Feminist Movements Revitalizing Democracy

FIERCE aims at providing sound theoretical and practical knowledge and tools to revitalize alliances between the feminist movement, civil society and political decision makers in a context of growing social inequalities, political disaffection and strengthening of populist radical right anti‐gender/anti-feminist actors and discourses. The research uses an interdisciplinary, multi‐dimensional and multi‐level framework, that aims to overcome the limitations of both disciplinary scholarships and nationalist methodologies. FIERCE develops in‐depth understanding of feminist and anti‐feminist/anti‐gender movements, activities and discourses, and their impact on the institutional arena and on policy outcomes, focusing on the period 2010‐2021. These actors, and especially the feminist movement, will be studied through framing, political ethnography and Social Network Analyses on the background of key gender debates and controversies prefigured to be situated in the areas of: labour market; health and reproductive rights; LGBTQ+ rights; migration; and gender‐based violence. FIERCE will cover eight case studies (France, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Turkey, Denmark, Poland, Spain) representing a wide variety of country contexts in socio‐political, geographical and welfare terms. FIERCE moves beyond a country based approach and provides a crosscutting comparative analysis of the way debates and controversies on gender have influenced the dynamics and output of the policy process. Building on co‐creation methods and on a strong alliance with civil society organisations, FIERCE proposes pilot actions that can reinvigorate democratic practices, in line with feminist inclusive visions for the future of democracy. FIERCE thereby sets out a bottom‐up, problem‐driven and impact‐oriented approach, bridging academic knowledge, policy‐making and bottom‐up democratic strategies.