Vox populi or vox masculini? Populism and gender in Northern Europe and South America

ABSTRACT

Conceptually, populism has no specific relationship to gender; in fact, gender differences, like all other differences within ‘the people’, are considered secondary, if not irrelevant, to populist politics. Yet populist actors do not operate in a cultural or ideological vacuum. So perhaps it is the national culture and broader ideology used by populists that determine their gender position. To explore this argument, we compare prototypical cases of contemporary populist forces in two regions: the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom) and the Dansk Folkeparti (DF, Danish People's Party) in Northern Europe, and the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV, United Socialist Party of Venezuela) and the Bolivian Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS, Movement for Socialism) in South America. Populists in Northern Europe are predominantly right-wing, yet mobilize within highly emancipated societies, while populists in South America are mainly left-wing and mobilize in strongly patriarchal societies. Our analysis provides a somewhat muddled picture. Although populists do not necessarily have a clear view on gender issues, the latter are clearly influenced by ideology and region. While left-wing populists tend to be relatively progressive within their traditional South American context, right-wing populists mainly defend the status quo in their progressive Northern European context. However, in absolute terms, the relatively high level of gender equality already achieved in Northern Europe is at least as advanced as the one proposed by the populists in South America.

KEYWORDS:

• gender
• Northern Europe
• populism
• radical right
• sexism
• South America

Notes

¹ Given the fact that this article is, first and foremost, meant as a theoretical contribution—and that it covers a broad spread of populist actors and still has to meet the usual word limit—the individual analyses of the four actors are presented in a fairly concise and, therefore, limited manner. Consequently, the gender politics of each individual populist actor deserves much further study.

² See Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, ‘Exclusionary vs. inclusionary populism: comparing contemporary Europe and Latin America’, Government and Opposition, vol. 48, no. 2, 2013, 147–74; and Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (eds), Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2012).

³ Cas Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, vol. 39, no. 4, 2004, 541–63 (543).

⁴ Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso 2005).

⁵ Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, ‘Populism’, in Michael Freeden, Lyman Tower Sargent and Marc Stears (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013), 493–512 (499–500).

⁶ See, for example, Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003).

⁷ Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996).

⁸ Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction, trans. from the Italian by Allan Cameron (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1996).

⁹ Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 1994).

¹⁰ See Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), ch. 1.

¹¹ See, among others, Kirk A. Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2010); and Kenneth M. Roberts, ‘Repoliticizing Latin America: the revival of populist and leftist alternatives’, Woodrow Wilson Center Update on the Americas, November 2007.

¹² Steven Levitsky and Kenneth M. Roberts, ‘Latin America's “left turn”: a framework for analysis', in Steven Levitsky and Kenneth M. Roberts (eds), The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2011), 1–28 (13).

¹³ Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, ch. 4.

¹⁴ The sex gap of the DF electorate has actually closed significantly since the party became a supporting party of the minority government in 2001, which is in line with the thesis that women voters are more influenced by a party's ‘acceptability’. See Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, ch. 4.

¹⁵ See Christina Fiig, ‘Women in Danish politics: challenges to the notion of gender equality’, in Joyce Gelb and Marian Lief Palley (eds), Women and Politics around the World: A Comparative History and Survey, 2 vols (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO 2009), II, 311–28.

¹⁶ See Anders Ravik Jupkås, ‘Feminization of right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia: the Männerparteien thesis revisited’, 2014, unpublished manuscript, 8.

¹⁷ Fiig, ‘Women in Danish politics’, 317.

¹⁸ This excludes the four one-person factions in the current Folketing, of which two are (all) women and two are (all) men. All data are from the official Folketing website at www.thedanishparliament.dk (viewed 8 November 2014).

¹⁹ ‘Onderzoek: Diversiteit in de Tweede Kamer 2012’, available on the Pro Demos website at www.prodemos.nl/content/download/6098/29889/file/Onderzoek%20diversiteit%20TK2012%20definitief.pdf (viewed 8 November 2014).

²⁰ As a consequence of the Lisbon Treaty, the Netherlands was awarded an extra seat in the European Parliament in 2010, which went to the PVV. That seat was taken up by a man, which lowered the rate of female representation to 20 per cent.

²¹ Willy Beauvallet and Sébastien Michon, ‘General patterns of women's representation at the European Parliament: did something change after 2004?’, trans. from the French by Yves Bart, 1 May 2009, paper presented at the ECPR's Fourth Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Riga, Latvia, 25 September 2008, available on the PRISME University of Strasbourg website at http://prisme.u-strasbg.fr/workingpapers/WPBeauvalletMichon2009.pdf (viewed 8 November 2014).

²² Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, ch. 4.

²³ Stéphanie Rousseau, Women's Citizenship in Peru: The Paradoxes of Neopopulism in Latin America (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009).

²⁴ Calculations based on information on the website of the Asamblea Nacional de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, available at www.asambleanacional.gob.ve (viewed 11 November 2014).

²⁵ Calculations based on information on the website of the Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional/ Presidencia de la Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional, available at www.vicepresidencia.gob.bo/spip.php?page=parlamentarios (viewed 11 November 2014).

²⁶ Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer, Political Power and Women´s Representation in Latin America (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 2010), 50.

²⁷ Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr, ‘Einleitung’, in Helga Amesberger and Brigitte Halbmayr (eds), Rechtsextreme Parteien—eine mögliche Heimat für Frauen? (Opladen: Leske + Budrich 2002), 17–26 (20). Translations, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.

²⁸ ‘The party program of the Danish People's Party’, October 2002, available on the Dansk Folkeparti website at www.danskfolkeparti.dk/The_Party_Program_of_the_Danish_Peoples_Party (viewed 11 November 2014).

²⁹ See Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2010–2015: De agenda van hoop en optimisme: Een tijd om te kiezen: PVV 2010–2015 (The Hague: PVV 2010); and Geert Wilders, Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring (The Hague: Groep Wilders 2005).

³⁰ Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2012–2017: Hún Brussel, óns Nederland (The Hague: PVV 2012), 25.

³¹ See, for example, Jaco van Lambalgen, ‘Vrouw in het nieuws’, Opzij, April 2008; and Gijs Herderscheê, ‘PVV: abortus moet moeilijker’, Algemeen Dagblad, 27 April 2011.

32 ‘Abort’ (in Danish), on the Dansk Folkeparti website at www.danskfolkeparti.dk/Abort.asp (viewed 11 November 2014).

³³ See Anders Ravid Jupkås, ‘Preliminary research note on populist (radical) right in Scandinanvia and gender issues’, 2014, unpublished manuscript, 4.

³⁴ Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2012–2017, 25.

³⁵ See also Susi Meret and Birte Siim, ‘Gender, populism and politics of belonging: discourses of right-wing populist parties in Denmark, Norway and Austria’, in Birte Siim and Monika Mokre (eds), Negotiating Gender and Diversity in an Emergent European Public Sphere (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2012), 78–96.

³⁶ See also Sarah L. de Lange and Liza Mügge, ‘Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: ideological variations across parties and time’, in these pages.

³⁷ Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2010–2015, 6.

³⁸ Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2010–2015, 15.

³⁹ Birte Siim and Anette Borchorst, ‘The multicultural challenge to the Danish welfare state: tensions between gender equality and diversity’, in Janet Fink and Åsa Lundqvist (eds), Changing Relations of Welfare: Family, Gender and Migration in Britain and Scandinavia (Aldershot: Ashgate 2010), 133–54 (145); see also Susi Meret, ‘The Danish People's Party, the Italian Northern League and the Austrian Freedom Party in a Comparative Perspective: Party Ideology and Electoral Support’, PhD dissertation, Aalborg University, 2009.

⁴⁰ See Meret and Siim, ‘Gender, populism and politics of belonging’.

⁴¹ Karen Kampwirth, ‘Introduction’, in Karen Kampwirth (ed.), Gender and Populism in Latin America: Passionate Politics (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press 2010), 1–24 (4).

⁴² Hugo Chávez, 8 March 2009, quoted in Hanna Katriina Rantala, ‘What are the gender implications of the Bolivarian Revolution? Liberation, equality and gender in present-day Venezuela’, POLIS Journal, vol. 2, 2009, 1–46 (1).

⁴³ Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, Libro Rojo (Caracas: PSUV 2010), 30.

⁴⁴ República del Bolivia, Constitución de 2009, available on Georgetown University's Political Database of the Americas at http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Bolivia/bolivia09.html (viewed 12 November 2014).

⁴⁵ República del Bolivia, Constitución de 2009, available on Georgetown University's Political Database of the Americas at http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Bolivia/bolivia09.html (viewed 12 November 2014).

⁴⁶ Anders Burman, ‘Chachawarmi: silence and rival voices on decolonisation and gender politics in Andean Bolivia’, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 2011, 65–91.

⁴⁷ Stéphanie Rousseau, ‘Indigenous and feminist movements at the Constituent Assembly in Bolivia: locating the representation of indigenous women’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 46, no. 2, 2011, 5–28.

⁴⁸ See Niels Spierings, Andrej Zaslove, Liza Mügge and Sarah de Lange, ‘Gender and populist radical-right politics: an introduction’, in these pages.

⁴⁹ Xavier Andrade, ‘Machismo and politics in Ecuador: the case of Pancho Jaime’, Men and Masculinities, vol. 3, no. 3, 2001, 299–315 (307).

⁵⁰ Ov Cristian Norocel, ‘Constructing radical right populist resistance: metaphors of heterosexist masculinities and the family question in Sweden’, NORMA: Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 2010, 169–83 (181).

⁵¹ See Jupkås, ‘Feminization of right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia’, 7; and Susi Meret, ‘Female charismatic leadership and gender: Pia Kjærsgaard and the Danish People's Party’, in these pages.

⁵² See Jupkås, ‘Feminization of right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia’, 13.

⁵³ Partij voor de Vrijheid, Verkiezingsprogramma PVV 2010–2015, 17.

⁵⁴ Wilders, Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring, 1.

⁵⁵ The video (in English) is available on the official Danish People’s Party website at www.danskfolkeparti.dk/Principprogram_andre_sprog (viewed 9 December 2014).

⁵⁶ Kampwirth, ‘Introduction’, 9.

⁵⁷ Michael L. Conniff, ‘Epilogue: new research directions’, in Michael L. Conniff (ed.), Populism in Latin America (Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press 1999), 191–204 (199).

⁵⁸ Gioconda Espina and Cathy A. Rakowski, ‘Waking women up? Hugo Chávez, populism, and Venezuela's “popular” women’, in Kampwirth (ed.), Gender and Populism in Latin America, 180–201 (194).

⁵⁹ Sujatha Fernandes, ‘Barrio women and popular politics in Chávez's Venezuela’, Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 49, no. 3, 2007, 97–127 (108–12).

⁶⁰ Kate Paarlberg, ‘Sold out? Venezuela's Boliviarianas and the struggle for women's emancipation’, paper presented at the conference ‘Social Movement Governance, the Poor, and the New Politics of the Americas’, University of South Florida, Tampa, 2–4 February 2011, 15.

⁶¹ José Pedro Zúquete, ‘The missionary politics of Hugo Chávez’, Latin American Politics and Society, vol. 50, no. 1, 2008, 91–121 (100).

⁶² Pierre Ostiguy, ‘Argentina's double political spectrum: party system, political identities, and strategies, 1944–2007’, Kellogg Institute Working Paper, no. 361, October 2009.

⁶³ Evo Morales, quoted in Stéphanie Rousseau, ‘Populism from above, populism from below: gender politics under Alberto Fujimori and Evo Morales’, in Kampwirth (ed.), Gender and Populism in Latin America, 140–61 (154).

⁶⁴ Laclau, On Populist Reason.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cas Mudde

Cas Mudde is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge University Press 2007), and editor of Political Extremism (Sage 2014, 4 volumes), Youth and the Extreme Right (IDEBATE 2014), and Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge University Press 2012). He is currently writing (with Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser) Populism: A Very Short Introduction, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2016, and (with Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler) The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success, under contract with Cambridge University Press. In August 2015 he will become co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research. Email: [email protected]

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser is an Associate Professor in the School of Political Science at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago de Chile. He is the co-editor (with Cas Mudde) of Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge University Press 2012) and (with Juan Pablo Luna) of The Resilience of the Latin American Right (Johns Hopkins University Press 2014). His research has been published in the journals Democratization, Government and Opposition and Political Studies, among others. He is currently writing (with Cas Mudde) Populism: A Very Short Introduction, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2016. He wishes to acknowledge support from the Chilean National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FONDECYT project 1140101) and the Chilean Millennium Science Initiative (project NS130008). Email: [email protected]