Blitzkrieg Against Democracy: Gender Equality and the Rise of the Populist Radical Right in Spain (original) (raw)
Related papers
Silencing feminism? Gender and the Rise of the Far-Right in Spain
SIGNS Journal of Women, Culture and Society, 2021
Feminism in Spain is experiencing a paradox. On the one hand, the March 8 movement has held two feminist strikes, attended by multitudes. On the other hand, the far Right has entered representative politics, announcing a battle against feminism. With the rapid ascendency of the nationalist far-right party Vox, Spain joins other European countries where the far Right is on the rise. This article’s aim is to analyze the crucial role of gender in the rise of the nationalist far Right in Spain, arguing that gender is not a secondary issue but a primary field in which this political process is being articulated. The article examines the ways Vox mobilized gender during the national electoral campaign of April 2019 and during their first steps in the Andalusian Parliament. The analysis is twofold: it begins by exploring the framing of Vox’s electoral campaigns, including the national myth of the Reconquista of a Catholic Spain from Muslim rule and the militaristic representation of masculinity within this holy-war frame. It then examines Vox’s relentless antigender discourse, focusing on two prominent issues: first, the far-right opposition to gender violence policy through a variety of strategies, such as denying the gendered nature of violence against women and reversing the roles of victim and perpetrator, and second, the party’s representation of feminism, ranging from its straightforward delegitimization of feminism as an enemy of the Spanish nation to a parasitic-opportunistic appropriation through the defense of a “Spanish feminism.” The case study concludes that the Spanish far Right is gender dependent and that antagonism toward feminism is one of its key features.
Gender Equality and De-Democratization Processes: The Case of Spain
2018
Democracy is an ally of the feminist project and a necessary condition for its success. The European post-crisis context shows evidence of de-democratization processes that represent a remarkable challenge. This article investigates gender equality and processes of de-democratization in Spain in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. It argues that ne-oliberalism, authoritarian shifts, and political corruption are three key dimensions of the processes of de-democratization in Spain that contribute to oppose gender equality. However, political contestation and feminist collective agency both in movements and institutions have played a key role in counteracting these dynamics. Civil society and feminist move-ments' struggles for democracy, equality and social justice, the role of new populist left parties in channeling some of the protesters' demands, gender equality institutions keeping gender on the agenda despite austerity cuts, and new local governments emerging from civic platforms after the 2015 elections have been effective in resisting attacks to Spanish democracy. A thorough revision of academic literature and other secondary sources helps to capture the specificities of this complex political setting.
Genealogy, 2019
For a long time, Spain was thought of as an outlier because it did not have a significant radical right movement. However, the sudden popularity of VOX among voters in Andalusia has put an end to so-called "Spanish exceptionalism". The rise of this radical right party is important for two reasons: its potential direct impact on the political system, and the way in which it will affect other political players. The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that have led voters to cast ballots for VOX during the 2018 regional elections in Andalusia. Regression analysis has been carried out in order to test some of the most widely accepted theories in the literature about the radical right vote. The results show that VOX's vote is fundamentally dictated by broader socio-political factors related to territorial model, ideological self-identification and perception of political leaders. In this sense, two of the most accepted set of explanations-those which consider that the vote for the radical right is conditioned by economic or identity-related vulnerability-are refuted.
Spain: No Country for the Populist Radical Right?
Although there is growing research interest in populist radical right (PRR) parties in Western Europe, little attention has been paid to the case of Spain -a country where these parties are almost non-existent or irrelevant from an electoral and political point of view. In a nutshell, we maintain that in contemporary Spain there is real demand for PRR parties, but three supply-side factors are impeding their electoral breakthrough and persistence: the cleavage structure of the country, the strategy of competition of the mainstream right and the electoral system. At the same time, we postulate that at least in the case of Spain the Great Recession has not improved the electoral odds of the PRR as such but rather facilitated the emergence of leftist populist forces.
The Hijacking of Feminism by Spanish Populism: The Unidas
The International Journal of Populism, 2022
This paper explores the relationship between feminism and populism. With this purpose, this paper focusses on the case of the political coalition Unidas Podemos, which is currently participating in the Spanish Government. Its political action particularly reflects the main argument of this paper: populism has hijacked the feminist movement in Spain. This result can be observed in three turns that populism and feminism implement together: punitivism, identitarian politics, and the emphasis on the emotional side of the political discourse. The conclusion will be that if (and only if) feminism maintains its independence from populism, can it retain the credibility of its claims that are rationally plausible in the democratic agenda.
VOX Spain: The Organisational Challenges of a New Radical Right Party
Politics and Governance, 2021
This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of territorial interests, or prevent them from escaping their control. Today, VOX exhibits elements of mass party organisation and highly centralised decision-making in the hands of national party leaders.