Populist attraction: the symbolic uses of masculinities in the Austrian general election campaign 2017

Abstract

The year 2017 brought about a political change in Austria. The hitherto governing coalition of the Social Democrats (SPÖ) with the conservative People's Party (ÖVP) was replaced with a coalition between the rebranded so-called New People's Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) which lasted only 17 months. This paper aims to theorize political masculinity and populism by taking Austria as an example. It combines the theory of Pierre Bourdieu and his conceptions of the political field, masculine domination, and symbolic violence with Raewyn Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinities and discusses how political masculinities relate to a populist political style. Examining the electoral strategies of the two right-wing parties ÖVP and FPÖ in Austria, the paper illuminates two moments of change in political masculinities when confronted with populism: the transformation from oppositional to governmental populist political masculinity on the one hand, and the populist challenge to hegemonic political masculinity on the other. ARTICLE HISTORY

He Does (Not) Care: COVID-19 Volunteers’ Assessments of Donald Trump’s Responses to the Pandemic

“…This analysis extends the emerging literature on the gendered features of right-wing populism. There are numerous analyses of how such populists do gender (Eksi and Wood 2019; Hakola et al 2021; Löffler 2020; Messerschmidt and Bridges 2017; Starck 2020), but significant work remains to be done on how members of the public assess these politicians’ genders (Dignam et al 2021). Analyzing how citizens gauge populists’ genders is especially significant because their assessments of politicians’ genders can be key to whether and how politicians consolidate support (Ditonto 2017; Geva 2020; Johns and Shephard 2007; Katz 2016; Starck and Luyt 2019; Starck and Sauer 2014).…”

“…Across a range of countries such as Austria (Löffler 2020), France (Geva 2020), Turkey (Eksi and Wood 2019), the United Kingdom (Starck 2020), and the United States (Dignam and Rohlinger 2019; Dignam et al 2021), populist leaders and their supporters have leveraged gender to generate support. Especially in popular critiques, many of these politicians are characterized as performing purely regressive masculinities that help reproduce inequitable gender orders (Pascoe 2017).…”

“…Scholarship on the gendered contours of populism has generally focused on how populist politicians do gender or how such politicians are portrayed in news and popular media (e.g., Hakola et al 2021; Löffler 2020; Norocel and Pettersson 2022; Pascoe 2017; Smirnova 2018; Snipes and Mudde 2018; Starck 2020). With few exceptions (Dignam and Rohlinger 2019; Dignam et al 2021; Geva 2020), significantly less attention has been granted to how members of the public assess populists’ genders.…”

Popüli̇st Si̇yasette Hegemoni̇k Erkekli̇k Ve Hegemoni̇k Kadinlik: Marine Le Pen Ve Popüli̇st Radi̇kal Sağin Ci̇nsi̇yeti̇

“…Bu bağlamda popülist radikal sağ, "halk" kategorisini onur, cesaret gibi hegemonik erkeklik kurgularının etrafında oluşturmaktadır (Norocel, 2013, s. 75). Gerçekten de, popülizmin tanımlayıcı özellikleri arasında yer alan sistem karşıtı, elit düşmanı, kural yıkıcı, agresif retorik (Löffler, 2020), bunun yanı sıra popülist radikal sağ liderlerin kurguladıkları "saf halk"ın "koruyucu babaları" (Ekşi ve Wood, 2019) olma iddiaları düşünüldüğünde, hegemonik erkeklikler etrafında kurulan performansların, popülist radikal sağı anlamak için önemli olduğu görülebilir.…”

Macho populists versus COVID: Comparing political masculinities

“…This article argues that Trump and Duterte draw on masculinity as a symbolic resource to win public support, or engage in the ‘political game’ (Löffler, 2020: 11). Both faced criticism domestically for their approaches to the pandemic, and Trump has since lost his bid for re-election but not before inspiring riots from loyal supporters over his electoral cheating allegations against his rivals.…”