This paper examines how the term ‘gender’ has been re-signified by the right-wing actors in contemporary struggles around globalization. First, we offer a chronology of debates concerning global diffusion of gender norms, tracing the consolidation of various groups into the anti-gender movement. The next section discusses how gender and globalization intersect in discursive strategies of anti-gender actors. We show that they target international institutions and norms portraying them as a western cosmopolitan force, claiming to speak on behalf of local populations and obfuscating their transnational embeddedness. The aim is to moralize and blur the boundaries between the local and the global—a strategy we call chameleon tactics. The final part examines how chameleon tactics unfolded in the specific context of the 2019 ICPD25 Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, and how an anti-globalist frame was used to blur the global identity of anti-gender organizations present there.

The shrinking of civil society-a problematic trend in a growing number of countries-often involves enacting legal measures to curtail the activity of civil society organizations and vilifying and/or harassing such organizations. Poland has been at the forefront of this trend since 2015. This article examines the mechanisms promoting elite replacement in Polish civil society, with a specific focus on the ways in which civil society actors have responded to these changes and the effectiveness of the state's efforts to establish new hierarchies of power. The article discusses the complex relation between research on civil society and elite theory, and examines the anti-elitist discourses concerning Polish civil society and the strategies employed by the state to gain more control over the third sector. Next, the analytical section focuses on the ways in which civil society actors respond to state-sponsored elite change and examines three types of relations between the state and NGOs in contemporary Poland: (1) resistance, (2) assimilation, and (3) opportunistic synergy. In closing, the article shows ways in which analyses of the transformation of civil society in Poland and other countries can be enriched by drawing on elite theory.

This chapter argues that gender plays a key role in the illiberal project of demonizing liberalism by reducing it to its sociocultural dimension and by culturalizing political cleavages. It explores what is meant by "resistance to gender" and how this trend resonates with core features of the illiberal worldview: its anti-modernism, anti-globalism, anti-individualism, and post-postmodernism. While anti-genderism's origins are religious, the role of religion in illiberal anti-gender politics is often instrumental. We provide evidence of the convergence between illiberalism and anti-genderism from countries such as Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Spain, and the United States. Finally, the chapter discusses existing conceptualizations of the relationship between anti-genderism on the one hand and illiberalism as well as populism on the other. We propose the concept of opportunistic synergy to capture the growing ideological affinity and developing political collaboration between religious fundamentalists, ultraconservative civil-society actors, and right-wing politicians.

This book charts the new phase of global struggles around gender equality and sexual democracy: the ultraconservative mobilization against "gender ideology" and feminist efforts to counteract it. It argues that anti-gender campaigns, which emerged around 2010 in Europe, are not a simple continuation of the anti-feminist backlash dating back to the 1970s, but part of a new political configuration. Opposition to "gender" has become a key element of the rise of right-wing populism, which successfully harnesses the anxiety, shame and anger caused by neoliberalism and threatens to destroy liberal democracy. Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment offers a novel conceptualization of the relationship between the ultraconservative anti-gender movement and right-wing populist parties, examining the opportunistic synergy between these actors. The authors map the anti-gender campaigns as a global movement, putting the Polish case in a comparative perspective. They show that the anti-gender rhetoric is best understood as a reactionary critique of neoliberalism as a socio-cultural formation. The book also studies the recent wave of feminist mass mobilizations, viewing the transnational revolt of women as a left populist movement. This is an important study for those doing research in politics, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies and sociology. It will also be useful for activists and policy makers.

This chapter maps out the legislation, practices, and discourses on reproductive technologies in the postcommunist region, with a specific focus on Poland. The aim is to highlight both regional specificities and global tendencies, showing how the proliferation of biotechnologies may lead to a variety of policy outcomes, practices, and cultural discourses, embedded in ideals of reproduction, family, and political community. Today, reproductive technologies are practiced both within and across national borders, and the way in which they are imagined and regulated reflect the complex and multilayered character of these practices. In line with this trend, Poland and other postcommunist countries do not represent a uniform policy pattern and cannot be distinguished from western countries by a specific set of practices. Rather, they present an assemblage of national, regional, and global trends which give rise to contradictory effects in different contexts: whereas in Poland policies aimed at protecting the nation involve restricting access to assisted reproduction techniques, in Hungary and Bulgaria nationalistic discourses lead to the widening of access to reproductive technologies, albeit only for specific groups.

This article focuses on the epistemic strategies employed by ultraconservative movements to oppose women's reproductive rights and the ways in which the women's movement counteracts these efforts. The core argument is that nowadays the opponents of gender equality and sexual democracy are seeking not only political but also epistemic power, producing a new body of gender knowledge. A detailed analysis of the struggles around the 2016 Stop Abortion bill in Poland shows, however, that the women's movement can counteract these challenges by mobilizing not only medical and legal expertise, but also tacit knowledge and affects.

What can we learn about civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia from studies on activism within the region’s urban spaces? In this article, we argue that studying urban activism in CEE offers useful insights for general theory building about the importance of uneventful protests, the formation of agency and the processes of becoming active in the public sphere (conceptualized here as “political becoming”), and the enabling role of informality in collective action in adverse contexts. By contributing to our understanding in this way, these insights help to advance relational and process-based conceptions of civil society.