Still men’s parties? Gender and the radical right in comparative perspective

Abstract

This framing paper introduces the symposium on gender and the radical right. With the exception of a few recent studies, gender issues have received little attention in research on the European radical right. The purpose of this symposium is to address that and examine (1) whether radical right parties are still ‘men’s parties’ – parties led and supported primarily by men and (2) to what extent and how women and women’s concerns have been included by these parties. It argues that radical right parties have changed their appeal since their origins in the 1980s. There is now evidence of the fact that radical right parties, at least in some countries, exhibit an active political involvement of women and engage in some representation of women’s concerns. This puts them in a more ‘standardised’ political position vis-à-vis other parties. Given the current lack of focus on this topic, and given the recent gendered changes in radical right parties, this symposium stresses the academic and political importance of studying gender relations in radical right politics.

Keywords:

• Radical right
• gender
• political parties
• European party politics

Acknowledgements

Silvia Erzeel’s work was supported by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS; 2013‒2016). She wishes to thank the Institut de sciences politiques Louvain-Europe of the Université catholique de Louvain for hosting her as a postdoctoral researcher (2013‒2016). Part of this article was written during Ekaterina Rashkova’s fellowship stay at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), funded by the EURIAS fellowship programme, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action under the 7th Framework. The work was also carried out with the support of a Swarovski Foundation Research Grant (PSP P4020-035-011). The author acknowledges and is grateful for their support.