Populist politics of counterknowledge: anti-gender campaigns in Poland

Populism is often associated with anti-intellectualism and valorizing the “common sense” above scientific data and expertise, and contemporary right-wing populists readily vilify academics and intellectuals as part of the corrupt elite, who allegedly manipulate and despise the People. This trend is part of a broader tendency to challenge what the right-wing populists perceive as dominant cultural values: pluralism, individualism and minority rights (Engeli 2019). In the words of Margaret Canovan “populism in modern democratic societies is best seen as an appeal to ‘the people’ against both the established structure of power and the dominant ideas and values of the society” (1999: 3). In countries such as Poland, where right-wing populist parties came to power in 2015, their representatives target gender studies and research, gender mainstreaming policies and equality measures, claiming that these areas are key to the promotion of liberal-left ideas and values, which allegedly pose a threat to “traditional family”, social stability and even “Christian civilization”. While such attacks have garnered considerable attention in the media and among academics (e.g. Kuhar 2014, Korolczuk 2020, Verloo 2018), much less attention has been paid to the ways in which populists promote alternative knowledge authorities instead of the established ones and how they help to construct “anti-gender studies” as a source of legitimized counterknowledge on gender and sexuality. This paper examines the ways in which right-wing populists in Poland 1) vilify “gender” as an imminent threat to children, families and the nation, and 2) help to promote and legitimize alternative sources of knowledge on gender and sexuality. The analysis draws on party programs, social media content and public utterances of politicians representing the ruling right-wing coalition (Law and Justice, Poland Together and Gowin’s Agreement), as well the contents of conferences and debates on “gender” organized by these parties’ representatives since 2015. Textual analysis of these materials shows that right-wing populists have adopted ultraconservative views on “gender” as a source of moral corruption, rampant individualism and demise of society, which have been promulgated by the anti-gender movement in Poland and beyond (Korolczuk and Graff 2018, Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). Simultaneously, they have promoted new sources of counterknowledge (Ylä-Anttila 2018) and helped to legitimize the anti-gender views, i.e. by inviting ultraconservative speakers and activists to speak in the parliament, at conferences and during official meetings sponsored by the ruling coalition.