Implications of the rise of right wing populism for health care during the pandemic and beyond

Over the past decade, some of the world's most stable parliamentary democracies have witnessed a resurgence in right-wing populist political parties, movements, and leaders. Although there is a burgeoning literature documenting the rise of populist political movements, there has been little exploration of the implications of this important political development for health care. In this chapter we draw from an illustrative example of vaccine hesitancy. We consider the example of Italy, as a case of a populist mobilisation against public health vaccination programmes, before considering the populist mobilisation of antivaccination rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the work of the influential socio-political theorist Ernesto Laclau, we interpret populism as a performative political act, predicated on drawing logics of equivalence (and difference) between different actors. We use this theoretical framing to explore the ways in which the recent upsurge in right-wing populism deepens inequalities in access to healthcare.