Transitional Moments, Conflicts over Gender, and the Meanings of Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and South America: A Comparative Agenda

Abstract

Introduction

Current disputes involving antagonistic perspectives on gender pose serious threats to liberal democracy in many parts of the world. These disputes involve who has access to state resources and which assumptions about the gendered social order should shape policies. Despite numerous feminist efforts to include gender in the theorization of democracy and democratization, mainstream discussions of democratic crisis and decline still ignore the gendered dimensions of today’s conflicts over democracy. This article builds on earlier feminist comparative work on democratic transitions and extends it to address the current crisis of democratic backsliding. We want to avoid viewing the current opposition to gender and sexual rights as a distinct moment led by new actors. Instead, we link our analysis of the present with insights from past transitions and disputes, examining the factors and indicators that either expanded or limited feminist efforts to transform democracies and states.

Gender is central to defining democracy’s core tasks: guaranteeing pluralist participation, protecting fundamental rights, and producing fair distributive decisions and outcomes. Liberal democracy was founded on sexual difference. The “patriarchal individual”—White, property-owning men—stands at the core of its paradoxical mix of rights and subordination (Pateman 1988). Even after political rights were made equal and openly discriminatory laws were abolished, gendered disparities persisted. In practice, men were the regular participants in decision-making arenas from which women were either excluded or included in unequal terms “as women” (Mouffe 2005).

In this article we focus on democratic transitions, defining them as moments of struggle over gender and democracy that lead to adjustments in gender relations (Serrano-Amaya 2017). The argument places gender at the center of both democratizing and de-democratizing trends. We organize the analysis around what we define as transitional moments. These correspond to periods when political changes are more intense, opening opportunities for feminist actors to advance gender equality and deepen democracy, but also allowing their contenders to push back against women’s rights and resist feminist goals.¹ We adopt the concept of transitions to refer to the dynamic and conflict-driven processes in which actors seize new opportunities to challenge the gender order and redefine rights and democracy. But using the concept of transition(s) risks creating a linear narrative about the evolution of democracies, which we hope to avoid (Cianetti and Hanley 2021); instead, we approach transitions as open and unpredictable in their effects on democratic guarantees, institutions, and public policies.

Abundant scholarship comparing transitions to democracy as a regime in South America and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (cf. Karl and Schmitter 1991; Munck and Leff 1999) and, more recently, numerous case studies, have examined countries in both regions as examples of gender backlash and democratic backsliding. Building on this, we advocate for a new comparative research agenda that focuses on transitional moments as key to understanding (re)negotiations of the meaning of democracy vis-à-vis the gender and sexual order. We focus on democratic disputes in CEE and South America, both part of the so-called third wave of democratization, now facing democratic backsliding and gender backlash. The goal is not to offer a systematic comparison, as that would exceed the scope of a single article and is restricted by our limited knowledge of these vast and diverse regions. Instead, we aim to identify factors for a comparative framework. We use empirical examples from our own work and secondary sources to support this agenda. This article thus offers a theoretical contribution to scholarship aimed at understanding the role of gender in the ongoing disputes over democracy.

The article examines how democracy and gender equality rights have expanded and contracted in three transitional moments. Extensively studied by feminist scholars, the transitions to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s (the “third wave”) opened new channels for participation and allowed feminist actors to push for gender equality. The second moment—South America’s “Pink Tide” and CEE’s accession to the European Union in the 2000s²—unfolded differently in the two regions we are focusing on. The third transitional moment is still unfolding, marked by a “gender backlash” where conservative and anti-gender actors oppose feminist agendas and seek to roll back rights (Biroli and Caminotti 2020; Krizsán and Roggeband 2018; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018). It corresponds to a new phase of fierce disputes over gender and democracy, leading in some countries to significant changes in state–civil society relations and reconfigurations of democratic institutions (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021b; Roggeband and Krizsán 2021). For feminist movements, this moment presents serious challenges but also compels them to respond and strengthen their agendas and perspectives on democracy.

These transitions create opportunities for the actors disputing gender rights. We draw on literature that highlights conflicts in civil society as key to understanding the evolving nature of the liberal state and society (Avritzer 1995; Serrano-Amaya 2017). These transitions involve institutional and cultural changes (Alvarez 1998; Waylen 1994), encouraging us to move beyond the formalistic dimensions of liberal democracy. Feminist movements and conservative organizations are contenders in these dynamics (Roggeband and Krizsán 2020). We therefore adopt a triadic relational approach (Roggeband and Krizsán 2020) that allows us to focus on the dynamics and power relations between the state/institutions, feminist movements, and conservative actors opposing feminist goals. The disputes are asymmetric: civil society organizations seeking to redress structural inequalities and struggling for the inclusion and participation of marginalized groups face a huge imbalance in access to public policymaking compared to actors defending the patriarchal order, vested interests, and profit-driven arrangements. We also address the role of neoliberal economic adjustments, which reshape power relations, redefine state capacity, and play a key part in ongoing disputes (Connell and Dados 2014; Fraser 2015).

In her groundbreaking work on democratic transitions, Waylen (1994) formulated a set of questions to guide a comparative agenda. Two of her questions focus on the nature and role of women’s political activities and mobilization. A third question examines contextual characteristics, trying to understand when and how feminist movements can exert influence in democratization processes. Her fourth question shifts the attention to the impact of democratization on gender relations. Building on her framework, we extend the focus to the power relations between feminist movements and opposing conservative actors, and the role of state institutions in mediating this dispute over the direction of change. We ask: what factors explain the relative success of opposing actors? What role do the state and democratic institutions play not only in transforming power relations and patriarchal structures but also in supporting or resisting the claims of both feminist actors and their opponents? Who has access to state resources, and how do these resources evolve under changing and disputed economic rationalities?

The article is divided into three sections. The first section reviews studies on feminist efforts to expand and qualify democracy, discussing factors that have advanced democracy through gender equality, as well as those that have obstructed change and reproduced unequal exclusionary democracies. The second section examines the key factors influencing the second transitional moment, which involves the Pink Tide in South America and the inclusion of CEE countries in the European Union. Despite different democratization trajectories, both regions saw the rise of anti-gender activism after 2010. The third section discusses this new moment that we see as a third transition, where anti-gender actors and projects seized opportunities to promote patriarchal and restrictive meanings of democracy, curbing feminist participation and agendas. Conservative and religious actors, now part of broad, anti-pluralist alliances, combine transnational campaigns with local factors to denounce “feminist threats” and push for alternative policies. Neoliberal adjustments, which have weakened the capacity and legitimacy of liberal democratic states, offer ambivalent opportunities for these actors as they engage in antidemocratic coalitions. While advocating for an expanded role for families, they often define themselves as the solution to the shortcomings of liberal democracy. The conclusion discusses the factors identified in the three transitions. We argue that a comparative framework should consider both the similarities across regions—shared discourses, common strategies, and transnational platforms—and the specific local factors, including institutional characteristics, the relative power positions of opposing actors, and their interaction with previous policies and current state capacities. We acknowledge that actors seize opportunities to vie for the state within distinct structural and political processes in the three transitions and that these processes are becoming increasingly interconnected. The second transition, during which feminists amplified their platforms through transnational arenas, also set the stage for a globalized opposition led by conservative and religious actors. After 2010, these disputes intensified as antidemocratic coalitions took the conflict to a new level.

Expanding and qualifying democracy, first transitional moment

Existing scholarship on democratic transitions in CEE and South America has analyzed how feminist actors seized and created opportunities to transform existing authoritarian and paternalistic state–society relations (Alvarez 1990; Baldez 2003; Einhorn 1994; Gal and Kligman 2000; Molyneux 2000; Pascall and Kwak 2005; Spehar 2005; Waylen 1993, 2007). However, conservative actors also capitalized on these opportunities, entering the political party system, while religious organizations diversified and used the new democratic channels to influence policies (Haynes 2009; Vaggione and Machado 2020). There are notable contrasts between the two regions, although a careful comparison would reveal significant variations also between countries within each region. In CEE countries, transitions were from socialist states to liberal market economies, reshaping left–right scales and participatory politics in ways quite distinct from South America’s transitions from military dictatorships to electoral democracies. Yet in both regions, political pluralism created opportunities for opposing actors to dispute the gendered nature of democracy.

In this section, we examine the following factors influencing the disputes over democracy: the form and degree of feminist participation; the international context in its relation to the opportunities for opposing actors; the politics of organized religion; and the effects of neoliberal adjustments. Together, they impact the definition of democracy, the reconfiguration of the state, and its capacity to promote gender equality.

In both regions, scholars have noticed that the persistence of formal and informal patriarchal institutions restricted the ability of feminist actors to renegotiate gender relations and find space in new democratic party systems and electoral politics (Grabowska 2012; Waylen 1994). In most CEE countries, this transition brought unexpected negative consequences such as the discontinuation of policies supporting the combination of family care and paid work, the removal of legislative quotas, and a decline in women’s formal representation (Einhorn 1994; Gal and Kligman 2000; Popa and Krizsán 2016). Gender regimes became more traditional, with a renewed focus on the family and women’s domestic roles (Fuszara 2019; Gal and Kligman 2000; Molyneux 2000). Official women’s organizations were dissolved in most countries (Molyneux 2000). The state socialist past limited the discursive opportunities to advance equality projects, as these became associated with the intrusion and control over the private sphere of the socialist system (Einhorn 1994; Grabowska 2012; Molyneux 2000).

In South America, the powerful and diverse women’s movements that had played a key role in opposing authoritarian regimes faced difficulties sustaining this role in institutional politics (Alvarez 1998; Baldez 2003; Waylen 1993). As traditional party politics was re-established, feminist groups faced the dilemma inherent in working for change with and within the new institutions while risking co-optation and a loss of autonomy (Waylen 1993, 574). Political parties and unions often hesitated to give women central leadership roles, pushing them back to the margins of political decision-making; moreover, women’s activism could be co-opted as they engaged with new political institutions (Alvarez 1998). This led to different choices across contexts and organizations. Some groups lost power after the transition and demobilized, while others, particularly the professional and middle-class segments, successfully placed strategic demands on the state and influenced new policy agendas (Alvarez 1998). Representation varied significantly. The number of women legislators elected after the transition differed greatly across and within these regions. While initially low in most cases—particularly in CEE, where there were significant declines in representation and limited organization to facilitate women’s participation (Guenther 2011)—many Latin American countries saw a substantial increase in women representation due to the implementation of gender quotas, starting in Argentina in 1991 (Htun 2016).

The wave of democratization and the end of the Cold War “stimulated the development of a new international agenda in which issues of good governance, democracy and decentralization provided women’s movements in the post-authoritarian transitions with a new opportunity context” (Molyneux 2000, 136). The United Nations Women’s Conferences held between 1975 and 1995 stimulated the formation of many official and unofficial groups, granting them legitimacy and access to external funding (Chinchilla 2018), while also fostering the exchange of ideas and strategies. These United Nations Conferences, along with regional conferences, allowed transnational networks to successfully push for international norms about gender equality. In Latin America, strong regional networking emerged (Alvarez 1998). The periodic reporting mechanisms, particularly under the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, gave civil society organizations more opportunities to advocate for national policies aligned with international conventions (Zwingel 2005). The United Nations policy for women also played a key role in creating women’s policy agencies (WPAs) in many countries (Goetz 2023). In South America, WPAs were often created early and in response to feminist activism, whereas in CEE, they were established later, often in response to international pressures such as EU accession (see next section) or the need to fulfill the Beijing commitments (Waylen 2007). A general critique across contexts has been the mismatch between broad mandates and limited resources. WPAs and other mechanisms were set up with different mandates and budgets, leading to significant variation in their capacity, effectiveness, and ability to channel the demands of women’s movements into policymaking (Rodríguez Gustá, Madera, and Caminotti 2017).

While democratization and international opportunities helped feminists to make inroads in the state, their efforts to transform the gender order faced strong resistance. Organized religion is important to understanding the varying degrees of change between countries and across the two regions, but it also became a common factor, evolving into a crucial transnational resource for anti-gender actors in the third transition. In CEE countries, organized religious institutions gained new opportunities to (re)claim political power, establishing themselves in new party systems (Haynes 2009). The Roman Catholic Church in Poland, Croatia, and Lithuania, along with Orthodox churches in Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia, secured a firm institutional position and gained influence among the population (Borowik 2007). Churches attempted to claim a political, legal, and moral authority; legitimize the political order based on religious principles; and present themselves as guardians of national identity (Pollack 2001). Religious leaders and institutions actively interfered in the public and political sphere, articulating their viewpoints on various political and social issues and resisting state efforts to sideline them (Haynes 2009; Pollack 2001). They successfully promoted a conservative gender regime in Poland immediately after the transition to democracy, leading to a retraction of abortion rights after the transition to democracy (Holc 2004). However, other CEE countries, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Estonia, maintained a more secular orientation (Pollack 2001).

In South America, progressive forces within the Catholic field had denounced the violence of military dictatorships and pushed toward democracy, while more conservative forces were somehow connected to the authoritarian regimes. This dynamic ensured that Catholic influence persisted in various groups under democratic rule (Smith and Prokopy 1990). However, the Church had to adjust its strategies to a more pluralist environment, as the presence of feminist and LGBTQ+ activists in parties and politics during the transition increased the legitimacy of their claims on reproductive and sexual politics (Vaggione 2017). Evangelical actors also became increasingly influential in politics and society (Hagopian 2009; Perez, Luis, and Grundberger 2018). Over time, the religious landscape shifted significantly, as evangelical and Pentecostal churches eroded Roman Catholic hegemony in most countries. This resulted in a proliferation of civil society organizations and confessional political parties seeking to influence policymaking (Vaggione and Machado 2020).

In both regions, new democratic opportunities were also limited by neoliberal policies, as double-faced privatization and structural adjustments increased pressures on women’s labor and care work, reducing their ability to participate in politics and civil society (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998; Molyneux 2000). Necessities such as food, healthcare, and education were difficult to access, demanding that women spend time in caregiving roles, while the liberalization of the economy reduced wages (Einhorn 1994; Molyneux 2000). Low-wage, often informal, care work was mostly done by less educated, Black, and indigenous women, deepening intersectional inequalities. Privatization led to refamilialization, reinforcing the notion that care work is a natural responsibility of the family. In South America, the emphasis on the family has been a key feature of conservative rhetoric, which identifies the family as crucial to the social order and stresses its function in times of increased vulnerability and precarity (Biroli 2020). In some CEE countries, women faced “significant public and political pressure to focus on the domestic sphere and leave the workplace behind” (Guenther 2011, 868). This, along with the reduced access to childcare services, pushed many women out of the paid labor market. In countries such as Hungary or the Czech Republic, women remained active in the labor market but faced limited career opportunities, lower wages, and other gendered disadvantages (Guenther 2011).

The outsourcing and privatization of social services also affected women’s organizations, which were increasingly relied upon to fill gaps in state provisions and implement state projects and policies. Feminist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) often played contradictory roles: they acted as “technical” partners in neoliberal initiatives to addressing women’s needs, while also diversifying their agendas and strategies (Alvarez 1998, 2009; Guenther 2011). This reflects what Evelina Dagnino (2007) conceptualized as a “perverse confluence” of participatory and neoliberal perspectives on citizenship and the role of the state, stating that “while the neoliberal project requires the participation of civil society, this increasingly means that organisations of civil society take over the role of the state in providing services” (Dagnino 2007, 108).

In sum, the greater pluralism of the first transition is relevant to understanding the factors affecting these disputes. Opportunities to advance gender equality were mixed for two main reasons: first, while democratization provided feminists with new or expanded access to state institutions and resources, it also opened the door to their contenders, mainly religious and conservative organizations; second, efforts to redefine state–society relations and promote justice and equality were severely hampered by the rise of neoliberalism. In South America, the heterogeneous field of social movements, particularly feminist movements, played a dual role. They were involved in shaping new patterns of state–civil society relations under neoliberalism while also voicing critical concerns about its limitations (Schild 2017). The criticism of neoliberalism for worsening entrenched inequalities strengthened left-wing forces, making them a viable electoral alternative in many countries and creating the opportunities that resulted in the Pink Tide. In CEE, governments advanced (neo)liberal economic policies to attract foreign capital, encourage investment, and stimulate economic growth. The desire to join the European Union and the policies of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development were central to these efforts. Radical deregulation led to a “retreat of the state” from societal organization and sidelined civic organizations (Kutter and Trappmann 2010). These developments are essential for shaping the relevant factors in a comparative framework as we reach the second transition.

The second transition, the Pink Tide, and EU accession

The turn of the millennium marks another transition, offering new opportunities for actors in both the regions to renegotiate gender and democracy, although these opportunities differed greatly between the regions and across countries. In South America, the shift to the left provided feminist movements with new—albeit far from homogeneous—opportunities to advance gender equality. In CEE, accession to the European Union allowed feminist movements to make claims on the state. However, the similarities end there.

In South America, this new context of opportunities was intertwined with left-wing politics that offered radical or reformist alternatives to neoliberal governance (Silva 2015). The parties in government during the Pink Tide (1998–2016), despite their distinct trajectories and proposals, all adopted measures to enlarge participatory politics, amplify the state by regulation and investment, and expand social policies and foreign policy aimed at regional integration. CEE countries present a very different combination of factors: participation and access were strongly shaped by the EU enlargement, and neoliberal politics faced less opposition from alternative platforms compared with South America. Religious actors built on the legacies and opportunities discussed in the previous section, but a clearer parallel emerges here: they became rooted in new party systems that arose during the democratic transition and established new conservative transnational networks, starting with their opposition to gender in the United Nations in the 1990s (Chappell 2006; Correa, Petchesky, and Parker 2008, 165). Locally, they reorganized their strategies as they lost influence in policymaking. These factors will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

The emergence of the Pink Tide is attributed to the failures of neoliberalism and a sense of “democratic disillusion” with the political system that promoted it (Rojas 2017; Silva-Torres, Rozo-Higuera, and Leon 2021). The economic crisis of the late 1990s eroded popular support for neoliberal policies (Panizza and Yañez 2006). Left-wing parties with strong ties to social movements adopted dual agendas, focusing on policies aimed at promoting equality, justice, inclusive citizenship, and new forms of democratic participation (Benza and Kessler 2020; Levitsky and Roberts 2011). They also promoted stronger, more centralized states with greater capacity to intervene and regulate the economy (Cannon and Hume 2012; Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012).

With the election of left-wing parties, new participatory institutions created space for social movements to debate and propose policies—although this participation was not always matched by government support or the necessary budget to implement the approved proposals (Fedozzi, Corradi, and Rangel 2016). New relational dynamics between intersectional feminist activism and the state emerged. In Bolivia and Ecuador, indigenous women and their organizations had more opportunities to participate than in right-leaning countries such as Peru. In Brazil, the election of left-wing president Lula da Silva expanded institutional arenas where Black feminists could engage directly or push for intersectional policies (Rodrigues and Freitas 2021). In Uruguay, feminists secured the decriminalization of abortion in 2012 (Rostagnol 2016) and established the region’s first national care policy system in 2015 (Aguirre et al. 2016). The Pink Tide also coincided with an unprecedented rise in the political representation of women in legislatures. The rate of women elected to Congress in Latin America tripled since 1991,³ and female presidents were elected in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. By 2023, eighteen countries in the region had adopted electoral quotas or parity laws.⁴

Participation and increased representation are key democratizing factors in the second transition in South America. However, their translation into policy and law was quite uneven across the region, even in countries with left-wing governments. The factors we identified as relevant for the disputes in the first transition remained important in the second: religious conservative actors opposed gender equality initiatives and, in some cases, were able to block them. Additionally, the state’s capacity to implement policies was reduced due to cumulative neoliberal adjustments, despite the Pink Tide’s push for alternatives to these policies (Silva 2015). In their study of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, Rodríguez Gustá, Madera, and Caminotti (2017) found that left-wing governments’ capacity to develop and implement policies correlates positively with state capacity, along with the availability of participatory channels and arenas. Autonomous participation is key to transformation, but it becomes ineffective without budget support or backing from the government coalition. While Pink Tide policies largely addressed gender inequalities, they failed to tackle intersectional vulnerabilities affecting poor, mostly Black and indigenous women (Blofield et al. 2021).

In South American presidential regimes, fragmented party systems press governments to adopt broad coalitions, modulating their agendas and often expanding the capacity of religious conservative actors to stop policy changes (Santos 2002). This dynamic led to the increasing influence of evangelical and Pentecostal parties and leaders (Bastian 1999). Coalitions between evangelicals and Catholics opposing sexual and reproductive rights were triggered by feminist-driven changes during this transition and would be strategic in the third transition (Vaggione and Machado 2020).

In CEE countries, these factors played out differently. Instead of local political changes and left-leaning politics, it was the accession to the European Union that played a key role in driving the adoption of gender equality policies and institutions, giving women’s rights advocates an opportunity to advance their agendas. With the prospect of enlargement to post-communist Europe, the European Union developed a new accession policy with momentous consequences for gender equality policies in the candidate states, using its leverage to monitor progress toward gender equality (Chiva 2021; Galligan, Clavero, and Calloni 2008). Scholars have noted that accession negotiations and monitoring processes helped women’s rights organizations raise awareness of discrimination and gendered inequalities, placing these issues on the public and political agenda. Hašková and Křížková (2008) note that the Czech Republic’s accession to the European Union became “the most important legitimizing force that helped to promote gender equality in the country” (Hašková and Křížková 2008, 155). While these processes are arguably linked to earlier EU efforts to reinforce and accelerate transitions to democracy and market economies in the region (Schmidt 2009), the requirements provided a direct incentive for countries to adopt gender equality legislation—including gender mainstreaming—and define new institutional antidiscrimination measures (Weiner 2009).

EU accession required CEE countries to implement significant reforms in human rights, nondiscrimination, and gender equality. New CEE applicants had to transpose the acquis communautaire (the entire body of EU law consisting of treaties, legislation, legal acts, and Court decisions) before accession; they should also meet political conditions concerning human rights, nondiscrimination, and equality (Weiner 2009). The accession negotiations and the European Commission’s monitoring process, through opinions and recommendations (avis), further expanded and detailed the scope of equality-related areas and issues (Chiva 2021). New anti-discrimination directives—addressing race and ethnicity (Racial Equality Directive 2000/43/EC) and workplace discrimination based on religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation (Framework Directive 2000/78/EC)—significantly affected ethnic minority women in the region, particularly Romani women. In its regular country reports, the Commission started to highlight Romani women’s unequal position and the discrimination they faced, forcing governments to address the issue. As a result, Romani women were inspired to mobilize politically (D’Agostino 2021). Similarly, the accession period increased the visibility and legitimacy of LGBTQ+ activists in postcommunist Europe (Ayoub 2015).

Compared to the first transition period, women’s organizing and mobilizing became more prominent and effective in engaging with the state and influencing public policymaking (Avdeyeva 2015; Krizsán and Roggeband 2017, 2021a; Spehar 2005). However, the implementation of EU legislation and gender mainstreaming varied widely across the region, influenced by differences in the strength and mobilizing capacity of women’s movements, the ideologies of ruling political parties, and the level of women’s political representation (Avdeyeva 2015). Similar to the factors discussed for South America, progress was greater in countries with left-wing governments or a left-leaning parliamentary majority, high representation of women in parliament, and strong women’s movements (Avdeyeva 2015). Regulska and Grabowska (2008) note that in Poland, the accession process fostered women’s political mobilization. Women’s organizations started to successfully push for inclusion in policy processes and demand recognition as legitimate experts. Also, women’s organizations in the Czech Republic started to seek access to members of parliament to raise gender equality issues in the parliament and used EU directives to lobby for policy change (Hašková and Křížková 2008). However, in some ex-Yugoslavian countries and Lithuania, progress occurred before EU accession, mainly through women’s pressure (Avdeyeva 2015; Spehar 2005). EU membership not only empowered women’s organizations but also brought challenges. Many organizations lost funding from international donors when development organizations withdrew, expecting the European Union to provide financial support (Roth 2008). Also, as women’s organizations became more involved in carrying out projects, advising on policies, and lobbying, they grew more formal and professional, which led to weakened ties with grassroots organizing and difficulties in connecting with younger generations (Krizsán and Popa 2010).

Governments often viewed the need to adopt gender equality legislation and measures as a pragmatic, technocratic step required for EU accession, rather than a genuine effort to address gender inequalities (Roth 2008). Hašková and Křížková (2008) note that the Czech government claimed gender equality was already well-protected in the country’s constitution and that additional measures were unnecessary. Also, lingering negative perceptions of egalitarian policies from the communist era served to justify their reluctance. This ambivalent approach led to the adoption of new policies, such as maternity and parental leave, but without a strong commitment to enforce them or address deeper social inequalities (Hašková and Křížková 2008). In Bulgaria, the government also believed gender equality was already established, which made it difficult for women’s organizations to push for the urgent adoption of new policies and institutions (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021a).

Organized religion had less influence in most CEE countries than in South America. However, scholars argue that conservative and populist groups with nationalist and traditionalist agendas grew stronger after EU accession, pushing back against what they saw as the “imposition” of European “liberal” norms and standards (Graff and Korolczuk 2021; Żuk and Żuk 2020). Extreme right-wing parties in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia voiced fierce criticism of the culturally liberal agenda of the European Union (Bustikova 2009). In some countries, these conservative and nationalist forces may not be closely connected to organized religion, but they still hold a traditional view of gender and sexual relations (Hanley 2007). Meanwhile, religious actors have created new political parties to voice their concerns—in Poland, the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – PiS) party won big in the 2005 elections and formed a coalition with the nationalist Catholic League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin – LPR) party (O’Dwyer and Schwartz 2010), while in Latvia, a new party, the Latvijas Pirm Partija (LPP), founded by Evangelical pastors and defending “conservative Christian values”, also entered the political scene (O’Dwyer and Schwartz 2010)

Thus, the following factors were key in determining the balance between the actors involved in gender-related disputes and their political effects: the role of the state, the nature and extent of participation by feminist and anti-gender actors, and the events leading to the adoption of gender equality policies. In some CEE countries, the centralized approach to adopting gender equality policies led to hostility and resistance. This allowed opponents of gender and sexual equality to characterize these policies as top-down and compare them to those from the communist era (Bustikova 2009; Rawłuszko 2021; Weiner 2009). In South America, newly organized right-wing and far-right movements and parties capitalized on the inability of Pink Tide governments to promote structural changes, mobilizing resentment against left-wing forces for its failures, but also for the inclusion of progressive agendas promoted by social movements (Benza and Kessler 2020, Biroli 2025). In both regions, the new cycle of economic crises starting in 2007 allowed right-wing movements and parties to turn the public’s dissatisfaction with liberal democracy against left-wing and liberal forces. Also, transnational campaigns against gender expanded their reach, as discussed in the following section.

The third transition, disputes over the gender order and democracy

The third transitional moment is marked by the rise of right-wing populism, democratic backsliding, and fierce struggles over gender. In South America and CEE, opposition to “gender ideology” has become a key strategy for delegitimizing egalitarian agendas and the actors who promote them (Graff and Korolczuk 2021; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Zaremberg, Tabbush, and Friedman 2021). In previous work, we explored how opposition to gender equality became intimately related to de-democratizing trends in both regions (Biroli 2019; Biroli, Machado, and Vaggione 2020; Krizsán and Roggeband 2018; Mariano and Biroli 2023; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018, 2020, 2021), noting striking similarities in the patterns of backlash despite the significant differences in their earlier transitions. In this third transition, comparison factors are viewed through distinct lenses. First, the shared strategies and discourses of anti-gender campaigns highlight the importance of transnational politics. Second, religion appears as a central factor in the coalitions opposing gender in both regions. We start by discussing these factors and then shift to participation and the state’s role, connecting current disputes to the key elements of the two previous transitions.

In terms of language and strategy, “gender ideology” operates as a rationale for opposing the changes promoted by feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, bringing together a wide range of political actors and projects (Paternotte 2023). The fight against “gender ideology” connects otherwise diverse and competing actors, such as Catholics and Pentecostals in South America (Biroli, Machado, and Vaggione 2020; Correa 2020), and Catholics, Protestant, and Orthodox churches gathering around the conservative Agenda Europe (Datta 2018). In South America, grassroots politics is increasingly evangelical and conservative (Mayka and Smith 2021), and evangelical representation in legislatures is negatively related to the expansion of sexual rights (Corrales 2020). The connection between evangelical leaders, voters, and the far-right is also evident in many countries (Kaltwasser and Sandoval 2024). In CEE, opposition to gender connects conservative religious groups with various right-wing traditions, including anti-EU and anti-communist groups, homophobic actors, and others (Graff and Korolczuk 2021; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). These actors, operating in different national contexts, maintain strong transnational connections, exchanging ideas, discourses, and strategies across borders (Paternotte 2023).

Conservative—mostly right-wing—actors who oppose feminist and LGBTQ+ agendas often present themselves as defenders of democracy in its original and true form, standing against what they perceive as corrupt liberal elites. They appeal to a majoritarian, homogeneous demos rooted in the “natural order” and national/religious identity. Anti-gender campaigns in South America denounce pluralism as a threat, mobilizing a Christian majoritarian framework to approach social complexity. Feminist politics is defined as foreign, “elitist,” and alien to “the people” (Corredor 2019). In CEE, a similar strategy emerges to establish boundaries between the core values of the population and “liberal” and “elite” agendas promoted by human rights organizations or the European Union (Korolczuk and Graff 2018; Krizsán and Roggeband 2021a; Rawłuszko 2021). Although the effects vary between countries, these frameworks work to restrict the space and limit the opportunities for feminist and LGBTQ+ movements in policymaking in both regions.

As in previous transitions, the disputes between opposing movements competing to access the state and mobilize the citizens are a key factor in the third transition. In countries where far-right populist parties with strong anti-gender rhetoric took office after 2010 (notably Brazil, Hungary, Poland, and more recently Argentina and Slovakia), scholarship observes how these governments have actively dismantled gender equality rights and institutions along complementary dimensions (Biroli, Tatagiba, and Quintela 2024; Krizsán and Roggeband 2017; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018, 2020). Radical policy changes are often produced by capturing state agencies and reframing policies. The most visible and relatively easy way to eliminate gender equality policies is through dismantling by default (Roggeband and Krizsán 2018). In these cases, policies may stay in place, but the institutional arrangements necessary for effective policy implementation are challenged. Backsliding can thus affect enforcement agencies, mechanisms for policy coordination, intergovernmental and other institutional partnerships, strategic and programmatic processes, or allocated budgets (Roggeband and Krizsán 2018). Policies are also dismantled by eliminating or restructuring accountability and inclusion mechanisms, such as the WPAs or equality mechanisms we discussed earlier. Accountability can be undermined by changing or closing consultation platforms, cutting resources, or replacing women’s rights organizations with conservative organizations that oppose gender equality (Krizsán and Roggeband 2018; Quintela 2023; Roggeband and Krizsán 2020).

Women’s rights organizations, LGBTQ+ organizations, and other human rights NGOs are also facing increasing political constraints, sometimes through legal restrictions aimed at blocking foreign funding for NGOs (Roggeband and Krizsán 2021). State hostility not only threatens the rights of civil society but also fuels smear campaigns that label NGOs as foreign agents or threats to the nation, triggering repressive or even violent actions such as excessive audits, policing, and physical attacks on activists (Roggeband and Krizsán 2020, 2021). This shrinking space for civic organizing has severe implications for women’s political representation, especially in CEE, where they remain underrepresented in formal politics and are therefore particularly dependent on civil society organizing (Roggeband and Krizsán 2021). Political representation and empowerment through civil society participation is a fundamental component of gender-inclusive democracy. In CEE, the space for women’s rights organizations is increasingly restricted, while simultaneously, anti-gender equality actors have gained increased access to the political arena and funding channels (Roggeband and Krizsán 2021). In Latin America, the election of far-right politicians has disrupted both formal and informal ties between the state and feminist movements, enabling the restriction and dismantling of participatory institutional arenas (Abers, Silva, and Tatagiba 2018).

Overall, the third transition distinguishes between ambivalent democracies and hostile states (Biroli, Tatagiba, and Quintela 2024). However, the legacies of feminist organizing and previous experience working with state agents play a crucial role in resistance and proactive efforts. Protests against the rollback of rights have taken women to the streets, even in places where movements were under threat, such as Poland and Brazil. In Argentina, the influential regional movement Ni Una Menos, created in 2015 to fight violence against women, organized massive protests that inspired feminists transnationally (Friedman and Rodriguez Gustá 2023). In Argentina and Colombia, feminist activists were key in pushing Congress and the judiciary to decriminalize abortion in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Various intersectional networks bring together local groups using digital strategies, reframing their claims to connect gender violence with abortion, and racism with state violence (Alvarez 2014; Fernández Anderson 2022; Sutton 2020; Zaremberg and Rezende de Almeida 2022). In South America, courts have notably played an activist role in defending or expanding rights. They were key in limiting attempts at censorship in education, as seen in the cases of Brazil and Peru (Biroli, Machado, and Vaggione 2020). In some cases, they played a role in expanding abortion rights (Ruibal 2021) and criminalizing homophobia and transphobia (Corrales 2020). In CEE countries, feminist protests resisting the backsliding of policies on sex education, violence, and various issues related to sexuality and reproduction have been uneven. Feminist activists in Poland became core defenders of democracy and managed to equate the fight for women’s rights with the fight for democracy (Graff 2023). In Romania, feminist resistance to a law banning gender studies was supported by the Constitutional Court, which overturned the legislation (Reuters 2020). However, feminist resistance was weaker and less successful in countries such as Hungary or Bulgaria (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021a)—Bulgarian feminists could not prevent the Constitutional Court from blocking the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (Krizsán and Roggeband 2021a).

It is important to recognize that anti-gender actors and far-right movements and leaders enjoy substantial support from large voter bases and grassroots movements in many countries (Kaltwasser and Sandoval 2024). The “moralization of insecurities” connects symbolic factors to neoliberalism by exploiting the lack of guarantees and protection for the most vulnerable (Biroli, 2019), while opposition to gender equality amplifies anxieties rooted in the ongoing state of precariousness caused by neoliberalism (Graff and Korolczuk 2021). This is coupled with an anti-colonial narrative framing gender equality as “neocolonization” promoted by global elites (Korolczuk and Graff 2018). In South America, it evokes cultural imperialism and colonial infringement on local traditions, while in CEE, it reflects the resistance to top-down agendas from communism or the European Union (Korolczuk and Graff 2018; also Rawluszko 2021).

In the two previous transitions, feminist mobilization played a crucial role in democratization, advocating for social rights and effective human rights for women and girls. They operated under a pluralist framework, but the ethically monolithic politics encouraged by anti-gender coalitions in the third transition challenges these perspectives.

Conclusion

In this article, we examined contested processes of (de)democratization and struggles over democratic rules, values, and institutions by discussing three transitional moments in South America and CEE. These moments involved (re)negotiating the scope and meanings of democracy and citizenship, with feminist, LGBTQ+, and religious and conservative actors vying for access to the state to advance their competing agendas.

The extent and nature of feminist and anti-gender actors’ participation in reshaping the state and implementing gender policy is an important factor for comparison. In South America, feminist actors, who had operated in the margins during the dictatorships of the 1960s–1980s, found new opportunities with democratization, which expanded further in the second transition, during the “Pink Tide.” In CEE countries, the first transition disrupted state-socialist policies that fostered egalitarian participation in politics and work, particularly those promoting alternatives for working women with children. During the second transition, both regions experienced somewhat similar opportunities thanks to international and supranational organizations such as the United Nations. Pressured by feminist and LGBTQ+ actors, these organizations pushed for gender equality and diversity as key goals for democracies. However, the events related to the adoption of gender equality policies unfolded differently in the two regions. In South America, participatory politics and social policy innovations emerged, mostly under the left-wing Pink Tide governments. In CEE countries, gender policies were mainly driven by the requirements of EU accession. Nevertheless, in both regions, feminists faced competition and opposition from actors entrenched in powerful pre-existing social, economic, and political networks, as well as from conservative actors that seized opportunities to (re)claim space and present their agendas. Feminist struggles thus unfolded within asymmetrical power dynamics and developed in highly varied ways within and across regions.

Religion is our second factor for comparison. In some CEE countries, criticism of communist past regimes opened opportunities for religious actors to present themselves as defenders of national values. In South America, the Catholic Church remained an important political player, although it lost ground to evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which promoted conservative views on gender rights in institutional arenas and nurtured grassroots conservative movements opposing “gender ideology” and the decriminalization of abortion. However, disputes over democracy were not limited to the interaction between feminist and conservative perspectives.

Neoliberal measures severely hampered the implementation of gender policies, leading us to the third factor: state capacity. The opportunities that democratization created in both regions came alongside the dilemmas and challenges posed by the “perverse confluence” of participatory and neoliberal political projects (Dagnino 2007). As we have argued, neoliberalism has deeply affected gender regimes in both regions, restricting women’s participation in formal and informal politics and activism, while often worsening economic and racial inequalities. Although both South America and CEE experienced neoliberalism and its effects on state capacity, the first two transitions discussed here—democratization and the Pink Tide/EU accession—evolved very differently in the two regions. Despite that, the third defining moment—marked by backlash and democratic backsliding—bears remarkable resemblance across both regions.

There are striking similarities in how gender equality rights and institutions are targeted and dismantled, as well as in the ways feminist civil society organizations are attacked, sidelined, and replaced by conservative organizations in policymaking and representation. These conservative organizations share discourses and strategies across regions. This phenomenon can be attributed to transnational networking and exchanges among radical right-wing and conservative actors, as well as the “copy-pasting” of what seems to be a playbook of radical right-wing parties when they take office. The implementation of openly anti-feminist agendas, the restructuring of certain policy fields, and the reframing and dismantling of policies look remarkably similar when we compare Brazil under Bolsonaro, Hungary under Orbán, Poland under the PiS government, and, more recently, Argentina under Milei. In all these contexts, patriarchal projects are intertwined with the dismantling of democratic institutions and a redefinition of democracy in anti-pluralist terms. This corresponds to a narrowing of the demos, where feminists and LGBTQ+ actors are identified as enemies of the state. Such a shift promotes a violent discourse and condones violence against feminist and LGBTQ+ politicians and activists, particularly targeting marginalized groups such as trans people, women of color, and migrants. The implications for women’s participation and for democracy are more pronounced in contexts where the far right won elections and anti-gender projects turned into policy. Disputes over gender have become a key part of the broader disputes over democracy in many countries in both regions, and disputes over the meanings of human rights for democratic regimes, for example, extend beyond nations where the far right won national elections.

In outlining the factors for a comparative framework and briefly analyzing the distinct processes that marked the first and second transitions, along with the surprising similarities connecting both regions in the third transition, we emphasize the relevance of comparative research in this article. Comparative work can help us better understand the elements that supported struggles for democratization and the factors contributing to de-democratization. It also moves us beyond the binary opposition of specific versus generalizing narratives, as it can enhance our understanding of transnational networks and their interactions with regional and local processes. What resources, access points, and institutional powers can both opponents and proponents of gender equality mobilize as they dispute the meanings of rights and democracy? How and where are they represented, and which allies can they mobilize in formal politics and society? What happens to the mechanisms and institutions designed to promote gender equality in these regions?

Examining the so-called “third wave” democracies from a gender perspective raises questions about whether democratic backsliding should be seen as a reversal or a temporary crisis in what is otherwise viewed as a progressive and linear process toward democratic consolidation. Our work corroborates that this linear approach overlooks long-standing limitations of democracies and pre-existing gendered inequalities that have persisted in these regimes and societies. At the same time, a comparative approach can reveal the relational dynamics between feminists and their opponents as they respond to each other’s strategies and achievements. It can also identify feminist strategies to resist the similar attacks they face in different parts of the world, their efforts to denounce anti-pluralist views of democracy, mobilize support against them, and propose alternatives. They do that embedded in local disputes. Feminist movements’ resistance efforts and achievements during the third transition reveal legacies from previous transitions, such as participatory politics and increased dialog with state actors, including members of the judiciary in South America.

Transforming the gender order depends on democratizing the state and society because reshaping established power relations is crucial to ensuring protections for individuals and groups. As discussed, this inclusive, anti-conventional project was never fully consolidated or completed. However, it did produce significant effects and opened new possibilities—some of them quite unexpected. The opposition to a transformed gender order serves to relegitimize “natural” hierarchies, extending beyond “specific” gender issues. It affects the very meaning of democracy and influences how human rights are defined and positioned in democratization and autocratization processes. Maybe this is the time to set a clear debate on the implications of contemporary patriarchal regimes, theorizing the disputes beyond the opposition between clear-cut authoritarian and liberal political contexts. Feminist theorization of democracy has long offered alternatives that transcend this duality, critiquing the limitations of liberal democracies in including women, political minorities, and socially marginalized groups. As discussed, women’s collective organizing played a leading role in transitions and can be a powerful force against illiberal projects.

Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank the three anonymous referees who provided invaluable comments on an earlier draft of the article as well as the two guest editors for their support and feedback.

Funding

This article was conceived while Conny Roggeband was a visiting professor at the Institute for Political Studies at the Institute of Political Science of the University of Brasília funded by the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Prlnt Internationalization Programme (No. 88887.890324/2023-00). Most of the writing was done while she was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). During this period, the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) supported Flávia Biroli's work on gender backlash and democratic backsliding with a Bolsa Produtividade (Productivity Grant).

Conflicts of interest

None declared.

Data availability

No new data were generated or analyzed in support of this research. The data underlying this article are all documents in the public domain and are all referenced in full in the bibliography.

References