Attitudinal sexism and anti-feminism and support for democratic backsliding in Europe

A recent study by Christley (2022) has found that gender role attitudes independently predict support for the radical right-wing parties in Europe, but virtually no study has explored the link between sexist and anti-feminist attitudes and democratic backsliding. Using newly collected survey data from eight European democracies and a newly developed survey measure of democratic backsliding, this study proposes to systematically test this relationship. The study enriches our understanding of the mechanisms that drive support for democratic backsliding at the public level and contributes to the underresearched area of knowledge about the role attitudinal sexism and anti-feminism play in politics.