Paradoxical Right-Wing Sexual Politics in Europe

“This nuanced and important book shows how repressive sexual politics is a key theme of authoritarian movements and fuels a major threat to democracy and civil society. “

—Raewyn Connell, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney, Australia

“This collection is a fresh and bold challenge to dominant analyses of current European right wing sexual politics and its ‘brutalization.’ The essays convincingly deploy critical theory and definitely advance the current discussion.”

—Nanette Funk, Professor Emerita, Department of Philosophy, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, USA

“This empirically rich comparative study is a much-needed call to action—both on a personal and institutional level.”

—Roman Kuhar, Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and co-editor (with D. Paternotte) of Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe (2017)

How did far-right, hateful and anti-democratic ideologies become so successful in many societies in Europe? This volume analyses the paradoxical roles sexual politics have played in this process and reveals that the incoherence and untruthfulness in right-wing populist, ultraconservative and far-right rhetorics of fear are not necessarily signs of weakness. Instead, the authors show how the far right can profit from its own incoherence by generating fear and creating discourses of crisis for which they are ready to offer simple solutions. In studies on Poland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, France, Sweden and Russia, the ways far-right ideologies travel and take root are analysed from a multi-disciplinary perspective, including feminist and LGBTQI reactions. Understanding how hateful and antidemocratic ideologies enter the very centre of European societies is a necessary premise for developing successful counterstrategies.

Cornelia Möser is a Researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France, working on feminist, queer and gender studies in France, Germany and the USA.

Jennifer Ramme is a Researcher and Lecturer at the European University Viadrina, Collegium Polonicum, and member of the Viadrina Institute for European Studies, Germany.

Judit Takács is a Research Professor at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence, Hungary.