A Rotten Romance: Populism, Gender and Civil Society in CEE and the Balkans

Abstract

The research to date has tended to neglect the gender dimension of populism. Mudde and Kaltwasser concluded in 2015 that "both in theory and practice, populists do not hold a strong position on gender issues, feature relatively seldom in populist programmes and propaganda, irrespective of accompanying ideology and geographical region” (Mudde/Kaltwasser, 2015: 35). However, gender scholars have increasingly questioned this assumption (Kuhar/Paternotte, 2017; Dietze/Roth, 2020; Lazaridis/Campani et al., 2016; Graff/Korolczuk, 2018; Grzebalska/Pető, 2018; Krizsan/Roggeband, 2018). The ongoing protests in Poland against the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling on abortion law in October last year, constitute a prime example of how central gender issues are to contemporary right-wing populist politics. In CEE, gender is increasingly framed as ‘’Western colonization’’ (Graff/Korolczuk, 2018) and used as a symbol of a neoliberal transition going ‘’the wrong direction’’ (Kovats/Poim, 2015). On the other hand, women’s and LGBT rights often used by right-wing populists (especially in Western European countries) as an exclusively European, liberal achievement that serve as a demarcation line between ‘’us’’ (modern, reasonable) and ‘’them’’ (traditional, irrational) (Puar, 2017; Klapeer, 2017; Bruster, 2015). The aim of this panel is to present four distinct aspects of the gender-populism nexus. Firstly, we examine how anti-gender and right-wing narratives are related on the discursive level. Both use anti-communism, EU colonisation and traditional notions of family as the key points to construct a pillar of new nationhood, which is not adequately challenged by ‘’progressive’’ forces. Secondly, we complement this with insights from the political landscape in which populist actors operate, by zooming in on the civil and political society nexus, using social network data from actors mobilised around gender in the city of Krakow. Thirdly, we explore the new feminist mobilizations and protests in CEE with the focus on Poland, and the strategies the new social movements use to mobilize against the anti-gender policies and political alliances. Lastly, we complement the debate with the empirical assessment on how women differentiate from the typically assumed attributes of populist voters. Our panel contributes to the ongoing debate on relation between gender and right-wing populism by presenting how both operate in their respective national settings (focusing on CEE and post-Yugoslav region). The common thread of our papers is the focus on gender- in its political, discursive, and economic dimensions - in order to open up room for discussing the complexities in the post-state socialist region and the lessons that can be drawn for populism studies beyond CEE and the Balkans. The multidisciplinary approach to the topic and the variety of methods applied - ranging from digital ethnographic fieldwork to quantitative methods, discourse, and social network analysis – ensures that this panel creates bridges within populism research.

Title	Details
Challenging anti-gender and right-wing narratives: a critical insight into the ‘’progressive’’ politics in CEE and the Balkans	View Paper Details
Gender in a Pillarized Society: A relational approach to contemporary illiberal and populist politics in Poland	View Paper Details
Mobilising against the Right-Wing Populism: New Feminist Protests in East Central Europe	View Paper Details
Is CEE a creature of its own? Ladies at the ballot	View Paper Details
The Tactics of the International Organization for the Family - Transnationalizing the agenda of heterosexual family rights	View Paper Details