programmatic declarations delivered in the Senate on 25 October 2022, complemented by Matteo Salvini’s nationally televised “Prima gli italiani” framing at the Lega congress (Fratelli d’Italia 2022). For Sweden, it uses the Sweden Democrats’ 2014 election manifesto (archived by the Swedish National Data Service from the party’s official website) and Jimmie Åkesson’s 2014 Almedalen address (Åkesson 2014). For Hungary, it draws on the government’s verbatim English transcript archive of Viktor Orbán’s 2015 parliamentary reply on migration and a 2022 speech text published on the Prime Minister’s official website, complemented by a 2018 government press briefing that explicitly frames mass migration through welfare and labour-market entitlement claims (Orbán 2015).

Given that the empirical material spans multiple linguistic contexts (French, Italian, Swedish, and Hungarian), all texts were analyzed in their original languages where possible. Translations into English were conducted by the author for analytical purposes, with attention to preserving key semantic and rhetorical elements, including core metaphors, evaluative terms, and normative expressions central to the discursive framing. In cases where official English versions were available, these were used as reference points. The analysis focuses on discursive meaning rather than literal wording, ensuring consistency in interpretation across languages.

3.4. Analytical Limitations

This study adopts a qualitative discourse-analytic design and therefore does not seek statistical generalizability. Its objective is analytical explanation of meaning-making processes rather than causal prediction. While existing quantitative research is used for contextualization, the article does not independently model correlations between migration levels and electoral outcomes, consistent with its interpretive focus.

As with all discourse analysis, interpretation is involved; to ensure analytical rigor, the study relies on established theoretical frameworks and examines recurring narrative patterns rather than isolated statements. The goal is not to infer individual intentions but to identify structured discursive logics shaping political debate.

4. Results: Discursive Mechanisms of Democratic Boundary-Making

This section presents the empirical findings of the qualitative comparative discourse analysis. Building on the coding procedure outlined in the methodology, the analysis is structured around three analytical dimensions: (1) ethno-pluralist cultural boundary-making, (2) welfare-based deservingness, and (3) civic-nationalist moralization of liberal values. Rather than treating these dimensions as isolated phenomena, the findings demonstrate how they operate as interrelated discursive mechanisms through which migration is constructed as a central political problem. The section is organized accordingly, with each subsection presenting the empirical patterns identified across the selected cases (France, Italy, Sweden, and Hungary).

Table 2. Summary of the main discursive findings across the selected cases.

Country	Ethno-Pluralist Framing	Welfare-Chauvinist Framing	Civic-Nationalist Framing	Overall Pattern
France	Migration is framed as a civilizational threat and as a challenge to national cohesion and cultural continuity.	National preference is extended to social housing, employment, and welfare-related solidarity.	Republican secularism and French values are mobilized as criteria of legitimate belonging.	Cultural threat, national solidarity, and secular-republican boundary-making are closely intertwined.
Italy	Migration is linked to the defence of historical and Judeo-Christian identity, as well as to the externalization of border control.	Restrictive migration politics is connected to the protection of jobs, housing, and public resources for nationals.	Legality, asylum distinction, and the protection of women and public order are used to justify exclusionary controls.	Civilizational identity, distributive nationalism, and legality-based exclusion operate together.
Sweden	Migration is framed through cultural adaptation, assimilation, and moralized claims about social cohesion.	Welfare priority is explicitly nationalized, especially through contrasts between migrants and the elderly or welfare recipients within the national community.	Citizenship is moralized through language, knowledge, and conduct requirements.	Moralized exclusion combines adaptation demands, welfare prioritization, and civic qualification.
Hungary	Migration is framed as a threat to sovereignty, cultural continuity, and the right of the nation not to be transformed.	Access to protection and welfare is restricted through legal-economic distinctions and narratives of labour-market and welfare pressure.	Democratic self-determination and constitutional responsibility are invoked to justify exclusion.	Sovereignty, legal restriction, and state-centred democratic boundary-making reinforce one another.

provides a concise comparative summary of the main empirical findings across the four cases. Rather than replacing the detailed case-based analysis that follows, it synthesizes how ethno-pluralist, welfare-chauvinist, and civic-nationalist discursive logics are articulated in each national context and how they converge in broader processes of democratic boundary-making.

As Table 2 shows, the three analytical dimensions do not appear as isolated national types. Across all four cases, they operate in overlapping and mutually reinforcing ways, although with different emphases depending on the political and discursive context.

4.1. Ethno-Pluralism and the Culturalization of Migration

Across the analyzed cases, migration is consistently constructed as a cultural and civilizational issue rather than a demographic or economic phenomenon. The empirical material shows recurring patterns in which migrants, particularly from Muslim-majority contexts, are framed as carriers of values incompatible with European norms of secularism, gender equality, and individual freedom. These constructions are articulated not as explicit religious intolerance, but as concerns about social cohesion, democratic order, and the protection of liberal achievements (Wodak 2015).

In the French case, ethno-pluralist boundary-making is articulated through a civilizational and systemic framing of migration. In a major presidential campaign speech, Marine Le Pen presents the election as “un choix de civilisation” (“a choice of civilisation”) and constructs migration as part of a broader dual threat. She links “immigration massive” (“mass immigration”) to “dumping social” (“social dumping”) and, at the same time, to the internal rise of “fondamentalisme islamiste” (“Islamist fundamentalism”), thereby fusing economic and cultural insecurity into a single explanatory framework (Le Pen 2017). Migration is thus not treated as an isolated issue but as a central mechanism through which both forms of “globalism” destabilize the nation.

This framing is reinforced through a narrative of national vulnerability and dispossession, where globalization and migration are described as weakening the “defences” of the nation and eroding its sovereignty, identity, and social cohesion. The metaphor of “submersion migratoire” (“migratory flooding”) condenses this argument into an image of civilizational emergency, portraying migration as a force that threatens the continuity of the national community.

At the same time, the discourse establishes a clear hierarchy of belonging. Migrants are expected to fully adapt to the cultural and normative framework of the host society, as Le Pen explicitly states that those who come to France should find it as it is, rather than transform it. This positions cultural conformity as a precondition of inclusion. In parallel, the speech introduces the principle of national preference in welfare and social rights, linking access to resources and protection to membership in the national community. Together, these elements illustrate how ethno-pluralist discourse in the French case combines civilizational framing, threat fusion, and conditional belonging within a broader narrative of national restoration.

In the Italian case, the empirical material reveals a combined civilizational, geopolitical, and securitized framing of migration. The 2022 centre-right programme explicitly anchors migration governance in the “defence and promotion” of Europe’s “historical and cultural identities,” defined as “classical and Judeo-Christian” (Fratelli d’Italia 2022). This formulation situates migration within a broader civilizational narrative that links national identity to Western and European heritage.

Migration is embedded within a geopolitical framework that emphasizes Italy’s “centrality in the Mediterranean” and promotes cooperation with African countries as a strategy to address migration flows at their origin. This external dimension is further reinforced by proposals for the creation of asylum “hotspots” outside the European Union and for coordinated action to block irregular arrivals, thereby shifting border control beyond national territory.

Domestically, migration is framed through a security-oriented logic, including measures to “combat illegal immigration” and strengthen territorial control. However, this restrictive approach is combined with a selective inclusion model: while irregular migration is to be prevented, legal migration is to be “managed” and integrated into the labour market and social system. In parliamentary discourse, Giorgia Meloni reinforces this distinction by differentiating between those entitled to asylum and those who are not, thereby combining humanitarian justification with exclusionary boundary-making (Senato della Repubblica 2022).

Taken together, the Italian case illustrates a form of ethno-pluralist boundary-making that operates through the articulation of civilizational identity, the externalization of border governance, and the differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate forms of mobility.

The Swedish case illustrates how ethno-pluralist logic is articulated through a combination of moral reframing, welfare protection, and conditional integration. In the Sweden Democrats’ discourse, restrictive migration positions are explicitly detached from accusations of racism and redefined as expressions of “medmänsklighet” (humaneness). In a major campaign speech, Jimmie Åkesson repeatedly asserts that opposing practices such as honor-based violence, prioritizing national welfare resources, and demanding adaptation from migrants “is not racism” but rather a form of moral responsibility (Åkesson 2014). This discursive move shifts exclusion from the domain of prejudice to that of ethical obligation.

At the same time, migration is constructed as a pressure on the welfare state and social cohesion. The speech links “mass immigration” to welfare strain, social fragmentation, and economic imbalance, thereby embedding cultural boundary-making within a broader narrative of resource protection and societal stability. This framing aligns with, but also extends beyond, classical welfare chauvinism by presenting exclusion not only as economically rational but as socially necessary.

This logic is further institutionalized in the party’s 2014 election manifesto, which explicitly calls for a return to an assimilationist model in which “immigrants should adapt to Sweden, not the other way around” (Sweden Democrats 2014). Cultural compatibility thus becomes the implicit condition of inclusion, while the burden of integration is placed unilaterally on migrants. Together, these elements illustrate how ethno-pluralist discourse operates through the normalization of exclusion within a moral, welfare-oriented, and ostensibly non-racist framework.

In the Hungarian case, migration is framed primarily as a question of democratic sovereignty and legal authority rather than solely as a cultural or economic issue. In a parliamentary reply, Viktor Orbán explicitly distinguishes between refugees and economic migrants, asserting that there is no international obligation to accept the latter and that migrants do not have the right to choose their destination (Orbán 2015). This legalistic framing redefines migration as a matter of rule enforcement rather than humanitarian obligation.

At the same time, Orbán introduces a key distinction between the “resolution” and the “management” of migration. While acknowledging that Hungary cannot resolve the global causes of migration, he insists on the state’s duty to manage its consequences in line with national interests. This distinction legitimizes concrete policy measures such as border fences, stricter penal regulations, and territorial control, framing them as necessary instruments of governance rather than exceptional responses.

The discourse culminates in a normative claim about collective self-determination. Orbán poses the fundamental question of whether Hungary has the right “not to change” its “cultural pattern” in response to large-scale migration. Migration is thus constructed as a potential transformation of the national community, and its rejection is justified as an expression of democratic mandate and constitutional responsibility. In this sense, ethno-pluralist boundary-making in the Hungarian case is grounded in a synthesis of legal reasoning, territorial control, and the assertion of sovereign authority over cultural continuity.

Across these cases, a common discursive pattern emerges. Migration is not framed primarily in terms of economic impact or individual integration, but as a collective cultural and civilizational issue. While the specific vocabulary varies, ranging from civilizational threat (France), cultural identity (Italy) and integration and cohesion (Sweden) to sovereignty and self-determination (Hungary), the underlying logic remains consistent: migrants are constructed as culturally incompatible groups whose presence challenges the integrity of the national community. These variations reflect differences in national political contexts and institutional settings, but do not alter the core discursive structure through which exclusion is articulated.

4.2. Welfare Chauvinism and the Moral Economy of Belonging

While ethno-pluralism provides a cultural justification for exclusion, welfare chauvinism anchors far-right discourse in the material and moral domain of social rights. Across European contexts, far-right actors increasingly frame migration not only as a cultural challenge but as a threat to the sustainability and fairness of welfare systems. This shift is crucial for understanding how exclusionary politics gain traction among voters who may otherwise support social protection and redistribution. In the Italian context, Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega, has frequently linked restrictive migration policies to concerns about security and the protection of social welfare systems. In political rallies and public speeches, Salvini has repeatedly linked migration control to the protection of employment, public resources, and national security, arguing that migrants strain state spending and welfare provision while stricter border enforcement is necessary to defend Italian workers and taxpayers (TG24 Sky 2017; Mcginnis 2021). This claim asserts that migration and open borders threaten both the sustainability of the welfare state and the security of citizens. Such statements illustrate how populist rhetoric intertwines material concerns with symbolic narratives of protection, legitimizing exclusion through moral arguments about fairness, security, and national responsibility.

Welfare chauvinism refers to the idea that access to welfare benefits, public services, and social rights should be reserved primarily for members of the national community. Migrants are portrayed as undeserving beneficiaries who contribute little yet demand access to scarce collective resources (Ennser-Jedenastik 2020). Importantly, this discourse does not reject the welfare state itself. On the contrary, far-right parties often present themselves as its committed defenders, arguing that welfare systems can only survive if they are protected from external exploitation.

In Italy, welfare chauvinism is operationalised through an explicit national-priority formula that collapses social rights into in-group entitlement. In a nationally reported 2017 address at the Lega congress, Matteo Salvini condenses this logic into a distributive slogan: “Prima gli italiani” and, crucially, “Per tutto: lavoro, case popolari, legittima difesa” (»Italians first, for everything: work, public housing, and self-defence«). The phrase is not a marginal provocation but a deliberately generalisable distributive principle, aligning welfare-like goods (housing access) with citizenship-like hierarchies, and transforming solidarity from a universalistic norm into a nationalised moral economy (TG24 Sky 2017). This framing represents a form of distributive protectionism, in which welfare resources are discursively constructed as finite national goods that must be shielded from external claimants.

While in Italy, welfare chauvinism is articulated through distributive protection and security concerns, in France, it takes the form of a moral defence of national solidarity by excluding imagined external beneficiaries. In the same 2017 campaign speech that frames migration as a civilizational threat, Marine Le Pen describes French social benefits as endangered precisely because they are “distribuées à ceux qui viennent du monde entier” (»distributed to those who come from the whole world«), and then translates that moral claim into a concrete distributive mechanism: “dans le logement social, l’emploi, nous établirons la priorité nationale” (“in social housing and employment, we will establish national priority”), explicitly promising constitutional entrenchment of national priority. The discursive move is classic welfare chauvinism: the welfare state is not rejected but nationalised, with redistribution reframed as an obligation owed primarily, and morally, to the in-group (Le Pen 2017).

Swedish welfare chauvinism is unusually explicit because it is stated as an allocation choice between the elderly and migration. In Jimmie Åkesson’s Almedalen speech (2014), he asserts that prioritising elderly care over “en resursslukande, kostsam massinvandring” is “inte rasism” but “medmänsklighet” (»it is not racism but human compassion to prioritise care for the elderly over a resource-draining, costly mass immigration«). The rhetorical strategy moralises exclusion by presenting national welfare priority as compassion rather than hostility, thereby making exclusion compatible with a self-image of moral responsibility (Åkesson 2014).

In Hungary, welfare chauvinism is articulated through a combination of legal restriction and distributive alarmism. In his 2015 parliamentary reply, Viktor Orbán explicitly separates refugees from “economic migrants”, emphasizing that “no country in the world is obliged to accept them”, thereby limiting entitlement to social protection through a legal-economic distinction (Orbán 2015). This framing redefines eligibility as conditional upon legal status and state recognition, coupling welfare provision with registration, compliance, and institutional control.

This logic is further amplified in governmental discourse through explicit claims about the distributive consequences of migration. In a 2018 government briefing, János Lázár argued that making migration “organised, continuous and legal” would function as an “invitation” to millions, who would become “eligible for social benefits and should be given jobs”. Here, the welfare state and labour market are framed as finite national resources threatened by the expansion of entitlement beyond the national community.

Taken together, these elements illustrate a dual mechanism: welfare chauvinism operates both as a legal restriction of eligibility and as a moralized defence of scarce distributive goods, positioning exclusion as necessary to protect the social and economic rights of the national in-group.

This moralization of welfare transforms social policy into a question of belonging rather than need. This represents a process of moral boundary construction, in which welfare is redefined as an instrument of in-group protection. Eligibility for support is framed not in universalistic or rights-based terms, but through narratives of contribution, loyalty, and cultural fit. Migrants are frequently depicted as violating an implicit moral contract between the state and its citizens, regardless of their actual participation in labor markets or tax systems. As numerous studies have shown, such perceptions are largely independent of empirical evidence and are instead shaped by political messaging and media framing (Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014, p. 225; Dennison and Geddes 2018).

What makes welfare chauvinism particularly effective is its ability to link economic insecurity to cultural exclusion without explicitly invoking race or ethnicity. In periods of austerity, rising inequality, or perceived competition for public resources, far-right actors translate structural economic anxieties into personalized grievances directed at migrants. Welfare scarcity is thus framed as the consequence of migration rather than of broader political or economic decisions. This narrative shift allows far-right parties to deflect criticism from neoliberal restructuring while presenting themselves as advocates of social justice for the national in-group (Golder 2016).

The democratic implications of welfare chauvinism extend beyond social policy. By redefining solidarity in exclusionary terms, far-right discourse narrows the moral boundaries of citizenship itself. Welfare becomes a marker of national identity, and access to social rights is transformed into a test of belonging. This shift undermines universalistic conceptions of citizenship and replaces them with conditional models that tie democratic inclusion to cultural conformity (Brubaker 2017).

While the underlying logic of welfare chauvinism remains consistent, its articulation varies: it appears as distributive nationalism in Italy, solidarity protection in France, moral prioritization in Sweden, and legal restriction of entitlement in Hungary.

At the same time, welfare chauvinism contributes to the normalization of exclusion within democratic debate. Because arguments about fairness, contribution, and sustainability resonate with widely shared moral intuitions, they render exclusionary positions more socially acceptable. Opposition to migration can thus be framed not as hostility toward outsiders, but as a reasonable defense of social cohesion and distributive justice. In this way, welfare chauvinism complements ethno-pluralist discourse by translating cultural boundaries into material ones.

Taken together, these dynamics show how welfare chauvinism operates as a discursive bridge between economic insecurity and nationalist exclusion. Migration is reframed as a moralized question of deservingness, linking redistribution to narratives of protection, fairness, and belonging. These welfare-based arguments are further reinforced through the strategic appropriation of liberal and democratic vocabularies, allowing exclusionary practices to be reframed as legitimate expressions of fairness, responsibility, and collective self-protection.

4.3. Civic Nationalism and the Moralization of Liberal Values

Across the analyzed cases, civic-nationalist framing operates as a key discursive mechanism through which liberal-democratic values are reinterpreted as criteria for exclusion. The empirical material demonstrates how far-right actors mobilize concepts such as gender equality, secularism, freedom of expression, and the rule of law to construct migrants as incompatible with democratic norms. In this sense, civic nationalism, as employed by contemporary far-right parties, does not reject democracy or liberal values outright. Instead, it reinterprets them, presenting these values as fragile achievements that require protection from groups portrayed as illiberal or culturally incompatible (Halikiopoulou et al. 2013). Migration, particularly from Muslim-majority societies, becomes central to this narrative.

What is striking in this discourse is the inversion of traditional roles. Far-right actors present themselves as defenders of liberalism, while migrants are depicted as its potential destroyers. This framing allows exclusionary policies to be articulated as acts of democratic self-defense rather than as violations of democratic principles. Opposition to migration is thus recast as a moral obligation to protect equality, freedom, and social order. In France, civic-nationalist exclusion is constructed by translating republican values into moral boundary tests, especially through laïcité and legal–cultural conformity (Asad 2003; Casanova 1994; Fernando 2014). In her 2017 speech, Le Pen asserts that there will be “pas…d’autres lois et valeurs en France que françaises” (“no laws and values in France other than French ones”) and proposes extending laïcité to “l’espace public” (»the public space«) as a response to perceived “revendications religieuses” (“religious demands”). The civic idiom is central: exclusionary integration is justified not through ethnic hierarchy but through the defence of secular republicanism, portrayed as a fragile achievement threatened by “conflicts” linked to religious difference. In effect, liberal-republican norms become criteria for civic membership, enabling restrictive policy to appear as value-defence rather than discrimination.

In Sweden, civic exclusion is institutionalised through language-and-knowledge requirements framed as raising the “value” of citizenship. The 2014 Sweden Democrats manifesto calls for “språk och kunskapstester” (“language and knowledge tests”) and for lengthening the period of “klanderfri vandel” (“blameless conduct”) before citizenship can be granted, explicitly presenting this as “en höjning av medborgarskapets värde” (“an increase in the value of citizenship”). The same passage couples these tests with a selective welfare mechanism, proposing to limit new arrivals’ access to benefit systems in their first years. The civic nationalist move is to recode membership as a moral-competence achievement, thereby legitimising exclusion as the defence of civic standards rather than ethnic closure (Sweden Democrats 2014).

In Italy, civic-nationalist framing links legality, humanitarian differentiation, and protection of vulnerable groups into a justification for externalised border control. In her Senate declaration of 25 October 2022, Meloni affirmed that the government does “non mettiamo in discussione il diritto d’asilo per chi fugge da guerre e persecuzioni” (“not put in discussion the right of asylum for those fleeing wars and persecutions”) while insisting on stricter control of irregular entries (Senato della Repubblica 2022). In parallel, the 2022 centre-right programme embeds immigration control within a security-and-values frame, including “azioni incisive…contro…violenza…nei confronti delle donne” alongside “contrasto…all’integralismo islamico” (“decisive actions…against…violence…against women”). The discursive effect is to present exclusionary border measures as a form of civic defence grounded in legality, humanitarian order, and liberal safety norms (Senato della Repubblica 2022). In this way, civic norms of legality, humanitarian distinction, and protection are mobilized as criteria for legitimate membership, allowing exclusion to be framed as the enforcement of civic order rather than its violation.

Hungary illustrates civic nationalism as democratic self-determination, where constitutional mandate is invoked to constrain who counts as part of the political community entitled to co-residence. In his 2015 parliamentary reply, Orbán differentiates “genuine refugees” from “economic migrants” and grounds refusal in legal-rational claims about international conventions and state obligation, while insisting that Hungary has the right to decide “whom they wish to live together with” and that such decisions cannot be “dictated” by external centres. The civic logic is less about universal rights than about popular authorisation and constitutional duty, deployed to reframe exclusion as democratic accountability to “the Hungarian people” rather than as illiberal closure (Orbán 2015). This case illustrates a broader pattern across the analysed contexts. While the underlying logic of civic nationalism remains consistent, its articulation varies: it appears as secular-republican boundary-making in France, merit-based civic qualification in Sweden, legality-driven humanitarian differentiation in Italy, and sovereignty-based democratic self-determination in Hungary.

Across these cases, these arguments rarely rely on empirical assessments of individual behavior. Instead, they operate through generalized claims about values and norms, attributing fixed cultural characteristics to entire groups. Migrants are not excluded because of what they do, but because of what they are presumed to represent. Civic values are transformed into boundary-making tools, used to distinguish between those who belong to the democratic community and those who allegedly threaten it (Brubaker 2017).

In several European contexts, this moralization of liberal values has proven particularly effective because it resonates with mainstream concerns about social cohesion and democratic stability. Far-right discourse frequently emphasizes that tolerance has limits and that excessive openness undermines the very foundations of liberal society. By framing exclusion as a necessary correction to liberal excess, far-right actors position themselves as pragmatic realists rather than ideological extremists (Wodak 2015).

The appeal of civic nationalism lies in its ability to affirm democratic norms while simultaneously narrowing their scope. Rights and freedoms are reframed as conditional upon cultural conformity, subtly transforming citizenship from a legal status into a moral qualification.

Such discursive strategies also complicate political opposition. Because exclusion is justified through reference to widely shared liberal ideals, it becomes more difficult to challenge without appearing indifferent to issues such as gender equality or freedom of expression. Critics of far-right positions may find themselves framed as relativists or as enablers of illiberal practices, further polarizing public debate. From the perspective of democratic theory (Mudde 2019), civic nationalism represents a critical point of tension. It demonstrates how democratic language can be mobilized to legitimize illiberal outcomes. Far-right parties do not necessarily seek to dismantle democratic institutions. Rather, they work to redefine the moral boundaries of democratic participation from within, gradually normalizing exclusionary interpretations of citizenship and belonging.

Taken together, the findings across the analyzed cases show that ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism operate as an integrated discursive mechanism of democratic boundary-making rather than as separate strategies. Ethno-pluralism provides a cultural rationale for separation by redefining exclusion as respect for difference; welfare chauvinism translates cultural boundaries into moral claims about deservingness and redistribution; and civic nationalism reframes exclusion as the protection of liberal-democratic values themselves. Migration functions as a central symbolic node through which these cultural, economic, and normative concerns are aligned into a coherent narrative of exclusion.

This convergence of discursive logics helps explain why far-right politics has become harder to marginalize within European democracies. Exclusion is no longer presented as an alternative to liberal democracy, but as its reinterpretation from within. The implications of this shift for democratic resilience and social cohesion are addressed in the following section.

5. Discussion: Discursive Boundary-Making and the Mechanisms of Democratic Erosion

The analysis presented in this article challenges simplified explanations that attribute the rise of far-right parties in Europe directly to mass migration by demonstrating how migration is discursively constructed and politically mobilized across distinct national contexts.

One of the key contributions of this study is the shift from causal to interpretive explanation. Rather than asking whether migration causes far-right success, the article examines how migration is transformed into a political problem that enables the normalization of exclusionary politics within democratic systems (Krzyżanowski and Ekström 2022, pp. 721–22). This perspective responds directly to long-standing critiques in the literature, which caution against deterministic accounts that overstate the explanatory power of migration levels while underestimating the role of political agency, discourse, and institutional context (Norris and Inglehart 2019; Mudde 2019). This does not imply that material conditions are irrelevant, but that their political significance is mediated and activated through discursive processes.

Across the empirical material analyzed (France, Italy, Sweden, Hungary), migration consistently functions as a discursive shortcut. It condenses heterogeneous concerns about economic insecurity, cultural change, declining trust in institutions, and perceived loss of political control into a single, emotionally charged issue. Far-right actors exploit this condensation by framing migration as an external force that disrupts social cohesion and undermines democratic order. Such framing corresponds to what Wodak describes as a core element of the right-wing populist “toolkit”, where “victim–perpetrator reversal”, “scapegoating” and the “construction of conspiracy theories” structure the discursive production of threat (Wodak 2015, p. 4). This interpretive dynamic is reinforced by what recent research identifies as the strategic use of conspiratorial narratives within populist radical-right communication, which “perpetuate the antagonism between an evil elite…and the people” (Hofmann 2024). In doing so, they offer seemingly coherent explanations for complex social transformations, even when these explanations lack empirical grounding.

The integration of ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism can be understood as a mechanism of democratic boundary work through which exclusionary politics gain legitimacy without overtly rejecting democratic norms. Each of these discursive logics addresses a distinct register of political anxiety, cultural continuity, distributive fairness, and value protection, yet they converge in redefining who is entitled to membership in the political community. Ethno-pluralism culturalizes exclusion by framing separation as the preservation of difference, welfare chauvinism moralizes redistribution by linking social rights to national belonging, and civic nationalism reframes liberal-democratic principles as conditional upon cultural conformity (Berntzen 2019; Camus et al. 2017). Migration functions as the central symbolic axis that connects these narratives, allowing heterogeneous grievances to be articulated through a shared language of protection and responsibility. In this configuration, democratic concepts are not abandoned but strategically reinterpreted and redeployed, a dynamic consistent with research showing how radical right discourse resonates through broader moral and cognitive frames, including conspiratorial interpretations of political conflict (Hofmann 2024). Citizenship, solidarity, and equality are thus not rejected but recalibrated in culturally and morally selective terms, narrowing the boundaries of democratic inclusion while maintaining the appearance of normative continuity. Democratic erosion, in this sense, proceeds less through institutional rupture than through the gradual moral redefinition of membership, aligning with scholarship that emphasizes incremental and internally driven forms of democratic backsliding (Mair 2013; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). This discursive recalibration constitutes a mechanism of democratic erosion insofar as it narrows the scope of equal membership without formally altering institutional structures.

The discussion also highlights why far-right discourse resonates beyond traditional extremist constituencies. By embedding exclusionary claims within familiar moral vocabularies, far-right actors reduce the perceived radicalism of their positions. Arguments about fairness, protection, and responsibility appeal to widely shared intuitions, particularly in contexts marked by economic uncertainty or institutional distrust. This helps explain why far-right narratives increasingly penetrate mainstream political debate and influence policy agendas even when far-right parties do not hold executive power (Halikiopoulou and Vasilopoulou 2018). These discursive strategies also have important consequences for patterns of political participation. By framing exclusion as a matter of fairness, protection, and collective responsibility, far-right actors mobilize voters not primarily through overt ideological radicalism, but through appeals that appear normatively legitimate and democratically grounded. Exclusionary narratives thus function as mechanisms of political activation: they transform diffuse anxieties into actionable grievances and encourage electoral engagement aimed at “defending” the moral community. These discursive shifts are also consequential for patterns of participation beyond electoral mobilisation. By redefining democratic membership through cultural compatibility, deservingness, and “value defence”, far-right normalization can simultaneously mobilize in-group participation while discouraging participation among targeted minorities and migrant-origin citizens. This dynamic contributes to polarization by transforming policy disagreement into moral conflict over who legitimately belongs to the political community. Democratic backsliding may therefore unfold not only institutionally but participatorily, as the boundaries of voice, representation, and civic legitimacy are narrowed through ordinary political contestation.

At the same time, the findings complicate normative responses to far-right politics. Because exclusion is justified through references to liberal values, opposition risks being framed as naive, irresponsible, or indifferent to democratic stability. This dynamic helps explain the diffusion of such narratives into mainstream political competition and weakens the capacity of democratic actors to articulate alternative narratives that are both inclusive and credible. The challenge is not merely to counter far-right claims empirically, but to contest the moral frameworks through which exclusion is rendered legitimate.

From a theoretical perspective, the article contributes to debates on nationalism and democracy by demonstrating how national belonging is increasingly defined through moral and cultural criteria rather than formal citizenship alone. This shift reflects broader transformations in the relationship between nation, state, and democracy under conditions of globalization. Migration becomes the terrain on which these transformations are negotiated, not because it is the root cause of political change, but because it provides a powerful symbolic language for expressing it (Brubaker 2017).

The discussion also underscores the importance of welfare politics in shaping democratic boundaries. Welfare chauvinism illustrates how redistribution can be nationalized and moralized in ways that undermine universalistic principles. When access to social rights becomes contingent on perceived deservingness and cultural conformity, democratic inclusion is subtly reconfigured. This process does not require authoritarian governance. It unfolds through ordinary political debate and policy justification, which makes it particularly difficult to detect and resist.

6. Conclusions: Normalization of Exclusion and Democratic Erosion in Europe

The analysis has demonstrated that the political significance of migration lies not in its demographic scale alone, but in its systematic transformation into a moral and political boundary-making device across different national contexts. Migration functions as a high-salience signifier that bundles welfare, cultural, and sovereignty anxieties into a single moral claim. The core analytical point is therefore not demographic causality, but the discursive translation of these anxieties into exclusionary democratic language. Far-right actors actively mobilize these anxieties by framing migration as a threat that requires moral, political, and institutional defense. In this sense, migration is not the origin of democratic strain, but a privileged site where deeper tensions become visible and politically actionable. This article thus contributes to the literature by conceptualising the convergence of ethno-pluralism, welfare chauvinism, and civic nationalism as a unified mechanism of democratic boundary-making.

A central contribution lies in its emphasis on normalization rather than rupture. Far-right politics does not gain influence primarily by rejecting democracy or positioning itself outside democratic norms. Instead, it operates within democratic frameworks, gradually reshaping their meaning. Concepts such as citizenship, solidarity, and equality are reinterpreted through cultural, moral, and national criteria. Democratic inclusion becomes conditional, and exclusion is presented as a legitimate, even necessary, response to perceived threats. This process is made possible through the convergence of three discursive mechanisms analyzed in the article. Ethno-pluralism provides a cultural rationale for separation by redefining exclusion as respect for difference, welfare chauvinism translates cultural boundaries into moral claims about deservingness and redistribution. Civic nationalism then reframes exclusion as the protection of liberal-democratic values themselves. Together, these mechanisms form a coherent narrative that allows far-right actors to justify restrictive and exclusionary policies without abandoning democratic language.

The implications of this convergence are significant. When exclusion is articulated as culturally sensitive, economically fair, and democratically responsible, it becomes increasingly difficult to challenge. Opposition risks being framed as naive, elitist, or indifferent to democratic stability. As a result, far-right narratives are able to travel beyond their original constituencies and shape mainstream political debate, even in contexts where far-right parties do not hold formal power.

From the perspective of democratic theory, this dynamic raises important questions about the resilience of liberal democracy. Democratic erosion does not necessarily occur through abrupt institutional breakdowns or authoritarian takeovers. It can unfold gradually, through subtle shifts in moral boundaries and the normalization of exclusionary interpretations of democratic principles. The analysis presented here underscores how democratic language itself can be mobilized to legitimize illiberal outcomes. The analysis also highlights the central role of welfare politics in contemporary boundary-making. Welfare chauvinism demonstrates how social protection can be detached from universalistic principles and reattached to national or cultural membership. When access to social rights is framed as a reward for belonging rather than a matter of shared citizenship, democratic solidarity is narrowed. This transformation does not require explicit hostility toward migrants. It operates through moralized narratives of fairness, contribution, and responsibility that resonate with widely held intuitions.

Methodologically, the study reinforces the value of qualitative and discourse-analytic approaches for understanding far-right politics. While quantitative research remains essential for mapping patterns of electoral support and attitudes, it cannot fully capture the symbolic and moral dimensions through which political meaning is produced. Discourse analysis allows us to examine how political actors construct problems, assign blame, and define legitimate solutions. In the case of migration, these constructions are central to understanding why far-right narratives resonate even in societies with limited migration or strong welfare institutions. Future research may extend this framework through longitudinal, comparative, or mixed-method designs to examine how these discursive patterns interact with institutional and socio-economic variables.

Despite these limitations, the article concludes that the political challenge posed by the far right in Europe cannot be addressed solely by managing migration or correcting empirical misperceptions. As long as exclusion can be articulated as morally justified and democratically necessary, far-right narratives are likely to remain persuasive. Countering democratic erosion therefore requires engagement not only with policies, but with the moral and symbolic frameworks through which democracy itself is defined.

In this sense, migration serves as a revealing lens. It exposes the fragility of democratic universals under conditions of uncertainty and demonstrates how easily liberal values can be reinterpreted in exclusionary ways. Understanding this process is essential for any attempt to strengthen democratic resilience and to develop forms of political belonging that are both inclusive and credible in contemporary Europe.