Gender, Democracy, and the Menace of Authoritarianism

Abstract

In recent years, the relationship between gender and democracy has become a crucial lens through which to understand contemporary processes of democratic fragilisation and authoritarian resurgence. Across Europe and beyond, illiberal and far-right actors increasingly mobilise gender as a site of political conflict: from anti-gender campaigns and attacks on reproductive rights to the strategic redefinition of equality, freedom, and representation. Far from being a marginal “cultural issue,” gender today operates as a key arena where democratic norms, citizenship boundaries, and political legitimacy are contested. This panel explores how gender both structures and reveals the contemporary menace of authoritarianism—illuminating the ways in which gendered narratives, political identities, and forms of mobilisation shape democratic resilience, resistance, and erosion. Bringing together political sociology, political theory, ethnography, discourse analysis, and quantitative comparative research, the panel addresses intertwined questions like the following: how do authoritarian and far-right actors deploy gender to normalise exclusionary political projects? How do women and men become differently positioned within these movements—both as targets and as agents of mobilisation—and how does this reshape the meaning of representation and emancipation? What does the growing gender polarisation among younger generations suggest about the future of democratic conflict in Europe? What role do social media play in mobilising anti-gender and pro-feminist activism in this context? The panel aims at advancing a multidimensional understanding of gender as both an infrastructure of authoritarian politics and a critical site of democratic struggle. It offers conceptual and empirical tools to assess how contemporary democracies are pressured—and potentially reshaped—by gendered conflicts over rights, representation, and belonging.

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