Globalisation and its male contenders? The question of conservative masculinities within the radical right populist discourses across the EU

Acknowledging that globalisation discourses privilege masculinities, the present article moves the focus from the manifestations of hegemony of globalising masculinities in the business sphere as motors of global patriachy. Instead it evidences the strategies for survival and/or reassertion of gender hierarchies centred on the traditional masculinities fostered by radical right populist (RRP) parties. The masculinities heralded by RRP parties in Finland and Romania emphasise the necessity to return to a pre-globalised, pre-modern gender structuring, that privileges men as heads of heterosexual nuclear families, controls women’s bodies and reduces them to bearers of the nation. Concomitantly, the Alterity is presented in menacing terms, as predatory and competing masculinities that endanger the purity of the national body, taking advantage of cultural and economic benefits.

The masculinities acclaimed by RRP parties find a fertile ground in the insecurities experienced by men in the face of an ever more intricately connected world, and make use of transnational strategies (like virtual communities, or transnational political alliances) in an attempt to preserve, and if possibly reverse societal reality to a heteropatriarchal structuring. A conclusion that can be drawn is that RRP leaders take full advantage of the effects of globalisation, which allows them to even be elected in European fora. Ironically, they use an anti-globalisation platform to attain the aforesaid positions.