Reasserting hegemonic masculinity: women's leadership within the far right

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen Worth
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Extreme Form ◽  
National Movements ◽  
Hegemonic Construction

Abstract The emergence of a global far right has been seen as a significant development in recent years and as a challenge to wider forms of neo-liberal globalization. While much has been written about its significance and representation, little has been written on either the gendered nature of the far right and the role that women have played as actors within it. Though there still remains a gender gap in terms of the support and participation of the far right, there has been an increasing rise of leaders and figureheads within the respective movements themselves. This article argues that despite the emergence of these women, the far right looks to construct an extreme form of masculinity in which anti-feminism appears as a significant part of its overall strategy. By engaging with both the Gramscian understandings of hegemonic construction and subsequent notions of masculinist hegemony, it argues that the appearance of women both as leaders and ‘organic intellectuals’ within respective national movements allows them to gain greater legitimacy. Rather than ‘feminizing’ or indeed moderating the form of far-right narratives, women had looked to re-inforce such extreme masculinity by adding to existing understandings of anti-immigration, nationalism and in particular of the meaning of ‘anti-feminism'. Thus, recent leaders of far-right political parties appear alongside media columnists and ‘celebrities’ in contributing to the construction of extreme masculinity with the far right.

Political Cleavages and Political Parties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
New Left ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Policy Choices

This chapter uses the cleavage positions of Candidates to the European Parliament (CEPs) to as representative of their parties’ political positions. Three surveys of CEPs track the evolution of party supply in European party systems. In 1979 parties were primarily aligned along a Left–Right economic cleavage. Gradually new left and Green parties began to compete in elections and crystallized and represented liberal cultural policies. In recent decades new far-right parties arose to represent culturally conservative positions. The cross-cutting cultural cleavage has also prompted many of the established parties to alter their policy positions. In most multiparty systems, political parties now compete in a fully populated two-dimensional space. This increases the supply of policy choices for the voters. The analyses are based on the Candidates to the European Parliament Studies in 1979, 1994, and 2009.

The Sexual Experience of Married Middle-Aged Women as a Source of Mental Wellbeing: Perceptions, Challenges and Coping Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-203
Author(s):  
Tal Braverman-Uriel ◽  
Tal Litvak-Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
Mental Wellbeing ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
And Coping ◽  
The Impact

The impact of sexuality on mental wellbeing in women in long-term relationships has only been partially investigated. Emphasis has been on quantitative research studies that do not capture the breadth of the field. The present study looked at how and to what extent women maintain sexual desire in long-term relationships, and how sexuality affects their mental wellbeing. The study used a qualitative narrative approach and included semi-structured interviews with approximately 20 Israeli women aged 40–55 from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and in longstanding, permanent relationships. The findings indicate significant development over the years in the perception of the role of sexuality and its impact on mental wellbeing. The path to good sexuality can and should follow women’s leadership and initiative. Such women have the desire to make an impact, willingness to make an effort, and even an actual ability to exert influence. The interviewees’ tools, strategies, insights and ways of coping can serve as models for other women seeking better sexuality in a long-term relationship.

Countering Violent Extremism in Canada and Abroad

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Abdelrahman Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
The Us ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Uk

Terrorism and violent extremism have undoubtedly become among the top security concerns of the 21st century. Despite a robust agenda of counterterrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the evolution of global terrorism has continued to outpace the policy responses that have tried to address it. Recent trends such as the foreign fighter phenomenon, the rampant spread of extremist ideologies online and within communities, and a dramatic increase in terrorist incidents worldwide, have led to a recognition that “traditional” counterterrorism efforts are insufficient and ineffective in combatting these phenomena. Consequently, the focus of policy and practice has shifted towards countering violent extremism by addressing the drivers of radicalization to curb recruitment to extremist groups. Within this context, the field of countering violent extremism (CVE) has garnered attention from both the academic and policy-making worlds. While the CVE field holds promise as a significant development in counterterrorism, its policy and practice are complicated by several challenges that undermine the success of its initiatives. Building resilience to violent extremism is continuously challenged by an overly securitized narrative and unintended consequences of previous policies and practices, including divisive social undercurrents like Islamophobia, xenophobia, and far-right sentiments. These by-products make it increasingly difficult to mobilize a whole of society response that is so critical to the success and sustainability of CVE initiatives. This research project addresses these policy challenges by drawing on the CVE strategies of Canada, the US, the UK, and Denmark to collect best practice and lessons learned in order to outline a way forward. 

scholarly journals Non-Violent Resistance in Iranian Kurdistan After 1979

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Allan Hassaniyan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
The Creation ◽  
New Phase ◽  
The Revolution

This paper sheds light on the significance of the 1979 Iranian Revolution for the Iranian Kurdish movement, arguing that the Revolution provided Iranian Kurds with multifaceted opportunities as well as challenges. In the ensuing years, the Kurdish movement entered into a new phase of its rise. With the emergence of numerous civil society organizations and political parties, the Kurdish movement experienced a hitherto unprecedented growth and diversification of actors and organisations. Kurdish civil society flourished drastically, and a significant part of the Kurdish movement’s challenge to the newly-established government in Tehran was channelled through collective non-violent resistance. The creation of city councils (şoray şar) across Kurdistan constituted the first important challenge to the authority of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, whilst the mobilisation of collective non-violent resistance introduced new forms of resistance to the post-Revolutionary authoritarian state’s policies in Kurdistan.

scholarly journals Do Women Get Fewer Votes? No.

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Semra Sevi ◽  
Vincent Arel-Bundock ◽  
André Blais
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Time Trends ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Difference

AbstractWe study data on the gender of more than 21,000 unique candidates in all Canadian federal elections since 1921, when the first women ran for seats in Parliament. This large data set allows us to compute precise estimates of the difference in the electoral fortunes of men and women candidates. When accounting for party effects and time trends, we find that the difference between the vote shares of men and women is substantively negligible (±0.5 percentage point). This gender gap was larger in the 1920s (±2.5 percentage points), but it is now statistically indistinguishable from zero. Our results have important normative implications: political parties should recruit and promote more women candidates because they remain underrepresented in Canadian politics and because they do not suffer from a substantial electoral penalty.

Populist parties and foreign policy: The case of Italy’s Five Star Movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Coticchia ◽  
Valerio Vignoli
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
Populist Party

The role of political parties in foreign policy is gaining increasing attention. Nonetheless, despite an extraordinary interest in ‘populism’, the foreign policy of populist parties has rarely been investigated. This article provides an innovative theoretical framework, applying it on a rare example of a ‘pure’ populist party: Italy’s Five Star Movement. How has Five Star Movement positioned on Italian contribution to military operations abroad? What does such positioning say about its ideological leaning? In order to address such questions, the article analyses Five Star Movement’s MPs’ votes and speeches on foreign policy during its first term in Parliament (2013–2018). We find that, notwithstanding some ambiguities, the Movement’s stance has been mostly pacifist and humanitarian, resembling more a ‘left-libertarian populist party’ than a ‘sovereigntist far-right one’. Through these findings, the article contributes to the debate on populist parties and foreign policy in Europe, clarifying also the elusive ideological leaning of the Five Star Movement.

How candidate selection structures and genders political ambition: illustrations from Uruguay

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Cecilia Josefsson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Informal Institutions ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Leadership Selection ◽  
Selection Procedures ◽  
Formal And Informal Institutions ◽  
Almost All

Men’s over-representation persists in almost all legislatures. This article engages with this problem by bringing together literature on the gendered nature of political parties and literature on the gender gap in political ambition to argue that candidate selection procedures structure the meaning and importance of political ambition. Exploiting the large variation in formal and informal institutions guiding candidate selection in Uruguay, I theorise and empirically explore how two of the most common ways to select legislative candidates worldwide – (1) primaries and (2) exclusive leadership selection – shape the meaning and importance of political ambition in diverging ways, with gendered effects.

scholarly journals Digital Ecosystems of Ideology: Linked Media as Rhetoric in Spanish Political Tweets

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512092663
Author(s):  
Vanessa Ceia
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
General Elections ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Popular Party

That Twitter is a major form of political mobilization and influence has been well documented. But what is the role of linked media—references to newspapers, photos, videos, and other external sources via URLs—in political Twitter messaging? How are linked references employed as campaign tools and rhetorical devices in messages published by political parties on Twitter? Is there a quantifiable relationship between a party’s ideology and linked media in tweets? With the spread of fake news, threats to a free press, and questioning of the legitimacy of political messaging on the rise globally, the sources on which parties draw to convince voters of their online messaging deserve critical attention. To explore the above questions, this article examines uses of linked media in tweets generated by the official accounts of Spain’s top five political parties during, in the lead-up, and in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish General Elections held on April 28, 2019. Grounded in a corpus of 10,038 tweets collected between March 1 and May 15, 2019, this study quantifies, compares, and critiques how linked media are integrated and remixed into tweets published by the left-leaning Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (@PSOE), right-wing Popular Party (@populares), left-wing Podemos (@ahorapodemos), neoliberal Citizens (@CiudadanosCs), and far-right Vox (@vox_es) parties. Evidence reveals that each party links to media from somewhat homophilic groups of news outlets, journalists, and public figures, an analysis of which can shed light on how parties construct their digital self-representations, ideological networks of information, and attempt to sway voters.

scholarly journals Who is to Blame on July 22, 2011? Psychological and Sociological Blame Frames in the Reporting of Anders Breivik in the Dutch Speaking Broadsheet Press

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Stefan Mertens
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Attribution Of Responsibility ◽  
Far Right

On July 22, 2011 Anders Breivik murdered a large amount of people in Norway. In this study we investigate a sample of articles that were published about Breivik and his deeds in the Flemish and Dutch press. We will investigate these articles looking for the so-called “attribution of responsibility frame.” The murders from Breivik could be explained psychologically (“he is insane”) as well as sociologically (far-right political parties are responsible because of having spread hate speech). We present a typology of subtypes of frames. We will furthermore investigate how many times these types of frames occur in different media outlets.

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