Ties of Solidarity at the Fringes of the Political Spectrum: Partisan Cleavages in Reported Solidarity Action across Europe

The strength of solidarity ties among individuals is often discussed in relationship to membership within a community of equals. This assumes a strong correlation between attitudes of solidarity towards co-citizens, reported solidarity-action and national identity. In terms of political party affiliation, we would expect that adherents of political parties driven by right-identitarian politics and parties driven by left-distributive politics differ considerably in terms of reported solidarity action and that such differences are explained by the nationality of the different groups as targets of solidarity. In this paper, we test these assumptions by looking at ideological cleavages in attitudes and reported solidarity action towards three different target groups of solidarity: unemployed (nationals), disabled persons (nationals) and refugees (non-nationals). By comparing respondents at the right and left fringes of the political spectrum with adherents of centre-left and centre-right parties (control group) across countries, we can systematically map solidarity attitudes and behavior across the ideological spectrum. Our findings indicate first of all that partisan affiliation matters: there are important ideological cleavages in solidarity attitudes and behavior that divide populations. Secondly, and contrary to the expectation, adherents of right-wing populist parties are among those being least solidarious towards both nationals and foreigners, while adherents of left and radical left parties show strong levels of engagement in solidarity action at both national and transnational level.