The shaping power of anti-liberal ideas

Abstract

This special issue sheds light on the shift from consensus over democracy and liberal values to increased dissensus. With a focus on Central and Eastern Europe, it explores the nature and the origins of anti-liberal ideas and their diffusion beyond the EU. While anti-liberal ideas are not new per se, this special issue shows how in recent years they have re-emerged, being invoked by a wide range of political and social actors who seek to translate them into policy solutions and by the same token to change the foundations of national polities, policies and politics.

“Leave the Kids Alone”:

“…A country which does not create children is destined to die" (m.e.). This comment, from an article in our material, made during the World Congress of Families by the leader of the Lega, one of the main Italian right-wing parties, is a perfect example of the way in which anti-gender and pro-family movements weaponise the role of defenders and saviours of society at large (Miškovska Kajevska 2018; Coman et al 2021). We have gathered further examples of this semantic strategy under the label reproductive futurism, a concept here informed by our reading of Edelman (2004) and the reflections of Xenofeminism (Hester 2008).…”

“…The semantic war on gender shifted from a matter of religious belief to one of rights and democracy. Changes in the understanding of gender are in the note portrayed as an attack on the rights of both women and men due to the denial of biological differentiation; as an attack on parental rights, due to the denial of parents' rights to their own values and to decide over their children; and an attack on future society, due to the denial of society's continuation through natural reproduction (Miškovska Kajevska 2018; Coman et al 2021). In this rights-based "artificially induced cultural and ideological conflict" (Żuk & Żuk 2020) the preservation of democracy is constructed as the central task of the anti-gender campaigns.…”