Paradoxes That Matter: Introducing Critical Perspectives on Right-Wing Sexual Politics in Europe

The war on flags: The opposition to state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols

“…The findings regarding age, in this sense, open the question of whether younger generations might bring more positive attitudes towards LGBTQ+ symbols. Additionally, it is unknown to what extent negative attitudes towards symbols represent covert forms of generalized prejudice towards LGBTQ+ individuals (Turnbull-Dugarte and López Ortega, 2023), as research on the "paradoxically" contradictory agenda of the radical right-wing movements suggests (Möser et al 2022). Future research should delve into these questions in more detail, investigating attitudinal heterogeneity, including issues related to pride and symbolic representation.…”

“I'm going to do battle… I'm going to do some good”. Biographical trajectories, moral politics, and public engagement among highly religious young Catholics in Spain and Mexico

“…Public controversies involving religious actors have gained popularity in recent decades (Möser, Ramme & Takács, 2021). Béraud (2017) describes the situation as paradoxical and explains that, in the case of France, despite the massive drop in quantitative indicators of individual religiosity, religion has been resurgent in the public sphere.…”

The Gendered Politics of Crisis and De-Democratization: Opposition to Gender Equality. Edited by Bianka Vida. London: ECPR Press, 2022. 266 pp. ISBN: 9781538156780.

“…In The Gendered Politics of Crisis and De-Democratization , Bianka Vida and her coauthors offer an interdisciplinary analysis of the recent rise of opposition against gender+ and LGBTQIA+ equality in the multilevel space of the European Union (EU) (and Turkey). The book is thus part of a burgeoning body of scholarship in the field of gender and politics that has began to address such opposition from an explicitly feminist perspective (Dietze and Roth 2020; Graff, Kapur, and Walters 2019; Graff and Korolczuk 2022; Köttig, Bitzan, and Pető 2017; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Möser, Ramme, and Takács 2022; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018; Verloo 2018; Verloo and Paternotte 2018). And yet, this book advances such scholarship in important ways: first, by broadening its focus in order to locate current opposition against gender+ and LGBTQIA+ equality within the context of the specifically gendered effects of current de-democratization processes and the 2008 economic crisis, crucially, as these intersect with the role of the EU as a gendered normative power; and second, by deepening that focus to assess the effects of opposition in terms of policy reversals and changes in prevailing gender regimes at both the EU and national levels, as well as feminist responses to these.…”