Are radical right anti-gender politics so unique? A comparative analysis of conservative and radical right parties in Belgium (N-VA, Vlaams Belang) and Spain (Vox, Partido Popular)

The aim of our research is to study, from a comparative perspective, how opposition to gender equality contributes to shape both the opposition dynamics and the convergences between conservative and radical right-wing parties in Belgium (N-VA, Vlaams Belang) and Spain (Partido Popular, VOX). More specifically, this research will seek to answer to two questions. First, West-European politics have been characterized by a mainstreaming process of radical right politics in recent years (Brown et al. 2021; Mondon and Winter 2020), this leading to convergences between mainstream and radical right politics. In particular, conservative right-wing parties are said to be the most inclined to adopt positions and discourses that accommodate those of radical right-wing parties (Abou-Chadi 2016; Han 2015; Meguid 2005). Furthermore, both conservative right-wing parties (Bale et al. 2021; Abou-Chadi and Finnigan 2019; Engeli et al. 2012) and radical right parties (Spierings, 2021; De Lange and Mügge, 2015; Akkerman, 2015; Mayer, 2013) are reported to have adopted a more liberal stance on some gender equality issues. As a consequence, those evolutions raise the question of whether a convergence between conservative and radical right gender politics can be observed, and how this process contributes to the mainstreaming of exclusionary politics (Wodak 2021). Secondly, radical right-wing gender politics have been extensively analysed in recent years (Blee 2022; Möser and et al. 2022; Dietze and Rothe 2020). In this perspective, radical right parties are identified as being part of a consortium of actors mobilizing against gender equality and attempting to delegitimize progressive policies and the actors who support them (Kuhar and Paternotte, 2020; Verloo and Paternotte, 2018; Mayer and Sauer, 2020). However, the question of whether those anti-gender politics are indeed characteristics of far right parties, or if they share anti-gender stands with other conservative right-wing parties has not been answered (Akkerman 2015). As a consequence, this study, by comparing Belgium and Spain – two countries were both conservative and radical right-wing parties have played prominent political roles in recent years, and whose anti-gender politics have already been identified (Biesemans 2023; Gustin 2023), is aimed at providing new insights of how anti-gender dynamics can shape political discourses and competition on the right side of the political spectrum.