Another Progressive's Dilemma: Immigration, the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality

Immigration and the diversity it brings have led to the emergence of the “progressive's dilemma” whereby open societies that take in immigrant outsiders may find it difficult to maintain the solidarity required to sustain the welfare state. In this essay, I address another progressive's dilemma: Focusing on the case of Western Europe, I argue that when open borders give rise to radical-right parties, immigration can inadvertently also endanger progressive achievements in gender equality. Though xenophobic policies frequently constitute their core message and the primary source of their appeal, radical-right parties are also defenders of traditional family values and outspoken critics of measures that promote the economic and political advancement of women. Moreover, the composition of these parties, both in terms of voters and politicians, is disproportionately male. As a result, when radical-right, anti-immigrant parties enter national parliaments, the descriptive and substantive representation of women suffers, sometimes reversing long-held gains in gender equality.

P olitics in advanced democracies used to revolve around class cleavages, with the large centrist parties on the left and the right offering competing visions about redistribution and the size of the welfare state. Over the past several decades, class politics has been supplemented with another, cross-cutting cleavage, one centering around progressive social values and cosmopolitanism on the one hand, and traditional values and ethnocentrism on the other. Political parties on the left have made issues such as gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and open borders critical parts of their platforms, while parties on the right have been more likely to emphasize traditional family values and the cultural threats associated with immigration. 1 This restructuring of the political space, along with growing levels of ethnic and cultural diversity, has led to the emergence of the "progressive's dilemma": how can open societies that take in immigrant outsiders maintain the solidarity required to sustain the welfare state? Answers to this question constitute an ongoing and unresolved debate. 2 What has been overlooked in this debate, however, Rafaela Dancygier is that the dilemma is not just about marrying sociocultural diversity with economic redistribution. Increasingly, elements within the progressives' sociocultural agenda are also clashing.
In this essay, focusing on the case of Western Europe, I argue that immigration not only threatens the sustainability of the welfare state, it can also inadvertently endanger progressive achievements in gender equality via a strengthening radical right. Open borders and the ethnic diversity they generate have in many countries given rise to powerful radical-right parties, with anti-immigration policies and xenophobic rhetoric frequently their core message and the primary source of their appeal. 3 But they are also often defenders of traditional family values and outspoken critics of measures that promote the economic and political advancement of women. Moreover, the composition of these parties, both in terms of voters and politicians, is disproportionately male. 4 As a result, when radical-right, antiimmigrant parties enter national parliaments, the descriptive and substantive representation of women suffers.
To make these arguments, I present three threats that radical-right parties pose to the advancement of women's interest and gender equality in politics: 1) the overrepresentation of male-voter interests; 2) the pursuit of policies that promote conservative gender roles and oppose measures to enhance gender equality; and 3) the small number of elected female candidates among radical-right parties. I then address how a more recent rhetorical shift toward gender equality among some radical-right parties does not represent an actual change in policy positioning, but rather serves to discriminate against European Muslims. I conclude with a brief discussion about potential ways out of the progressive's dilemma surrounding immigration and gender. E urope has been experiencing large-scale immigration for many decades. In most West European countries, the foreign-born now constitute more than 10 percent of the population. In 2016 alone, two million non-EU citizens migrated to the European Union, while EU countries granted citizenship to one million persons. 5 The inflow and settlement of a diverse mix of labor migrants, asylum seekers, and their families have transformed European societies and labor markets, and they have also had significant political ramifications. One of the most salient electoral consequences has been the ascendance of radical-right parties that campaign on fiercely xenophobic platforms. Though an uptick in immigration does not automatically trigger a nativist backlash, the arrival and settlement of large numbers of migrants has been a crucial ingredient in the emergence and growth of contemporary radical-right parties in Europe. 6 Relatedly, hostile views toward immigrants distinguish supporters of radical-right parties from the rest of the electorate. Studies based on a wide range of surveys and countries consistently find that ethnocentrism and a desire 58 Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Immigration, the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality to reduce the number of immigrants help predict who casts votes for the radical right. 7 The rise of the radical right in response to immigration and cosmopolitanism presents a key facet of the much-discussed progressive's dilemma: the notion that ethnic diversity severs societal bonds of solidarity and weakens leftist political forces, both of which are required to maintain robust welfare states. 8 At least two mechanisms can be at work: Some voters' support for redistribution may decline because they do not want to finance government transfers going to disliked immigrant minorities. By contrast, other voters may still cherish the welfare state, but they first and foremost want to support a party that promises to end immigration, and they therefore cast their lot with radical-right parties. When such parties also want to shrink the welfare state, curbing immigration and maintaining redistribution can become incompatible goals among a significant number of voters. 9 Debates about this version of the progressive's dilemma are ongoing and largely unresolved. 10 Yet immigration-if it contributes to the electoral success of radical-right forces-can also bring to the fore a much less widely recognized tension within the progressive camp. Whereas the focus until now has been on tradeoffs along two dimensions, pitting economic against sociocultural concerns, immigration and the accompanying growth of the radical right threatens to create dilemmas within the left's sociocultural agenda: when immigration causes an increase in radical-right parliamentary representation, open border policies can unwittingly undermine gender equality. W hen radical-right parties enter parliaments, they can undercut women's representation in several ways. First, radical-right parties are disproportionately supported by men. While there is disagreement about the causes behind the growth of radical-right parties, the gender gap in radical-right party support has been one of the most durable findings in the literature. It has even earned these parties the label of Männerparteien (parties for or of men). 11 As political scientist Cas Mudde has pointed out, gender "is the only sociodemographic variable that is consistently relevant in practically all European countries." 12 Examining the gender gap in twelve West European countries in 2010, social scientist Tim Immerzeel and colleagues found an average gap of 4.3 points, with 11.1 percent of men and 6.8 percent of women supporting radicalright parties. 13 In some instances, the difference is much higher, reaching 6.4, 9.0, and 13.3 percentage points in Switzerland, Austria, and Norway, respectively. France is the only country where the gap has narrowed or even closed in some elections. 14 However, in none of these countries do female supporters of the radical right outnumber their male counterparts.
In addition to gendered voting patterns, party membership of radical-right parties is also overwhelmingly male. Moreover, women are less likely than men Rafaela Dancygier to participate in radical-right politics on the basis of their ideological convictions. Research has found that women who are members of radical-right parties and participate in activist circles are frequently pulled in by the men in their lives -romantic partners, brothers-who are already active in the far-right milieu. 15 Existing scholarship has identified a number of reasons for the male bias among the radical-right's core electorate. Some arguments relate to gendered labor market positions: because men have traditionally been overrepresented in blue-collar, industrial jobs, they are more likely to belong to the "losers of modernization" whose material well-being and social status have been threatened by deindustrialization, offshoring, and immigration. The rise in postmaterial values, gender egalitarianism, and ethnic diversity can compound these threats. 16 Men's newly precarious position can make them susceptible to radical-right parties that promise a return to the old order in which native, White men occupied the top of the economic and social hierarchy. 17 A related line of reasoning draws upon gender gaps in authoritarian attitudes. Men tend to take a tougher stance than women toward criminal justice, and radical-right parties commonly link immigration to crime and societal breakdown, vowing to restore law and order via deportation, immigration bans, and more aggressive policing. This issue linkage helps radical-right parties formulate a coherent issue agenda: concerns about crime have been found to be an important predictor of fears over immigration, and large numbers of Europeans believe that immigration contributes to crime. 18 It also helps account for gendered radical-right voting patterns. 19 Others have argued that while women and men do not differ too much in their degree of anti-immigrant sentiment, women are less likely to accord immigration high salience when it comes time to cast ballots. Gender differences in issue salience, rather than preferences per se, can therefore explain part of the gender gap. 20 Irrespective of the causes behind the gender gap, so long as men and women differ in their policy preferences and priorities (and radical-right parties in fact represent the interests of their mostly male core electorate), the rise of radicalright parties effectively reduces the substantive representation of women. 21 S econd, the rise of the radical right can stall the advancement of feminist causes. Radical-right parties frequently advocate for a return to traditional family values and speak out against policies that aim to promote women's economic and political advancement. Their emphasis on family values is rooted in part on the importance of motherhood, especially in the context of declining birth rates: for the survival of the (ethnically pure) nation, it is critical that native women prioritize their roles as mothers and caregivers. As a result, radical-right parties have supported tax policies meant to incentivize women to bear more children and to care for them at home. Tax breaks that rise with the number of chil-Immigration, the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality dren or direct compensation for "housewives" are part of their policy arsenal, as are restrictions on women's reproductive choices. 22 Most European radical-right parties recognize that it is increasingly unrealistic for women to remain outside the labor force altogether. In light of these realities, and to broaden their appeal, some have explicitly stated their support for women's economic independence. 23 However, these parties nevertheless want to ensure that native women's preoccupation with their careers does not replace their desire for childbirth. In fact, raising the fertility of native women is seen as an antidote to immigration. As the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) stated in its 2011 program: "Austria is not a country of immigration. This is why we pursue a family policy centered around births." 24 Similarly, during the 2017 German general election campaign, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) produced a poster prominently displaying the pregnant belly of a (White) woman and featuring the message: "Merkel says we need immigrants. We say: 'New Germans'? We make those ourselves!" In line with its traditional conception of gender roles, the radical right typically strongly opposes gender quotas in all realms of society. For example, in its 2017 manifesto, the AfD derides state-sponsored gender quotas as illegitimate, arbitrary, and ultimately unconstitutional, and it campaigns for their repeal. 25 The Swiss People's Party (SVP) similarly rejects all "quota rules and so-called gender-politics" and seeks to abolish all equal opportunity offices (Gleichstellungsbüros). 26 Even the SVP's youth wing vehemently opposes "quota women" (Quotenfrauen), viewing government quotas as tools employed by the lazy and the weak, and by socialist feminists. 27 Opposition to quotas also extends to radical-right parties in Scandinavian countries, where gender equality measures have generally been more widely accepted. The Sweden Democrats explicitly reject gender quotas, as does the Danish People's Party and the Norwegian Progress Party. 28 Though these parties usually point out that they believe in the dignity of women and in their equal status before the law, they oppose gender quotas and gender mainstreaming, viewing them as excessive and misguided efforts at equalization (Gleichmacherei). Not only do radical-right parties fear that measures aimed at creating equal opportunities between the sexes hurt their male support bases, but for many, such policies also contravene the "natural" order of things. 29 F inally, consistent with their disproportionately male support bases and their suspicion of feminist causes and gender quotas, radical-right parties tend to produce mostly male candidates. I should note at the outset that, compared with other parties, radical-right parties do not seem to be lagging behind with respect to having women in visible leadership positions. Marine Le Pen of the French National Rally, Pia Kjaersgaard of the Danish People's Party, and Al-

Rafaela Dancygier
ice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany are among the prominent examples of past and present radical-right women leaders. However, when examining parliamentary seats, men tend to outnumber women by significant margins. The growing strength of radical-right, anti-immigrant parties therefore tends to decrease female representation in parliaments, especially since, where they exist in Europe, candidate gender quotas tend to be voluntarily adopted by parties, rather than mandated by law. 30 To assess the magnitude of this development, I collected data on the gender composition of all current West European national parliaments in which radicalright parties have a significant presence: namely, countries where these parties attained a vote share of at least 10 percent in the most recent general election. The results are displayed in Table 1. The gender gaps across party types are substantial. Whereas, on average, just over one-quarter (26 percent) of radical-right parliamentarians are female, this number reaches 40 percent among all other parties. In six out of nine cases, differences reach eighteen points or higher. Germany displays the largest gap: the share of female MPs is twenty-three percentage points lower among radical-right parties when compared with all other parliamentary parties. Switzerland and Sweden are close behind with a gap of twenty-two points.
If the national parliaments listed in Table 1 did not include radical-right parties and kept their overall gender balance unchanged, female descriptive representation would rise by three percentage points overall, ceteris paribus. In Switzerland and Austria, where these parties are both particularly strong (holding 32.5 and 27.9 percent of seats, respectively) and particularly male, the share of women parliamentarians would rise by seven and five points, respectively. In only one case, Denmark, do we observe a positive difference: 41 percent of the seats held by the Danish People's Party are occupied by women compared with 38 percent among all other parliamentary parties, a case I will return to briefly below.
It is important to note that in some cases, the share of women in radical-right parties does not fall below that observed among more centrist right-wing parties. 31 But this fact does not negate the progressive's dilemma: left parties almost always feature a higher share of women. In cases in which immigration facilitates the rise of the right and the decline of the left, female representation falls.
One of the youngest European radical-right parties, Alternative for Germany, entered the German Bundestag for the first time in 2017, gaining over 12 percent of the vote. It is nearly all male: only 11 percent of the AfD's ninety-four seats are held by women. The rise of the AfD illustrates the progressive's dilemma around immigration and gender particularly well. The party owes its rapid ascent first and foremost to the sizable inflow of migrants that entered Germany in the years leading up to the election. Well over one million refugees, many of them from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, arrived in the country, encouraged by Angela Merkel's liberal stance toward those fleeing violent conflict at home and seeking asylum in Ger-Immigration, the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality many. Parties on the left-the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Left Party -also strongly defended open borders and the right to asylum and continued to do so even when the issue began to fracture the center-right. The AfD succeeded in keeping the immigration issue in the headlines and in mobilizing many voters who wanted to stop the inflow; the desire to reduce the number of immigrants was the most salient issue among voters who cast their ballot for the radical party. 32 And, as elsewhere, the majority of these voters were male. Whereas 9 percent of German women voted for the AfD, 15 percent of German men did so. 33 Though these gendered voting patterns have been widely recognized, what has been less appreciated is that the entry of the AfD in the German Bundestag helped reverse a long-running trend in the steady rise in the number of parliamentary seats occupied by women. Figure 1 charts     T he German example is particularly striking. It illustrates in stark terms the potential trade-off between gender equality in politics and open immigration policies. But developments in other countries suggest that there might be signs of change. Denmark's anti-immigrant People's Party was long led by a woman and includes more female than male members of parliament. The Dutch Party for Freedom brands itself a defender of gender equality and notably voted against cuts in public childcare. 35 In France, gendered voting patterns among supporters of the National Rally are disappearing. One reason behind this change is the increasing economic insecurity in the female-dominated service sector. 36 Another has to do with Marine Le Pen's targeting of young women. Le Pen, herself twice divorced and having raised three children, acknowledges the challenges of motherhood, especially among single women in precarious economic circumstances. As the party is seeking to capture a younger, more modern, and female electorate, its traditionally strong opposition to abortion-which her party had previously called an "anti-French genocide"-is also weakening. 37 Radical-right parties in Denmark, the Netherlands, and France have had a much longer presence in local councils and national parliaments than has the German AfD. Part of their longevity and success can be attributed to their moderation, at least in some aspects of their agenda, which has helped them make inroads among the female electorate. 38 Do these developments signal a softening of the progressive's dilemma? Though these parties have remained stridently anti-immigrant, proposing ever harsher immigration laws and tougher integration requirements, to be durable and successful, they might have to modernize their views on gender relations.
Close observers of these parties would likely be skeptical of this interpretation. The roots of the radical right's repositioning on gender, critics have alleged, is not to be found in their newfound ideological commitments to gender equality, and neither is it sincere. Rather, where radical-right parties have begun to adopt feminist rhetoric, it has always been in connection to immigration. Specifically, these parties have been campaigning on feminist issues to widen the gulf between Europe's Muslim communities and the rest of society while simultaneously exposing perceived failures of multiculturalism, one of the left's blind spots. 39 Muslims in Europe, while diverse in origin, religiosity, and cultural backgrounds, tend to subscribe to more patriarchal social norms and traditional family values than does the electorate at-large. As issues pertaining to sexual liberation and feminism have gained more resonance among European voters, they are confronted with an ethnoreligious minority group that is much less supportive of gender equality in the private and public sphere. As a result, even cosmopolitan Rafaela Dancygier voters that typically favor liberal immigration policies have become uneasy about the presence of Muslims in European cities. 40 Seizing on this tension, radical-right parties have begun to instrumentalize gender equality as a key strategy to differentiate the "modern majority" from the "backwards, patriarchal" minority, with the hopes of peeling away voters from mainstream parties that endorse immigration and multiculturalism. 41 Issues of veiling and the "headscarf debates" they spawn have been especially salient among the radical right. Bans on veiling of various forms (in schools, public institutions, or even covering the entire public sphere) frequently feature prominently in their platforms. They allow radical-right parties to appear as backers of gender equality while at the same time communicating that European nation-states cannot accommodate Islam without fundamentally altering their cultural character. As Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, has put it: "mass immigration" and "Islamic gender apartheid" threaten to flush "decades of [women's] emancipation down the toilet." 42 Yet, fiery rhetoric aside, policy proposals to combat gender inequities more generally are typically absent. 43 Radical-right party manifestos reveal this incongruence quite clearly. For example, when discussing gender equality in their 2018 election program, the Sweden Democrats briefly noted Sweden's long-standing tradition of gender egalitarianism, then quickly pivoted to the threats posed by honor-related violence and female genital mutilation, before dismissing "gender theories" and quotas as unnecessary and ineffective. 44 Turning to Norway, the very first page of the Norwegian Progress Party's 2017 manifesto lists the banning of "women-discriminating" garments like the burka and niqab as one of the party's policy priorities. Much further down, on page twenty, the party also mentions its categorical opposition to gender-based quotas. 45 This type of inconsistent positioning is quite common. Examining the manifestos of six successful European radical-right parties, social scientist Tjitske Akkerman has found that while they vary in their degree of conservatism, none of them can be characterized as liberal with regard to their positions on gender relations. 46 Even the Danish People's Party, with its disproportionate number of female parliamentarians and its emphasis on the Islamic threat to achievements in gender equality, ultimately advocates for conservative family values and for policies that prioritize women's caregiving roles. 47 Akkerman therefore concludes that while "support for gender equality and women's rights has now become widely spread over the whole political spectrum . . . only the radical-right parties [are] left to defend the last vestiges of (modern) conservative family relations." 48 T he progressive's dilemma around immigration and gender thus shows no signs of abating. That the radical right's nods to gender equality do not represent actual policy shifts in the feminist direction should not come as Immigration, the Radical Right & Threats to Gender Equality a surprise. After all, one of its main sources of strength lies in backlash politics: namely, its successful appeal to men suffering from status loss vis-à-vis not only immigrant minorities, but also women. 49 Moreover, so long as the promotion of native women's fertility rates remains one of the most appealing ways to reduce future immigration and to maintain White dominance, traditional family values and the valorization of motherhood will continue to be important aspects of the radical right's program.
In short, the radical right cannot and will not help progressives resolve their dilemma around gender and immigration. A more realistic way out of this predicament is a backlash to the backlash: if a sufficient number of previously unengaged voters and potential candidates recognize that the rise of the radical right hinders or even reverses progress on feminist causes, they might be motivated to engage in politics. The example of the United States is instructive here. The election of a radical-right, misogynistic president and his party's attack on women's reproductive rights has been widely credited for mobilizing sections of the female electorate and for greatly enlarging the pool of women running for office. 50 Similarly, in several Scandinavian countries, feminist parties have sprung up in recent years to address stalled efforts at advancing gender equality. In Denmark, the Feminist Initiative (F!) runs on the slogan: "Out with the racists! In with the feminists!" The party explicitly links the country's preoccupation with immigration and the associated success of the radical right with Denmark's falling behind in global gender equity rankings. 51 The electoral success of feminist parties and candidates remains variable and modest to date. But if these political forces succeed in raising awareness about the fact that, notwithstanding their women-friendly rhetoric, radical-right parties undercut all progressive achievements, their impact could be stronger than their numbers suggest.