Gender Ideologies and Polish Political Parties

This article explores the gender dimension of ideology and representation by analysing the political parties that ran in the 2019 Polish parliamentary elections, using a novel analytical framework based on gender claims and gender-related policy pledges. This article demonstrates that a left and liberal ideology largely determines feminist and pro-LGBTQ+ promissory representation. However, the gender ideologies of right-wing political parties vary in their traditional types and can include a populist element. This article contributes to comparative gender and politics scholarship by examining gender ideologies in the Central and Eastern European context, where on the one hand, populism and anti-gender campaigns have taken hold, and, on the other, feminist and progressive movements have challenged traditionalism and illiberalism. This article also differentiates a scholarly meaning of gender ideology from its populist meaning.