Report of Case Studies on Gender Equality as a Focus Point of National and Nativist Discourses

This deliverable is based on the national reports on the rhetoric of populist radical right parties from the seven selected countries, i.e. Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Italy and Spain, together with Israel. The objective of this synthesis report is to identify similarities and divergences in framing migration, mobility, gender and family and the implications of these frames for European citizenship. Our sample of parties were selected from continental, Nordic, Central and Eastern European and Southern European member states of the EU, all experiencing different path dependencies and breaks in their socio-economic, political and cultural institutions, something which may be formative for populist radical right agendas. The analysis has identified different logics in the framing of gender equality in relation to migration, mobility, diversity and family issues: An economic dimension that links migration and diversity to the logic of the labour market and the welfare regime, and a cultural dimension that links gender, family and religion to national values and belongings. The economic rationale, in the sense that concerns for migration and mobility override issues related to gender equality and the family, seems to be the most prevalent one for the Northern European countries, while the cultural rationale is much more visible in the case of the other countries, South, East Central and Continental European alike.