What do battles over gender equality reveal about the state of multilateral democracy? Drawing on her participation at the UN's Commission on the Status of Women in New York, Serena Fiorletta shows how contested rights and shifting rules in negotiations around gender equality point to a deeper political crisis
On 21 April 2026 the European Court of Justice delivered a landmark ruling, arguing that Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ law, in dehumanising LGBTIQ+ people, is incompatible with EU values. Koen Slootmaeckers analyses the Court’s ruling and its wider implications beyond Hungary
For decades, European democracies have celebrated rising gender equality in parliaments, cabinets, and party leadership. These gains matter. But if we look only at elite politics, argue Catherine Bolzendahl and Hilde Coffé, we miss a quieter, equally consequential story: how ordinary women and men take part in democratic life
Theoretical frameworks dominating the study of anti-gender politics both enable and constrain our understanding of the phenomenon. Susana Galán and Tutku Ayhan argue that the existing frameworks are not helpful for studying anti-gender politics in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region. Here, the authors explain why, suggesting alternatives
Feminists all over Europe embrace solidarity as a form of political dissent – and face systematic repression as a result. Yet, Marta Rawłuszko argues, they continue to resist and offer deeply political and practical alternatives to capitalist and nation-state logics
Political analysis often conceptualises religion as a conservative force opposed to gender rights, incompatible with feminist politics and progressive change. Yet a growing body of research on religious feminisms and gendered religious agency challenges this assumption. Alberta Giorgi invites scholars of politics to rethink how they conceptualise and analyse religion
Germany recently passed incremental liberalisations to its abortion law. Yet access to abortion remains under threat, and far-right and conservative forces blocked its partial legalisation. Lisa Brünig explains how the erosion of reproductive rights in Germany is symptomatic of broader democratic backsliding
A radical feminist politics of kinship asks us to interrogate the roots of how we live together: how we form families, share resources, and imagine belonging. At stake, says Víctor Hugo Ramírez García is not only gender equality, but the future of democracy itself
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