Performing Authority: Gendered Narratives of Leadership in Contemporary Right-Wing Populism

This paper examines how political authority is constructed though gendered narratives in contemporary right-wing populism. While populism research has extensively analysed ideology, discourse, and institutional power, less attention has been paid to the sociological processes through which political leadership becomes emotionally compelling and socially recognisable. The paper argues that gender plays a central role in this process by providing narrative and symbolic resources through which authority is performed and legitimised. Drawing on a political sociological perspective, the paper conceptualises authority not primarily as a formal or institutional position, but as a relational and performative achievement. Political leadership is understood as a social relationship that must be continuously enacted through culturally intelligible narratives, embodied performances, and affective appeals. Gendered norms of masculinity and femininity are crucial to this process, as they structure expectations of protection, strength, morality, and belonging. These expectations are frequently embedded in narratives of national identity, where the nation is imagined as a vulnerable body in need of protection, order, and moral restoration. Empirically, the paper adopts a qualitative, theory-driven comparative approach focusing on two prominent cases of right-wing populist leadership: Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni. These cases are selected to illustrate contrasting yet functionally similar performances of gendered authority. Trump performs leadership through hypermasculine narratives of dominance, confrontation, and personalised power, while Meloni constructs authority through a gendered repositioning that combines femininity with nationalist and conservative values. Despite these differences, both cases mobilise gendered narratives of national identity to produce affective attachment and political legitimacy. The analysis draws on speeches, public appearances, and symbolic self-presentations to show how populist leadership is stabilised through recurring narratives of protection, normality, and moral order. Rather than treating gender solely as an ideological battleground or a site of cultural conflict, the paper demonstrates how gender operates as a sociological mechanism through which authority is narrated, embodied, and normalised. By foregrounding narratives and performances of leadership, the paper contributes to political sociology by highlighting the under-theorised role of gender in the construction of political authority within contemporary populist politics. While the analysis focuses on Western political contexts, the argument speaks to broader dynamics of gendered authority and national identity in contemporary populist leadership. The paper thus offers a conceptual contribution to debates on populism and political leadership by reframing authority as a gendered and narrative-based social relationship rather than a purely institutional phenomenon.