Democratic backsliding and the representation of marginalised groups

As recent scholarship has persuasively shown, the rise of anti-gender movements is an intrinsic part of processes of democratic backsliding across the world (Kuhar and Paternotte 2107, Verloo 2018, Krizsan and Roggeband 2018, Correa 2021). However, despite significant recent advances in our understanding of the relationship between opposition to gender equality and democratic backsliding, scholarship in this area is still at its beginning. This paper aims to address a significant gap in the literature by focusing on the relationship between democratic backsliding and political representation. The paper aims to conceptualise the representation of marginalised groups in hybrid regimes by drawing on Hanna Pikin's influential distinction between formalistic, descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation. I argue that hybrid regimes (1) are unlikely to lead to reverse policy gains in descriptive representation, such as quotas; (2) seek to build societal consensus around grand narratives of gender and national identity (symbolic representation) and (3) are characterised by substantial decrease in the scope and quality of substantive representation for marginalised groups. The case studies focus on the representation of women and LGBTQ+ groups in the post-communist member states of the European Union.