The podcast is based on the conference and the special issue of Politics and Governance, No. 3 in 2022 edited by Matthijs Bogaards (CEU Department of Political Science, CEU Democracy Institute) and Andrea Pető (CEU Department of Gender Studies, CEU Democracy Institute).

The first major exploration of the relationship between illiberalism and gender focuses on a region where gender progress is under threat from de-democratization: post-communist Europe. The authors of the papers in the podcast investigate the gendered working of illiberal institutions as well as the policies, mechanisms, and discourses through which the very notion of gender is constructed as a threat to increasingly populist and nationalist views of the polity, society, family, and individual.

The contributions examine illiberalism’s impact on gendered issues in a broad range of social, economic, and political spheres, including the labor market, culture, academia, the legal system, foreign policy, and security. They do so from a variety of perspectives and a diversity of academic backgrounds, together building the first systematic examination of the relationship between illiberalism and gender in post-communist Europe.

Speakers include: Andrea Pető, Weronika Grzebalska. Zuzanna Madarova, Karolina Zbytniewska, Lubomir Zvada, Judit Takács, Matthijs Bogaards,  Jazgul Kochkorova, Barbara Gaweda, Alina Dragolea, Katalin Parti.