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Gender and Right-Wing Populism in the Low Countries: Ideological Variations Across Parties and Time Sarah L This article was downloaded by: [Harvard Library] On: 05 March 2015, At: 06:40 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Patterns of Prejudice Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpop20 Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: ideological variations across parties and time Sarah L. de Lange & Liza M. Mügge Published online: 26 Feb 2015. Click for updates To cite this article: Sarah L. de Lange & Liza M. Mügge (2015): Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: ideological variations across parties and time, Patterns of Prejudice, DOI: 10.1080/0031322X.2015.1014199 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2015.1014199 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at 06:40 05 March 2015 Patterns of Prejudice, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031322X.2015.1014199 Gender and right-wing populism in the Low Countries: ideological variations across parties and time SARAH L. DE LANGE AND LIZA M. MÜGGE ABSTRACT Although scholarship on the general ideological orientation of right-wing populist parties is well established, few scholars have studied their ideas about gender. De Lange and Mügge therefore ask how differences in ideology shape right-wing populist parties’ ideas on gender. Drawing on the qualitative content analysis of party manifestos, they compare the gender ideologies and concrete policy proposals of national and neoliberal populist parties in the Netherlands and Flanders from the 1980s to the present. They find that some parties adhere to a modern or modern-traditional view, while others espouse neo-traditional views. Moreover, some right-wing populist parties have adopted gendered readings of issues surrounding immigration and ‘Islam’, while others have not. The variation in stances on ‘classical’ gender issues can be explained by the genealogy and ideological orientation of the parties, whereas gendered views on immigration and Islam are influenced by contextual factors, such as 9/11. KEYWORDS Flanders, gender, nationalism, neoliberalism, Netherlands, political parties, populism, radical right, right-wing ideology ight-wing populist parties have become important players in contem- Rporary Western European politics. They have entered many national parliaments, either taking office themselves or supporting minority Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at 06:40 05 March 2015 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the international workshop, ‘Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe’, Georg-Simon-Ohm-University of Applied Sciences, Nürn- berg, Germany, 27–8 September 2012, and at the 20th International Conference of Europeanists, ‘Crisis of Contingency: States of (In)Stability’, University of Amsterdam, 25–7 June 2013. We thank the participants of these panels and the special issue guest editors, Niels Spierings and Andrej Zaslove, for their constructive feedback on the earlier versions of the paper, and Takeo David Hymans for editing it. Some of the manifestos we analyse here were made available by Paul Pennings and Hans Keman’s (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Comparative Electronic Manifestos Project (CMP), financed by the Nether- lands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO project 480-42-005), in cooperation with Andrea Volkens and Hans-Dieter Klingemann of the Social Science Research Centre Berlin, the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research, GESIS, University of Cologne, and the Manifesto Research Group (chairman: Ian Budge). Sarah de Lange expresses her gratitude to the Department of Political Science of Goethe University for welcoming her as a visiting scholar in 2012. Liza Mügge acknowledges the Harvard Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies for hosting her as a visiting scholar in that same year. © 2015 Taylor & Francis 2 Patterns of Prejudice governments, thereby enabling them to influence policymaking directly. The burgeoning scholarship on right-wing populism includes many detailed analyses of ideology and party programmes, with particular attention to salient right-wing populist issues such as immigration and integration. Nevertheless, little is known about the role gender plays in right-wing populist ideology. This is a lacuna in our understanding since right-wing populist parties increasingly pay attention to gender, often to justify anti- immigration positions by focusing on ‘harmful cultural practices’ such as female genital mutilation, honour killings, the wearing of headscarves, forced marriages or polygamy. According to feminist scholars and activists, the inclusion of gender equality and sexual emancipation in the programmes of right-wing populist parties has given rise to a new nationalism in which ‘women’s rights and gay-and-lesbian rights are deemed core civilisational values of the West, while migrant communities, particularly Muslims, are cast as menacing them’.1 However, the ‘newness’ of the inclusion of gender in right-wing populist and nationalist ideologies is debatable, given that gender ideologies were prominent in, for example, colonial policies and in nation-building processes.2 The feminist argument above also assumes that right-wing populist parties form an ideologically homogeneous bloc. But, despite ideological similarities, right-wing populist parties differ considerably when it comes to their issue profiles and programmes. On the basis of these differences, parties can be characterized as either national populist or neoliberal populist.3 This paper traces the role gender plays in the ideology of right-wing populist parties, using a qualitative, inductive approach. It asks: how does ideology shape right-wing populist parties’ ideas about gender? To examine the gender ideologies of right-wing populist parties, we focus on ideas about 1 Sirma Bilge, ‘Mapping Québécois sexual nationalism in times of “crisis of reasonable accommodations”’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 33, no. 3, 2012, 303–18 (303). See also Judith Butler, ‘Sexual politics, torture, and secular time’, British Journal of Sociology, Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at 06:40 05 March 2015 vol. 59, no. 1, 2008, 1–23; Paul Mepschen, Jan-Willem Duyvendak and Evelien Tonkens, ‘Sexual politics, Orientalism and multicultural citizenship in the Netherlands’, Sociology, vol. 44, no. 5, 2010, 962–79; Sara R. Farris, ‘Femonationalism and the “regular” army of labor called migrant women’, History of the Present, vol. 2, no. 2, 2012, 184–99; and Diana Mulinari and Anders Neergaard, ‘We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others: exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 2014, 43–56. 2 See, among others, Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press 1990). 3 Hans-Georg Betz, ‘The two faces of radical right-wing populism in Western Europe’, Review of Politics, vol. 55, no. 4, 1993, 663–86; Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 1994); Elisabeth Carter, The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure? (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press 2005); Herbert Kitschelt with Anthony J. McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1995). SARAH L. DE LANGE AND LIZA M. MÜGGE 3 family, men and women as presented in their party manifestos. More specifically, we explore how differences in ideology manifest themselves in these parties’ stances on ‘classical’ gender issues (such as the division between labour and care, and reproductive rights) on the one hand, and on ‘newer’ issues related to gender, immigration and ‘Islam’ on the other.4 To answer our central question, we study the manifestos of national and neoliberal parties in the Netherlands and Flanders, where both kinds of parties experienced electoral breakthrough in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively.5 Through qualitative content analysis of the manifestos, we are able to map differences in gender ideologies systematically across parties and over time, and account for the
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