Photo: “ĽSNS Rally 2019“, by Ec1801011 licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Hue modified from the original.
Lombardo, Emanuela, Johanna Kantola, and Ruth Rubio-Marin. “De-democratization and opposition to gender equality politics in Europe.” Social politics: international studies in gender, state & society 28, no. 3 (2021): 521-531.
Excerpt
Over the last decade, several European Union (EU) Member States have experienced unprecedented processes of de-democratization with negative consequences for equality and social justice. Democracy as an ideal and practice is connected to equality, openness, universality, rights, inclusion, participation, and contestation. De-democratization in turn comes in many forms: in the spread of authoritarian radical right populism and an explicit backlash against democratic values and practices (Brown 2019; Runciman 2018). De-democratization exposes the fragility but also the resilience of democratic institutions and practices. Its consequences for equality include the growth of far-right parties with explicit anti-gender, anti-feminist, anti-migration, and/or homo-/transphobic components.
