‘Citizens’ Attitudes to Democracy and Gender Equality: Evidence from Austria’

How do citizens understand democracy? What does it mean to be a committed democrat? What aspects of democracy do citizens find important and why? How do they understand gender equality and its relationship to democracy? Do they perceive feminism as a threat? Why (not)? What solutions do citizens see to counteract the rise of de-democratizing and anti-gender equality actors? We explore these questions in the case of Austria using mixed methods and data collected in the context of the Push*Back*Lash project, which focuses on (opposition to/support for) feminism and democracy. Combining data from focus groups and a novel representative survey, this is one of the first studies empirically exploring the link between gender equality and democracy at the citizen level. The case of Austria is particularly interesting given the startling electoral victory of the populist radical right party FPÖ, which gathered about 30 % of the popular vote in 2024. Our case study specifically inquires whether citizens think that democracy is under threat if FPÖ governs and why (not) and sheds light on the mechanisms and processes partly responsible for its victory. Lessons learned will be instructive to other established democracies and the broader scholarship on the rise.