We investigate the effect of welfare state retrenchment on vote support for radical right parties in the 2000s. In countries with a legacy of national accommodative communism, early differentiation of major parties on socio-cultural issues and strategies of social policy compensation kept reform losers at bay, which limited votrer success of radical parties. Highly polarized patrimonial regimes, on the contrary, are the most fertile breeding ground for the radial right due to the high levels of inequality and dissatisfation resulting from a rapid dismantling of the welfare state.