Anti-feminism and anti-“gender ideology” agenda between Iran and Italy

This paper discusses joint Iranian-Italian anti-feminist and anti-“gender ideology” initiatives as an example of how the global diffusion of authoritarian politics works, creating authoritarian “enclaves” in democratic countries and opportunities for increasing soft power for authoritarian states. The paper foregrounds historical and contextual factors in the analysis, as well as the development of relations between Iranian state propagandists and Italian recipients, focusing on far-right and neo-fascist organisations. The paper discusses how national varieties of anti-“globalist” politics converge on an anti-feminism and anti-“gender ideology” agenda, and how this convergence builds on past trajectories and relations between state and non-state actors, which adapt their language to changing historical and contextual circumstances. Vocabulary pivoted on sovranism, reproductive and identity-related anxieties join forces with het-patriarchal forces to create a shared political imaginary, where religion and tradition are at the core – but “modernized” for the Twentieth-first century, including a discourse for articulating anti-neoliberal critique. In conclusion, the paper emphasises that gender and sexual politics are a fertile ground to analyse the contemporary transformations of political regimes, both nationally and transnationally.