Gendered impacts of radical right (un)politics in the European Parliament

The European Parliament (EP) has a reputation of being a strong equality and human rights actor when compared to other EU institutions. It is also one of the few parliaments in the world which has officially and systematically committed itself to the principles of gender mainstreaming (Ahrens 2019; Elomäki and Ahrens 2022). At the same time, the EP is also a political institution where radical right populist actors have a strong presence. The EP political groups too are very differently positioned in relation to gender equality. Thus, the research objective of this paper is to study the radical right populist impact on the European Parliament and its political groups from a gender perspective. The paper uses the distinction between politics and ‘unpolitics’ (Taggart 2018; Zaun and Ripoll Servent 2023) to understand the effects of radical right populism on gender equality policymaking and on parliamentary democratic functioning. Theoretically, the paper seeks to contribute to the emerging discussion on ‘unpolitics’ through a gender lens. The paper uses a dataset of 140 elite interviews with MEPs and staff gathered in the European Parliament between 2018-2022. We develop a framework of four dimensions to evaluate this impact: (i) discourses, (ii) policies, (iii) practices, and (iv) affective atmospheres. We show how the impact is visible at the discursive level where the radical right populists have challenged some dominant framings of gender equality. We distinguish between policy fields to show that despite some successes, anti-gender politics do not dominate and ambitious gendered policies are still put forward in the EP. Then, we demonstrate how the institutional context, the democratic practices of the parliament and political groups can be used by both the radical right populists and those seeking to contain their influence. Finally, we focus on affective atmospheres to show their polarised nature: both hostile towards gender equality and sustaining gender equality work through solidarities. We suggest that the interplay between politics and unpolitics in relation to each dimension creates a comprehensive understanding of the radical right populist impact on gender equality in the EP.