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ABSTRACT
Although scholarship on the general ideological orientation of right-wing populist parties is well established, few scholars have studied their ideas about gender. De Lange and Mügge therefore ask how differences in ideology shape right-wing populist parties' ideas on gender. Drawing on the qualitative content analysis of party manifestos, they compare the gender ideologies and concrete policy proposals of national and neoliberal populist parties in the Netherlands and Flanders from the 1980s to the present. They find that some parties adhere to a modern or modern-traditional view, while others espouse neo-traditional views. Moreover, some right-wing populist parties have adopted gendered readings of issues surrounding immigration and ‘Islam’, while others have not. The variation in stances on ‘classical’ gender issues can be explained by the genealogy and ideological orientation of the parties, whereas gendered views on immigration and Islam are influenced by contextual factors, such as 9/11.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the international workshop, ‘Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe’, Georg-Simon-Ohm-University of Applied Sciences, Nürnberg, Germany, 27–8 September 2012, and at the 20th International Conference of Europeanists, ‘Crisis of Contingency: States of (In)Stability’, University of Amsterdam, 25–7 June 2013. We thank the participants of these panels and the special issue guest editors, Niels Spierings and Andrej Zaslove, for their constructive feedback on the earlier versions of the paper, and Takeo David Hymans for editing it. Some of the manifestos we analyse here were made available by Paul Pennings and Hans Keman's (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Comparative Electronic Manifestos Project (CMP), financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO project 480-42-005), in cooperation with Andrea Volkens and Hans-Dieter Klingemann of the Social Science Research Centre Berlin, the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research, GESIS, University of Cologne, and the Manifesto Research Group (chairman: Ian Budge). Sarah de Lange expresses her gratitude to the Department of Political Science of Goethe University for welcoming her as a visiting scholar in 2012. Liza Mügge acknowledges the Harvard Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies for hosting her as a visiting scholar in that same year.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the international workshop, ‘Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe’, Georg-Simon-Ohm-University of Applied Sciences, Nürnberg, Germany, 27–8 September 2012, and at the 20th International Conference of Europeanists, ‘Crisis of Contingency: States of (In)Stability’, University of Amsterdam, 25–7 June 2013. We thank the participants of these panels and the special issue guest editors, Niels Spierings and Andrej Zaslove, for their constructive feedback on the earlier versions of the paper, and Takeo David Hymans for editing it. Some of the manifestos we analyse here were made available by Paul Pennings and Hans Keman's (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Comparative Electronic Manifestos Project (CMP), financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO project 480-42-005), in cooperation with Andrea Volkens and Hans-Dieter Klingemann of the Social Science Research Centre Berlin, the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research, GESIS, University of Cologne, and the Manifesto Research Group (chairman: Ian Budge). Sarah de Lange expresses her gratitude to the Department of Political Science of Goethe University for welcoming her as a visiting scholar in 2012. Liza Mügge acknowledges the Harvard Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies for hosting her as a visiting scholar in that same year.
Notes
1 Sirma Bilge, ‘Mapping Québécois sexual nationalism in times of “crisis of reasonable accommodations”’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, 2012, 303–18 (303). See also Judith Butler, ‘Sexual politics, torture, and secular time’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 59, no. 1, 2008, 1–23; Paul Mepschen, Jan-Willem Duyvendak and Evelien Tonkens, ‘Sexual politics, Orientalism and multicultural citizenship in the Netherlands’, Sociology, vol. 44, no. 5, 2010, 962–79; Sara R. Farris, ‘Femonationalism and the “regular” army of labor called migrant women’, History of the Present, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012, 184–99; and Diana Mulinari and Anders Neergaard, ‘We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others: exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right’, European Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2014, 43–56.
2 See, among others, Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990).
3 Hans-Georg Betz, ‘The two faces of radical right-wing populism in Western Europe’, Review of Politics, vol. 55, no. 4, 1993, 663–86; Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 1994); Elisabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure? (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press 2005); Herbert Kitschelt with Anthony J. McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1995).
4 The parties under study refer to ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamic’ practices when addressing issues arising from immigration from predominantly Muslim countries; references to the religion Islam are thus used to describe both cultural and religious practices. Throughout this article, where appropriate, therefore, we have inserted ‘[sic]’ following ‘Islam’ in direct quotations.
5 For the significance of these cases in the broader framework of gender and populism, see Niels Spierings, Andrej Zaslove, Liza Mügge and Sarah de Lange, ‘Gender and populist radical-right politics: an introduction’, in these pages.
6 John Gerring, ‘Ideology: a definitional analysis’, Political Research Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 4, 1997, 957–94 (967).
7 John Gerring, ‘Ideology: a definitional analysis’, Political Research Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 4, 1997, 957–94 (967).
8 Georgia Duerst-Lahti, ‘Gender ideology: masculinism and feminalism’, in Gary Goertz and Amy G. Mazur (eds), Politics, Gender, and Concepts: Theory and Methodology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008), 159–92 (182).
9 Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe, 4.
10 Cas Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, vol. 39, no. 4, 2004, 541–63 (543).
11 Betz, ‘The two faces of radical right-wing populism in Western Europe’; Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe; Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe; Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe.
12 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), 19.
13 Hans-Georg Betz, ‘Against the “green totalitarianism”: anti-Islamic nativism in contemporary radical right-wing populism in Western Europe’, in Christina Schori Liang (ed.), Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right (Aldershot: Ashgate 2007), 33–54 (47).
14 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 30.
15 Frank Decker, Der neue Rechtspopulismus (Opladen: Leske + Budrich 2004), 219–20.
16 Teun Pauwels, ‘Explaining the success of neo-liberal populist parties: the case of Lijst Dedecker in Belgium’, Political Studies, vol. 58, no. 5, 2010, 1009–29 (1009).
17 Hans-Georg Betz and Susi Meret, ‘Revisiting Lepanto: the political mobilization against Islam in contemporary Western Europe’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 43, no. 3–4, 2009, 313–34; José Pedro Zúquete, ‘The European extreme right and Islam: new directions?’, Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 13, no. 3, 2008, 321–44.
18 Tjitske Akkerman and Anniken Hagelund, ‘“Women and children first!” Anti-immigration parties and gender in Norway and the Netherlands’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 41, no. 2, 2007, 197–214.
19 Duerst-Lahti, ‘Gender ideology’, 182.
20 Eleonore Kofman, ‘When society was simple: gender and ethnic divisions and the Far and New Right in France’, in Nickie Charles and Helen Hintjes (eds), Gender, Ethnicity and Political Ideologies (London and New York: Routledge 1998), 91-106 (91).
21 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 92–4.
22 Betz, ‘The two faces of radical right-wing populism in Western Europe’; Hilde Coffé, Extreem-rechts in Vlaanderen en Wallonië: Het verschil (Roeselare: Roularta Books 2005); Paul Lucardie, ‘Tussen establishment en extremisme: populistische partijen in Nederland en Vlaanderen’, Res Publica, vol. 52, no. 2, 2010, 149–72; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 43.
23 Lucardie, ‘Tussen establishment en extremisme’; Pauwels, ‘Explaining the success of neo-liberal populist parties’.
24 Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2000); Koen Vossen, ‘Populism in the Netherlands after Fortuyn: Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders compared’, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, 22–38; Lucardie, ‘Tussen establishment en extremisme’.
25 Lucardie, ‘Tussen establishment en extremisme’; Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 47.
26 Michael Laver and John Garry, ‘Estimating policy positions from political texts’, American Journal of Political Science, vol. 44, no. 3, 2000, 619–34 (620).
27 Robert Klemmensen, Sara Binzer Hobolt and Martin Ejnar Hansen, ‘Estimating policy positions using political texts: an evaluation of the Wordscores approach’, Electoral Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, 2007, 746–55 (747).
28 Vlaams Blok, Uit Zelfverdediging: Verkiezingsgprogramma 1991 (Brussels: VB 1991), 23.
29 Vlaams Blok, Het Vlaams Blok: De Gezinspartij (Brussels: VB 1991).
30 Centrumpartij ’86, Voor en veilig en leefbaar Nederland! Programma van de Centrumpartij ’86 (Bergentheim: CP’86 1986), 24.17. Translations into English, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.
31 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Dit is niet het land wat ik voor mijn kinderen will achterlaten”: Verkiezingsprogramma van Lijst 5 Fortuyn’, 30 September 2006, 7.
32 Geert Wilders, ‘Voorwoord’, in Partij voor de Vrijheid, De agenda van hoop en optimisme: Een tijd om te kiezen PVV 2010–2015 (The Hague: PVV 2010), 6, see also 33.
33 Vlaams Blok, Een toekomst voor Vlaanderen: Programma en Standpunten van het Vlaams Blok (Brussels: VB 2002), 13; Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek (Brussels: VB 2005), 14.
34 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe.
35 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, 93.
36 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Politiek is passie”: Verkiezingsprogramma 2003’, in Joop van Holsteyn, Tom van der Meer, Huib Pellikaan, H. IJsbrandy and Gerrit Voerman (eds), Verkiezingsprogramma's: Verkiezingen van der Tweede Kamer 15 Mei 2002 en 22 Januari 2003 (Amsterdam: Rozenberg 2003), 368–91 (383).
37 Lijst Dedecker, LDD-programma Vlaamse verkiezingen (Ghent: LDD 2009), 3 (‘Vlaanderen zorgt’).
38 Centrumpartij ’86, Voor en veilig en leefbaar Nederland!, 12.9; Vlaams Blok, Een toekomst voor Vlaanderen, 38; Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek, 17; Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek (Brussels: VB 2008); Vlaams Belang, Dit is ons land: Programma Europese verkiezingen 7 juni 2009 (VB 2009); Vlaams Belang, Dit is ons land: Programma Vlaamse verkiezingen 7 juni 2009 (Brussels: VB 2009), 29; Vlaams Belang, ‘Een beter Vlaanderen voor een lagere prijs!’: Sociaaleconomisch programma (Brussels: VB 2012).
39 Centrumpartij ’86, Voor en veilig en leefbaar Nederland!, 5.23.
40 Centrum Democraten, Trouw aan rood wit blauw! Partijprogramma verkiezingen Tweede Kamer 1998 (The Hague: CD 1998), 13.
41 Vlaams Blok, Een toekomst voor Vlaanderen, 13.
42 Vlaams Blok, Baas in Eigen Land: Verkiezingsprogramma (Brussels: VB 1999), 101.
43 Centrum Democraten, Oost west thuis best: Partijprogramma verkiezingen Tweede Kamer 1994 (The Hague: CD 1994), 14; Centrum Democraten, Trouw aan rood wit blauw!, 14.
44 Vlaams Belang, Dit is ons land, 29–30.
45 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Politiek is passie”’, 383.
46 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe.
47 Wilders, ‘Voorwoord’, in Partij voor de Vrijheid, De agenda van hoop en optimisme, 6.
48 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, Zakelijk met een hart (Rotterdam: LPF 2002), 5.
49 Centrum Democraten, Oost west thuis best, 14; Centrum Democraten, Trouw aan rood wit blauw!, 13.
50 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Politiek is passie”’, 373.
51 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Dit is niet het land wat ik voor mijn kinderen will achterlaten”’, 20.
52 Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek, 20.
53 Centrumpartij ’86, Voor en veilig en leefbaar Nederland!, 12.4.
54 Vlaams Blok, Immigratie: de oplossingen. 70 voorstellen ter oplossing van het vreemdelingenprobleem (Brussels: VB 1992), 62.
55 Geert Wilders, Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring Groep Wilders (The Hague: Groep Wilders 2005), 5.
56 Partij voor de Vrijheid, De agenda van hoop en optimisme, 23.
57 Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek, 22.
58 Vlaams Belang, Dit is ons land: Programma Europese verkiezingen, 32.
59 Lijst Pim Fortuyn, ‘“Politiek is passie”’, 383.
60 Partij voor de Vrijheid, De agenda van hoop en optimisme, 13.
61 Vlaams Belang, Programmaboek, 23.
62 Vlaams Blok, Een Programma voor de Toekomst van Vlaanderen (Brussels: VB 1995), 12.
63 Tjitske Akkerman, ‘Anti-immigration parties and the defence of liberal values: the exceptional case of the List Pim Fortuyn’, Journal of Political Ideologies, vol. 10, no. 3, 2005, 337–54.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sarah L. de Lange
Sarah L. de Lange is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and co-convenor of the Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). Her main research interests concern parties, party families and party systems, and her publications have appeared in Acta Politica, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Comparative European Politics, Ethical Perspectives, European Political Studies, Government and Opposition, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Party Politics, Political Studies and West European Politics. Email: [email protected]
Liza M. Mügge
Liza M. Mügge is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Amsterdam Research Centre of Gender and Sexuality (ARG-GS) at the University of Amsterdam. She was Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies in 2012, and is a 2014–15 Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP). She publishes on political representation, gender equality, intersectionality and transnationalism. In 2013 she edited a special issue of Women's Studies International Forum and co-edited a section of Politics, Groups & Identities. She is co-convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Gender and Politics. Email: [email protected]