Contested Gender Norms: Radical and Mainstream Right against Germany´s Feminist Foreign Policy

Gender norms are confronted in increasingly coordinated and intensified ways. I examine this process through Germany’s Feminist foreign policy (FFP) – a short-lived approach, proclaimed in 2021, which did not withstand the rightward shift to a conservative‑led government in 2025. The dynamics behind watering down of this approach remain largely unexplored. To fill this gap, I interrogate how the radical and mainstream right contested Feminist foreign policy between 2021 and 2025. Drawing on a discourse analysis of parliamentary debates and interviews with MPs, I identify key strategies of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and conservative CDU/CSU and argue that they formed a ‘discourse coalition’ on this contested norm. The analysis reveals overlaps in their statements, as well as patterns of transnational anti-gender strategies. Both parties framed FFP as an ideological project, harmful for international relations and as moral imperialism with double standards. They also employed feminisation rhetoric to delegitimise the policy and its advocates. I conclude that the discourse coalition was formed strategically to mobilise conservative voters and contributed to reinforcing anti-gender discourse. Through this case study, the article advances feminist foreign policy analysis (FFPA) by putting it into conversation with research on anti-gender politics.