Strategic Adaptations Across Borders: Mapping Transnational Anti-Gender Movements in Political, Institutional, and Digital Domains

Kusumika Ghosh; Maja Gergorić; Anya Kuteleva

doi:10.22151/politikon.42025.0

Authors

Kusumika Ghosh Dublin City University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3591-8378
Maja Gergorić University of Zagreb https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6030-8715
Anya Kuteleva University of Wolverhampton

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.42025.0

Keywords:

Right-wing Populism, Transnational Solidarity, Gender Politics, Feminist Movements, Feminist Resistance, Anti-gender Movements

Abstract

This special issue of Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science explores the complex interplay between the rise of anti-gender movements and feminist resistance strategies across diverse global contexts. Three articles examine how these movements operate transnationally through political institutions, advocacy organizations, and digital technologies. Collectively, they reveal the strategic flexibility of anti-gender actors, who shift between religious and secular narratives, alternate between grassroots mobilization and institutional engagement, and navigate both traditional and digital arenas. Key findings highlight these movements’ remarkable adaptability, cross-border coordination, simultaneous multi-level operation, and their tendency to co-opt progressive language while projecting authoritarian tendencies onto feminist initiatives. The editorial underscores the urgent need for feminist scholarship capable of tracking, analyzing, and countering these evolving threats.

Author Biographies

Kusumika Ghosh, Dublin City University

Kusumika Ghosh is an Ireland India Institute PhD candidate at the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, Ireland. She leads the Social Policy and Equity vertical at Niti Vichaar, India's Student Policy Think Tank. Kusumika has been involved in research projects related to conflict resolution, oral history, and migration studies. She also is an organizer of the Annual South Asia Conferences at Dublin City University. She co-authored Landscape of Conflicts and Peace: Role of Religion (NESRC, 2019), edited Women and Peacebuilding: Perspectives from the Field (NESRC, 2021), and published articles locating gender in refugee regimes and citizenship laws. She holds a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies with a gold medal from TISS, India. Her current PhD research centers on women in India's contemporary contentious politics.

Maja Gergorić, University of Zagreb

Maja Gergorić is a Research Assistant in the Department of Social Policy, Social Work Study Center at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, where her research focused on the emergence of anti-gender movements in post-communist Europe. Her work as an activist, policy specialist, and researcher centers on gender equality and democratic backsliding in (South)Eastern Europe.

Anya Kuteleva, University of Wolverhampton

Anya Kuteleva is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work connects international relations, development studies, energy security, and feminist-informed approaches to politics. Her research centers on the nexus between politics and sociocultural contexts in international relations and develops a cross-disciplinary methodological toolkit around the concept of discursive politics. She is particularly interested in politics in China, Russia, Canada, and the Central Asian region. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science since 2022.

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