When Radical Right Populist Parties Appeal to Women (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Advances in the Study of Gender Inequality in Politics

Abstract

In recent years, some radical right populist (RRP) parties have expanded their issue base beyond immigration, and in many instances this includes incorporating women’s rights or gender equality issues. These programmatic shifts may be part of a broader strategy to diversify the party’s electoral base, or to project a more moderate and mainstream image. Our paper for the 2021 APSA Annual Meeting asks, under what conditions are RRP parties more likely to shift their party programs to incorporate women’s issues? Are RRP parties with more women in their ranks especially likely to do so? And is the effect of women RRP MPs and party leaders mitigated by the party’s electoral circumstances? In other words, is the decision driven more by the ideological focus and positions of women (compared with men) elite or the strategic electoral needs of the party?
In this paper, we explore the factors driving incorporation of women’s issues by RRP parties. To do so, we have developed the most comprehensive dataset to date on women as MPs and leaders of parties across Europe and over time. The data include over 50 RRP parties in 19 countries from 1980 to 2018. We complement this data with new analyses of party manifestos, coding for RRP parties’ policy positions over time on women’s rights, work-family policies, violence against women, and gender equality.
Broadly, our analyses will shed light on the variables that affect party programmatic shifts, and how these factors occur for niche parties such as the RRPs. In addition, our findings may offer insights into the ways historically anti-feminist parties, such as RRP parties, strategically deploy gender equality and women’s rights to bolster their nationalist agendas. The results have important implications for the extent to which the rise of radical right parties poses a threat to gender equality, both in terms of the balance of women and men in office and the gendered nature of the policies they promote.

Authors

• Ana Catalano Weeks, University of Bath

• Bonnie M. Meguid, University of Rochester

• Miki Caul Kittilson, Arizona State University

• Hilde Roza Coffe, University of Bath