LGBTIQ+ movements as Drivers of Democratization? Exploring the role of LGBTIQ+ activism in promoting, defending and deepening democracy

Abstract

The erosion of LGBTIQ+ rights, coupled with targeted attacks on LGBTIQ+ activists and LGBTIQ+ movements, is increasingly recognized as a significant indicator of de-democratization processes and a key component of authoritarian playbooks and democratic backsliding. A growing body of scholarship demonstrates that attacks on democratic institutions, civic space and democratic norms worldwide have been accompanied, and promoted, by an increase in rhetoric and policymaking targeting LGBTIQ+ people and communities. Notably, LGBTIQ+ movements and activists have become the main targets of anti-gender campaigns, far-right mobilisations and authoritarian gender policies, and anti-LGBTIQ+ discourse is being used as a gateway and legitimization to challenge fundamental democratic principles. However, less attention has been paid to how LGBTIQ+ movements and LGBTIQ+ activisms are drivers of democratic resilience, democratic resistance or democratic innovation and which role they play, and have played, in promoting, defending, consolidating or deepening democracy. Despite a growing body of work that focuses on social movements as "laboratories of democracy” (della Porta), LGBTIQ+ movements are rarely addressed within this scholarship. Therefore, this panel aims to shed light on the role of LGBTIQ+ movements, LGBTIQ+ activism and LGBTIQ+ initiatives for democratization processes in varying regimes (e.g. liberal and illiberal democracies, authoritarian regimes), geopolitical spaces, and socio-political contexts. Different democratizing strategies and implications of LGBTIQ+ activism and LGBTIQ+ movements, such as promoting strategic litigation, queering the workplace, fostering queer citizenship education, defending civic space, or engaging in counter-hegemonic/dissident citizenship practices, will be explored. Furthermore, and by bringing together insights from Social Movement Studies, Democratic Theory, Queer State Theory, LGBTIQ+ Studies, Organizational Studies and International Relations, the panel will address important conceptual and analytical questions concerning the complex and contentious relationship between democracy/democratization and LGBTIQ+ activism, and discuss to what extent established state-/institution-focused political and social science approaches to democratization and social movements can grasp the democratizing impact of LGBTIQ+ movements and LGBTIQ+ activism.

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