Doing gender at the far right

Abstract

Debates over the difference between populism and nationalism have been at the forefront of political research on the far right in recent years. This paper aims to provide an empirical support for the claim that nationalism and populism are two distinct phenomena by analysing the articulations of both discourses in Vlaams Belang gender politics. In this perspective, this paper starts by presenting Benjamin De Cleen and Yannis Stavrakakis’s discursive-theoretical distinction of populism and nationalism (De Cleen and Stavrakakis 2017, 2020), before to introduce the literature on far right gender politics. The contribution then analyses Vlaams Belang gender discourses by mobilizing this theoretical framework in order to show how this distinction can help us identifying the different dimensions underlying contemporary far right gender discourses. The article concludes by suggesting new avenues for a better understanding of the various discursive strands composing far right politics.