Explaining Differences in Belgium: Why Flanders seems to be less in the grip of anti-gender mobilization
While politically not as decisive as elsewhere in Europe, anti-gender mobilizations seem to develop more slowly in the Dutch-speaking civil society of Belgium than in the French-speaking one. We suggest that this discrepancy between Belgium’s two main political spheres is, among other factors, due to three historic political features. Contrary to Flanders, which has been […]
Deepening Democracy: the Inspiring Example of the Argentinean Feminist Mobilization
This year’s gathering of the International Political Science Association in Buenos Aires from 15-19 July 2023, had a particular feminist flavour, despite being a mainstream political science conference; with vibrant panels assessing the successes and aftermath of the massive feminist mobilisations in the region. The Ni Una Menos protest that started in Argentina in 2015 had […]
How anti-gender fearmongering challenges democracy in Hungary
Anti-Gender (AG) campaigns – such as those targeting gender and sexual minorities and/or women’s rights – have become key components of conservative / right wing politics in the past decade in many countries. Hungary is an extreme example, where AG rhetoric has been instrumentalised by the government led by the Fidesz-KDNP Party Alliance who gained […]
Teaching material on gender equality and opposition to it in the European Parliament available now!
In recent years, the EUGenDem ‘Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: a study of the European Parliament’s party groups’ research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) considerably advanced our knowledge about gender equality in the European Union; notably by investigating the gendered policies and practices of the European Parliament’s political groups. Political […]
CCINDLE: The Political Meaning of Theory
It is obvious thing to say that every scientific research needs theory. Theories provide us with abstract categories and their, more or less precise, definitions. They suggest connections between different elements of social realities and characterise them in a way that help us understand how society works, evolves or stays the same. Thanks to certain […]
CCINDLE’s consortium meeting in Amsterdam
From the 19th to 21st of April, all consortium partners got together at the University of Amsterdam for CCINDLE’s first consortium meeting following the kick-off meeting last autumn. The consortium had grown since our last in-person meeting, with many new researchers having joined the CCINDLE team – so it was great to meet all the new team members in […]
Democracy and feminist politics: a crucial relationship
Democracy is a constant, contested, and unfinished process of democratization. Rights and freedoms are not achieved or lost once and for all, but rather the object of ongoing struggles. Some social and political forces support democratization, while others oppose democratization, therefore contributing to democratic backsliding. Democratization and democratic backsliding are gendered processes. Our last CCINDLE […]
Beyond backsliding: Polish abortion laws from a democratic transition perspective
In the past 10 years, Poland has gone from a Third Wave transition success story to the fastest backsliding democracy in the world (V-Dem Institute Report, 2021). Rapidly declining quality of democracy has been ascribed to the populist right-wing government first formed by Law and Justice (PiS) in 2015 and its attacks on democratic institutions. […]
