European Political Science

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-019-00223-3

DEBATE

Gender and sexuality research in the age of populism:

lessons for political science

Isabelle Engeli1

© European Consortium for Political Research 2019

Abstract
Gender and politics research faces a crossroad in the age of populism. On the one
hand, gender and sexuality research is on the way to institutionalisation across a
growing number of academic systems in Europe. On the other, gender and sexual-
ity research has become increasingly contested and attacked, and has become the
bête noire of the populist and radical right. This contribution contends that gender
research is under threat not only because of the gender component, but also because
of the scholarly research. There are thus lessons to be drawn for the wider discipline
of political science. This article first sketches out the dualization in the institution-
alization of gender-related research. It then situates the hostility towards gender and
sexuality research in the broader (and growing) opposition to gender + and sexual +
equality. It concludes with some preliminary observations about the how this hostil-
ity may be part of a wider contestation of academic expertise and scholarly knowl-
edge that is being led, at least in part, by populist forces of all stripes.

Keywords  Gender · Sexuality · Research · Political science · Populism

If I had been asked a few years ago what it would be to teach and research on gender
and politics in Europe in the “Age of Trump”, I would have probably replied that it
would be business as usual.1 Until not so long ago, gender and politics research was

1
 I am immensely grateful to David Paternotte for having provided me with many of the references
which this article relies on and for our engaging discussions that were incredibly useful to sort out my
thoughts and make sense of this worrisome situation. I am also very thankful to the speakers—Anikò
Gregor, Weronika Grebalska, Ov Cristian Norocel, Massimo Prearo and Mieke Verloo—of the ECPG-
Featured Roundtable “Promoting Gender & Sexuality Studies in Times of Hostility” at the European
Conference of Politics and Gender, University of Amsterdam, July 2019. The Roundtable was convened
by David Paternotte.

* Isabelle Engeli
i.engeli@exeter.ac.uk
1
University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Vol.:(0123456789)
 I. Engeli

mostly contained at the margin of the discipline with limited visibility within the
profession and weak institutionalization (Mügge et al. 2016). I would have expected
to hear about the “female figures” of the Rassemblement National or the Alternative
für Deutschland in the media and pundit commentary as well as to read fascinating
pieces about the gender gap in far-right and/or populist support in generalist journals
of the discipline. For everything else, I would have consulted specialized scholar-
ship on gender and politics. I would also have taught my classes in the usual way. I
would have mixed generalist pieces that largely disregard gender dynamics in poli-
tics with cutting-edge research on gender, sexuality and politics and connected the
two strands in my lectures.
On a more personal note, I was the happy Convener of the European Confer-
ence of Politics and Gender, the world-leading conference in its field that was about
to welcome over 850 participants in July 2019 for its 6th edition, and whose flagship
journal, The European Journal of Politics and Gender, was about to be launched. I
used to think that the future of gender and politics research had never been brighter
in Europe.
However, just a few days before the launch of the inaugural double issue of the
journal in July 2018, an article was published in a Hungarian magazine that ques-
tioned the usefulness of gender and sexuality research in Hungary. This coincidence
has made me reflect more generally about a number of events and their meaning for
the future of gender and politics research across Europe and our discipline of politi-
cal science more generally. One tale of gender and sexuality research is clearly about
the way it has become institutionalized, both within the discipline and within the
contemporary university. Yet, a second tale has also emerged, which is the story by
which gender and sexuality research has become contested, attacked and elevated to
the status of the bête noire of the populist and radical right.
Things have indeed changed. And they have changed fast. Or better put, things
have changed and it has become clear that the growing number of attacks on gender
and sexuality research is not isolated events. On the one hand, scholarship on gen-
der and politics has made significant contributions to understanding gender dynam-
ics in politics and policy. It is now difficult to ignore the gender dynamics in far-
right and populist politics (for an overview: Coffé 2018; Habi-Hassan 2017; Kötting
et al. 2017; Special Issue edited by Niels Spierings and Andrej Zaslove “Gender and
Populist Radical Right Politics” 2015 in Patterns of Prejudice) and in contemporary
opposition to progressive change (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Verloo 2017; Special
Issue “The Feminist Project under Threat in Europe” 2018 in Politics & Govern-
ance). Gender and politics research has also been progressively better received by
the discipline than in the past (at least in some countries). On the other hand, gen-
der and sexuality research is increasingly under attack outside the discipline. While
actors situated on the right side of the political spectrum do not have the monopoly
over these attacks, gender research has nevertheless become a “convenient proxy”
for electoral and ideological (moving) targets of populist forces, conservative reli-
gious forces and the far-right (Apperly 2019). As Apperly (2019) put it, these attacks
are “as much about electoral opportunity as a conflict of ideas”.
This short piece does not pretend to be exhaustive. It provides one key to under-
standing this paradoxical situation regarding the institutionalization of gender and
Gender and sexuality research in the age of populism: lessons…

politics research and teaching. Building on the contribution of a large community

of scholars, I first sketch out the dualization in the institutionalization of gender-
related research. I then situate the hostility towards gender and sexuality research
in the broader (and growing) opposition to gender + and sexual + equality to draw
some preliminary conclusions about the how this hostility may be a sign of a larger
contestation of academic expertise and scholarly knowledge that is at least in part let
by populist forces of all kinds.

The dual track of the institutionalization of gender research

Gender and politics research has been slowly but surely receiving more attention
across a number of academic systems on the three main dimensions of academic
recognition: institutional, scholarly and professional (Mügge et al. 2016; Engeli and
Mügge forthcoming). On the institutional side, in the UK many departments have
made efforts over the recent years to offer at least one (often elective only) course in
gender and politics at the undergraduate level. Masters programs with a gender and
politics component have been opened in countries like Austria, Belgium, the Nether-
lands and the UK. Some pioneer departments of political science across Europe have
started to advertise positions with an explicit gender component in the research and
teaching expectations for the role. On the scholarly side of academic recognition,
the European Conference of Politics and Gender has become a major international
venue welcoming over 850 participants. The recent launch of the European Jour-
nal of Politics and Gender has strengthened the specialist offering in the discipline.
Generalist journals have opened up to contributions bringing a gender lens to schol-
arly debates. Regarding professional recognition, the ECPR Joni Lovenduski prize
awards the best PhD dissertation in gender and politics. The ECPR Standing Group
on Gender and Politics proudly features among the top-largest Standing Groups at
the ECPR. Standing groups on gender and politics are being launched in systems
that are not particularly gender-friendly (Alonso and Lombardo 2016). While ple-
nary keynote addresses rarely talk about gender, plenary roundtables in international
conferences integrate more frequently gender perspective(s) than in the past.
Last but not least, a number of gender scholars have achieved institutional posi-
tions of power in the discipline, for example as editors of flagship journals of major
professional associations, members of executive committees of professional associa-
tions and of University senior leadership teams. True, gender and politics research
is still made invisible in some Western European countries (Italy, just to name only
one), and its institutionalization in some other countries is still at a relatively early
stage and remains dependant on the institutional agency of individual scholars (Bon-
jour et  al. 2016). It is nevertheless safe to say that in a number of  academic sys-
tems, gender and politics research has recently taken steps towards its institutional
 I. Engeli

establishment within political science and related disciplines. As Ahrens et  al.
(2018: 4) observed, “the study of politics and gender is no longer a sideshow” in the
discipline of political science.
This is the bright side of the picture. However, at the very same time that we
have seen the progressive institutionalization of gender and politics research, we
have also witnessed the increasing contestation of gender and sexuality research.
This may be more or less visible and more or less subtle. One of the most ostensi-
ble pushbacks, or at least the one Western Europe has paid the most attention since
it occurred alongside the attack against Central European University (Helms and
Krizsan 2017) and has been the repeated attacks from the Hungarian government
and its followers against gender and sexuality research. These attacks from the popu-
list and conservative forces in Hungary have developed in three steps and include a
“division of labour” between the governmental coalition partners. The Hungarian
Christian Democratic People’s Party has been in charge of propagating the gender
ideology rhetoric, and Fidesz has framed the governmental intervention in neolib-
eral terms cost-effectiveness.2
First, the Hungarian magazine Figyelő published in June 2018 a rather haphaz-
ard performance assessment of a number of gender and sexuality scholars based in
Hungary. Entitled “Immigration, the rights of homosexuals and gender science—
these are the topics that researchers at the [Hungarian Academy of Sciences] are
preoccupied with”, the article provided the names (and for some a picture) of gender
and sexuality scholars based at the Hungarian Academic of Sciences together with a
rather rough assessment of “efficiency” based on publications appearing on the web
page of the Academy.3 The attack rapidly escalated. In the second step, the Hungar-
ian government announced in August 2018 that it was considering withdrawing the
accreditation (and the financial support that goes with for Eötvös Loránd Univer-
sity) of the gender studies programs (Petö 2018). Despite reactions from a number
of universities and professional associations—including the ECPR and the European
Conference of Politics and Gender—the government turned it into a governmental
decree in October 2018. According to France 24, in the view of the Deputy Prime
Minister, the return on investment of gender studies programs was nil because “no
one wants to employ a gender-ologist”.4 RT reported that another Minister was in
the opinion that “gender studies—similarly to Marxism–Leninism—can be called an

2
  The point about the division of labour was made by Anikò Gregor at the ECPG-Featured Roundtable
“Promoting Gender and Sexuality Studies in Times of Hostility”, The European Conference of Politics
and Gender, University of Amsterdam, July 2019. My transcription.
3
  Non-official translation. Available at: https​://figye​lo.hu/v/bevan​dorla​s-homos​zexua​lisok​-jogai​-es-gende​
rtudo​many--ezek-fogla​lkozt​atjak​-legin​kabb-az-mta-munka​tarsa​it--/, accessed on June 12 2019.
4
 Available at: https​://www.franc​e24.com/en/20181​016-hunga​ry-gende​r-studi​es-ban-draws​-unive​rsity​
-anger​, accessed on May 25 2019.
Gender and sexuality research in the age of populism: lessons…

ideology rather than a science, and therefore, it is doubtful that it attains the scien-
tific level expected for a university degree course”.5
The Hungarian government does not seem particularly preoccupied with infring-
ing on academic freedom. In a response to a letter of concern that I sent in my
capacity of Convener of the European Conference of Politics and Gender, the State
Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs stated that “this decision in no way restricts the
freedom of academic research as the topic can continue to be researched to scientific
standards with other academic fields and can also continue to be taught at universi-
ties which are operated by foundations”.6 The third step, while still in the making,
is likely to include governmental involvement in the definition of these ‘scientific
standards’. The government has indeed seen its intention to dismantle (or close to it)
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences passed into law in July 2019.7 As Zoltàn (2019)
explains, the affiliated research institutes are to be detached from the Academy and
largely placed under a government-controlled governance system;8 buildings, infra-
structures, and other assets are expected to be handed over; and research funding
will be allocated on a project by project basis. In this context, one has legitimate
concern for future budget allocations to gender and sexuality research and for the
ability of gender and sexuality scholars to keep their positions in the Academy.
In Poland and elsewhere in Western, Central and Eastern Europe (Lilleslåt-
ten 2018), there have been attempts to establish watch lists of gender and sexuality
scholars. Some scholars report having an increasing number of followers on Twitter
whose accounts do not display any hint of sensitivity towards gender equality or
research, if not looking blatantly fake. Other scholars have been the victims of online
trolls (see for example Petö 2018) or have seen their public intervention contested by
the far right.9 A recent piece from Apperly (2019) provides an insightful overview
of what she rightly qualifies as far-reaching “pattern of attacks” from the far-right
and populist forces. To mention just two of these attacks, a workshop on “Asylum
Seekers, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” was cancelled at the University
of Verona10 and a threat was made against the Secretariat for Gender Research in
Sweden (Norocel 2018).
These attempts to monitor academic production and dissemination are not that
different from similar efforts that have been flourishing in the USA since the last

5
  Available at: https​://www.rt.com/news/43632​9-hunga​ry-gende​r-studi​es-ban-orban​/ accessed on June 12
2019. As Petö (2017) reminds us, attacks against gender studies in Hungary are not a new phenomenon.
6
  My emphasis.
7
 As reported in Nature available at: https​://www.natur​e.com/artic​les/d4158​6-019-02107​-4?fbcli​
d=IwAR2​wZy6p​a7d9U​YL-qCvc2​hj69Y​Hp8bz​wBn4k​aEe8I​sorx6​hwo0Z​Etw5H​IA8&_ga=2.14491​
5956.13795​37620​.15626​10032​-10059​11596​.15596​66081​&sfns=xmwa, accessed on August 8 2019.
8
  The new governance system will rely on a hybrid body in which 6 out of 13 members will be repre-
sentatives of the government while all the members, including the six representatives of the Academy,
will be appointed by the government (Zoltàn 2019).
9
  As reported, for example, by Ov Cristian Norocel at the ECPG-Featured Roundtable “Promoting Gen-
der & Sexuality Studies in Times of Hostility”, The European Conference of Politics and Gender, Uni-
versity of Amsterdam, July 2019. My transcription.
10
 See the petition here  : https​://www.opend​emocr​acy.net/en/can-europ​e-make-it/acade​mic-freed​om-
under​-threa​t-works​hop-on-lgbt-asylu​m-is-cen/, accessed on August 8 2019.
 I. Engeli

presidential election. Gender research is also blamed for social changes. For exam-
ple, gender research in Austria was designed as the culprit for gender-friendly lan-
guage requirements in public communication (Sauer 2016). In other countries,
gender as a research field is discouraged and the few gender-related courses are
randomly scattered across the curriculum. Funding is scarce and not always secure
from one year to the next; careers are not often made on the basis of scholarly con-
tributions to gender and politics. Even at the EU level, the integration of gender
perspectives in the research frameworks has been fluctuating over time and its future
remains unclear.

What is it about ‘gender’?

If I was still naive, I would conclude this short piece right here by bluntly stating
that, if gender and sexuality research has been receiving hostile attention, it must be
because this field of research is doing something right. Instead, I think it is crucial
to put the hostility into a broader context. While we are still in the process of trying
to make sense of this hostility towards gender and sexuality research, I can draw
on the enlightened contributions of many colleagues to try to provide a preliminary
interpretation. Hostility and opposition to gender research does not happen in a vac-
uum. Hostility towards gender research resonates with the vocal opposition towards
gender + sexuality + equality (Verloo 2018a, b) and with the anti-gender campaigns
across Europe that are investigated in Roman  Kuhar and David  Paternotte’s vol-
ume (2017). One cannot have missed the rejuvenated anti-abortion marches which
regularly draw people into the street, including a non-negligible segment of young
women. Protest against same-sex marriage has put the Catholic right back on the
map of ‘secular’ France. The propagation of the Vatican’s discourse about ‘gender
ideology’ has dramatically accelerated with the “resonance amplifier” of the far
right (Case 2017; Paternotte and Kuhar 2018). Sex education at school is under fire
all-over Europe. These are social forces that are gaining momentum. It is too early
to tell how long this momentum will last. But, we have some keys to understanding
why this dynamic is taking place.
While the ways in which gender is incorporated into populist and far-right dis-
course may vary across context (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2015; Verloo 2018a,
b), the concept of ‘gender’ has been appropriated and integrated into what Lewis
and Waligorska (2019) call the “war of symbols”. At the core of this war of sym-
bols, there is a new (?) discourse against equality across conservative and populist
forces in Europe. In gender and politics scholarship, gender is generally understood
to be a political phenomenon that “refers to a set of social constructions, which dif-
fer between societies, and that underpin a set of norms, cultures and behaviours
that create and recreate asymmetric power dynamics between men and women, and
between the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’—often to the detriment of the latter”
(Ahrens et al. 2018: 6). In this ongoing war of symbols, ‘gender’ has become some-
thing entirely different. It can take various forms such as ‘gender theory’, ‘gender
ideology’ or ‘genderism’ (Kováts 2018). All these forms reflect the instrumentali-
zation of ‘gender’ into a rather blurry “ideological matrix” used to signify various
Gender and sexuality research in the age of populism: lessons…

oppositions to progressive change related to intimate and sexual issues such as

LGBT rights, reproductive rights and sex education (Paternotte and Kuhar 2018:
8).11 The counter-term to gender and sexual equality is often the ‘family’ which pur-
sues its secularizing trajectory (Engeli et al. 2012). All in all, ‘gender’ has become
increasingly associated with the now familiar populist anti-establishment rhetoric
that points towards a ‘gender agenda’ that would be imposed on ‘the people’ (Graff
et al. 2019: 544).
Why is this happening? Grzebalska et al. (2017); see also the volume edited by
Kováts and Põim (2015) argue that the concept of ‘gender’ (as in gender ideology)
acts as a “symbolic glue”. ‘Gender’ patches together various dissatisfactions and
resentments towards globalization, Europeanization and the current economic order,
the political establishment and, more generally, the elites. For sure, the way it is
used varies across contexts (see Paternotte and Kuhar 2018 for a discussion of the
main variants), but the functionality of this symbolic glue has nevertheless become
a constant. And this functionality comes in handy for political movements and par-
ties that struggle to elaborate a coherent response to socioeconomic inequalities and
the inability of economic and social policies to redress these inequalities (Gregor
in Gagyi 2018). Indeed, the malleability of ‘gender’ accommodates the diversity in
religiously conservative, far-right and populist discourses across Europe. This has
greatly amplified its political importance over the recent years (Paternotte and Kuhar
2018; Kováts & Põim 2015; Kováts 2018). As such, ‘gender’ has reached the sta-
tus of a general political strategy to foster broad cross-ideological affiliation sup-
port among the far right, the religious right and the populist right (Norocel 2018;
Petö 2015). Graff et al. (2019: 544) rightly put it thus: “antifeminism is where Milo
Yiannopoulos can meet Pope Francis”. And so far, this “conversion technique” has
proven successful in mobilizing a large reserve of resentment (Gregor in Gagyi
2018).

What is next?

Hard to tell. As always, we will probably be smarter in 20 years. It is likely that the
paradoxical situation where gender and politics research is both institutionalizing
and being contested at the same time will continue. In academic systems where gen-
der and politics research has started to establish itself, this trend is unlikely to stop.
Despite varying pace and scope, one can expect more courses specialized in gender
and politics and further integration of gender research in generalist courses that has
remained timid so far. But what will happen in the countries where gender research
is less established and gender equality is under threat? The dualization in the insti-
tutional trajectory of gender research is worrisome in itself. It also raises questions
for the discipline more generally. What can we do as a disciplinary community to
strengthen the legitimacy of our evidence-based expertise and—let’s call a spade a
spade—to protect our professional self-interest in an era where academic knowledge

11
  It may also have an anti-EU or anti-Western connotation (Graff and Korolczuk 2018).
 I. Engeli

and expertise have been increasingly contested by the rise of populism and the main-
streaming of far-right discourse?
Government intervention in the Hungarian academic system has not stopped at
gender and sexuality research. In the past, the Hungarian government shutdown
other programs (such as an BA in Social Studies) (Gregor in Gagyi 2018), largely
defunded other programs such as International Studies (Gregor in Gagyi 2018) and
is now putting a firm grip on the entire research system. Social contestation of sci-
entific knowledge does not stop at gender research either the anti-vaccine move-
ment being one example among many others. The attention paid to gender research
is symptomatic of a larger and increasing rejection, not only of progressive ideas,
but also of scholarly knowledge and institutions. If we continue to think of Hun-
gary as an isolated case, “we will have not done our homework” as Paternotte and
Verloo put it (forthcoming). ‘Migration’ and ‘race’ most probably play a similar
semantic function of bridging together a broad range of voices expressing a variety
of claims. Working on more traditional topics does not protect scholars from trig-
gering reaction. The recent local salve of the Northern League against the use of an
academic book qualifying the League as extreme right at the University of Bologna
has reminded this to us (Mammone 2019). More generally, one can wonder about
the extent to which science and evidence-based knowledge are at risk.12 We can-
not understand these attacks against gender and sexuality research without situating
them in the broader historical context. As much as social science research is the
product of society, opposition to it is the product of the same society.13 Grzebalska
et al. (2017) rightly emphasize that ‘gender’ is a foundation stone in the elaboration
of the populist agenda for a “new conception of ‘common sense’”. What is the future
of scholarly knowledge in this battle for ‘common sense’?
In this articulation of a holistic perspective of what society should aim towards,
one may doubt the amount of space left open to academic knowledge. There is grow-
ing mistrust towards (social) scientific research and scholarly knowledge, and hostil-
ity is displayed against individual scholars because of the topic of their research or
the fact they are from minority groups. In one sense, gender research is under threat
not only because of gender, but also because it is scholarly research. Brexit has pro-
vided a vivid illustration of the (disputed) role of expertise which is seen by detrac-
tors as no better than “snake-oil” (to quote the Leave campaign director).14 In this
brave new world, evidence does not fit well with post-truth rhetoric; and when they
clash, it seems that often it is evidence that has to give. The social sciences have
been given a hard time. It is now probably time for our profession to organize and
identify response(s). After all, it is also our legitimacy as scholarly experts that is at
stake.

12
  For a far-reaching analysis of the threats against political science and political scientists, see Pater-
notte and Verloo (forthcoming).
13
  Point made by Mieke Verloo at at the ECPG-Featured Roundtable “Promoting Gender & Sexuality
Studies in Times of Hostility”, The European Conference of Politics and Gender, University of Amster-
dam, July 2019. My transcription.
14
 Available at: https​://www.thegu​ardia​n.com/polit​ics/2016/apr/20/accur​acy-is-for-snake​-oil-pussi​es-
vote-leave​s-campa​ign-direc​tor-defie​s-mps, accessed on May 25 2019.
Gender and sexuality research in the age of populism: lessons…

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Isabelle Engeli  is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Exeter.