‘Men’s Parties’, but With More Active Women: Gender and Party Activism in the Populist Radical Right

Abstract

While the gender gap among populist radical right (PRR) voters and representatives has been extensively investigated, little is known about the extent to which women are active as PRR party members. To examine this, I ask: How and why does party activism in PRR parties differ between women and men? Based on the literature on gender and party politics, I expect women PRR party members to be less active than men because they have less motivations to participate, are less embedded in party networks, and are more sensitive to stigma. Drawing on original survey data from thousands of members of the League in Italy and the Sweden Democrats, I find that women PRR party members are overall more active than men because they are more embedded in party networks. This surprising result has important implications for our understanding of women’s participation in parties and the growing normalisation of PRR politics.