Traditions, Dilemmas and Gay Propaganda Laws: Comparing Britain and Russia

• In Event: Political Homophobia or Backlash? Populist Responses to LGBT Rights and Activism

Abstract

Since the 1980s, many countries have legislated to prohibit hate speech against LGBT citizens and passed anti-discrimination laws that protects this group. Yet, two large countries bucked this trend: Britain and Russia. In 1988, Britain became the first country to ban the so-called ‘promotion’ of homosexuality and ‘pretend family relations’ to minors. Though finally repealed in 2003 (after a failed attempt to get it off the statue books in 2000) Section 28, as it was known, has cast a long and dark shadow over LGBT citizens. In 2013, Russia passed a similar law banning the ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ to children. Its implementation has been extensive and the policy since transferred across the Central Asia region. How can we explain these same anti-LGBT initiatives in such different contexts?
Following the work of Bevir and Rhodes on decentering governance, we provide a response that foregrounds the pervasive role of political traditions and dilemmas. When we decentre political analysis we have the advantage of looking not at institutional or structural forms that render pointless the comparisons of radically different places. After all, Britain and Russia could not be more different in their governmental forms and histories. Rather, decentring focuses on the behaviour of agents and treats political actors - in our case parliamentarians - as thinking, sentient agents. Such agents’ political practice and the narratives they value, construct and pursue are made-up of traditions and in reaction to dilemmas. Traditions concern the understandings we receive during socialisation, and their political form concerns the sets of beliefs we inherit about the form and role of governments. These political traditions are locally situated and provide webs of meaning, and ways of thinking, that help political actors reflect on current political dilemmas. Dilemmas help activate and sometimes change our beliefs. In these anti-gay propaganda cases, dilemmas arose from real world developments that clashed with existing traditions. Specifically, the increased visibility and political confidence of LGBT activists posed a major dilemma to British and Russian governments.
Our paper is organised accordingly. We begin with a discussion of the suitability and advantages of taking a decentred approach to the analysis of governance in apparently diverse settings. Our second section outlines the cases in two respects. First we give accounts of the array of political traditions that pervade each place - conservative, socialist and Whig traditions in Britain and authoritarian, state socialist and nationalist traditions in Russia - and the narrative themes they inform. Second, we give a historical account of the dilemmas - notably, the political rise of LGBT organisations - that created the political space for repressive legislation in both places. In the third, section we enter the empirics. Using the respective parliamentary debates, we track the influence of different enduring political traditions on the construction of four key narratives, homosexual as: threat to state security; danger to children; left-wing dissenters; and, medically unfit. In our conclusion, we reflect on the possibility for policy change. Traditions and dilemmas change of course. Though political traditions are pervasive, and may be the first influence on people, they remain the work of political agents. As such, parliamentarians’ practice may change as they respond to new dilemmas and as different, previously undiscovered, traditions have a socialising impact. The repeal of Section 28 in Britain attests to the possibility of such (emancipatory) change. We close discussing the prospects for change in Russia.

Authors

• Claire Dunlop, University of Exeter

• Radzhana Buyantueva, Newcastle University