Anti-Gender Statecraft in Authoritarian and De-Democratizing Orders

Abstract

This panel examines anti-gender politics as a key component of authoritarian statecraft in contemporary authoritarian and de-democratizing political contexts. It conceptualizes anti-gender, anti-feminist, and backlash discourses, imaginaries, and policies as governing strategies through which political actors reorganize power, legitimacy, and social order in times of democratic erosion. The papers brought together in this panel explore how anti-gender politics intersect with right-wing populism, nationalism, and illiberal governance, functioning both ideologically and institutionally. They show how gender and family become central sites through which exclusionary political projects are articulated, normalized, and embedded within political institutions and public discourse. Conceptually, the panel advances critical perspectives on power by engaging with biopolitical and necrobiopolitical frameworks to examine how anti-gender politics govern bodies, reproduction, and family through mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Empirically, the panel brings together comparative analyses from across Europe, addressing phenomena such as gender fatigue, backlash politics, and the institutionalization of gender and family “ideology” within authoritarian-populist projects. As a result, it highlights how anti-gender agendas do not merely resist feminist and LGBTQ+ claims, but actively participate in reconfiguring democratic norms, citizenship, and the boundaries of political belonging in contemporary de-democratizing contexts.

Title	Details
Careless democracy? When right-wing populism meets liberal democracy in Europe and beyond	View Paper Details
Gender fatigue, backlash and antigender mobilizations across Europe	View Paper Details
Anti-feminism as an Intersectional Ideology: Nationalism and Conspiracy Thinking in the Crusade against Equality	View Paper Details
Gender, Family ‘Ideology’ and Authoritarian Populism in Türkiye	View Paper Details