This book is a systematic consideration of the link between the extreme right and the discourse about developments in regard to gender issues within different national states. The contributors analyze right-wing extremist tendencies in Europe under the specific perspective on gender. The volume brings together the few existing findings concerning the quantitative dimension of activities carried out by men and women in different countries, and illuminates and juxtaposes gender ratios along with the role of women in right-wing extremism. Along with the gender-specific access to right-wing groups, the chapters look at networks, organizational forms, specific strategies of female right-wing extremists, their ideologies (especially regarding femininity and masculinity), hetero normativity, discourses on sexuality, and preventive and counter-strategies. The book will be of use to students and scholars interested in gender and politics, European politics, and political extremism.

This book is a systematic consideration of the link between the extreme right and the discourse about developments in regard to gender issues within different national states. The contributors analyze right-wing extremist tendencies in Europe under the specific perspective on gender. The volume brings together the few existing findings concerning the quantitative dimension of activities carried out by men and women in different countries, and illuminates and juxtaposes gender ratios along with the role of women in right-wing extremism. Along with the gender-specific access to right-wing groups, the chapters look at networks, organizational forms, specific strategies of female right-wing extremists, their ideologies (especially regarding femininity and masculinity), hetero normativity, discourses on sexuality, and preventive and counter-strategies. The book will be of use to students and scholars interested in gender and politics, European politics, and political extremism.

The results of the last European Elections of 2014 confirmed the rise of right and far right 'populist' parties across the EU. The success of a range of parties, such as Denmark’s Dansk Folskeparti, Slovenia’s Slovenska demokratska stranka, France’s Front National, Greece’s Golden Dawn, the United Kingdom Independence Party, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy and the Austrian FPÖ, has been perceived as a political wave which is transforming the face of the European Parliament, and challenging at some level the hegemony of the 'big four' well-established European political forces that lead the Strasbourg’s assembly: the ALDE, EPP, S&D and Greens/ALE. As 'populism' has become a major issue in many EU countries, this collection aims to provide a critical understanding of related trends and recommend ways in which they can be challenged both in policy and praxis, by using the gender-race-ethnicity-sexual orientation intersectionality approach. This international volume combines extensive transnational comparative data analysis, as well as research at discursive, attitudinal and behavioural levels.

While research in right-wing populism has recently been blossoming, a systematic study of the intersection of right-wing populism and gender is still missing, even though gender issues are ubiquitous in discourses of the radical right ranging from »ethnosexism« against immigrants, to »anti-genderism.« This volume shows that the intersectionality of gender, race and class is constitutional for radical right discourse. From different European perspectives, the contributions investigate the ways in which gender is used as a meta-language, strategic tool and »affective bridge« for ordering and hierarchizing political objectives in the discourse of the diverse actors of the »right-wing complex.«

How did far-right, hateful and anti-democratic ideologies become so successful in many societies in Europe? This volume analyses the paradoxical roles sexual politics have played in this process and reveals that the incoherence and untruthfulness in right-wing populist, ultraconservative and far-right rhetorics of fear are not necessarily signs of weakness. Instead, the authors show how the far right can profit from its own incoherence by generating fear and creating discourses of crisis for which they are ready to offer simple solutions. In studies on Poland, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, France, Sweden and Russia, the ways far-right ideologies travel and take root are analysed from a multi-disciplinary perspective, including feminist and LGBTQI reactions. Understanding how hateful and antidemocratic ideologies enter the very centre of European societies is a necessary premise for developing successful counterstrategies.

Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg’s critical look at the far right throughout Europe reveals a prehistory and politics more complex than the stereotypes suggest and warns of the challenges it poses to the EU’s liberal-democratic order. These movements are determined to gain power through legitimate electoral means, and they are succeeding.

In Women of the Right, Kathleen M. Blee and Sandra McGee Deutsch bring together a groundbreaking collection of essays examining women in right-wing politics across the world, from the early twentieth-century white Afrikaner movement in South Africa to the supporters of Sarah Palin today. The volume introduces a truly global perspective on how women matter in the national and transnational links and exchanges of rightist politics. Suitable for classroom use, it sets a new agenda for scholarship on women on the right. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Nancy Aguirre, Karla J. Cunningham, Kirsten Delegard, Kathleen M. Fallon, Kate Hallgren, Randolph Hollingsworth, Jill Irvine, Vandana Joshi, Carol S. Lilly, Annette Linden, Julie Moreau, Margaret Power, Mariela Rubinzal, Daniella Sarnoff, Ronnee Schreiber, Meera Sehgal, Louise Vincent, and Veronica A. Wilson.