YOUth Debunking the Gendered Arguments of Far-Right Extremism

YOU-DARE advances an interdisciplinary programme to study and intervene on the gender constructions of far-right youth groups and leaders, and their normalisation in the mainstream, across 8 countries (DK, ES, UK, FR, HU, IT, RO, SE). The project innovates on the current state of the art in four ways. First, we challenge existing oversimplifications of far-right ideas on gender, and adopt an intersectional lens exposing their contradictions and complexities where anti-gender hyper-masculine/feminine tropes go alongside pro-gender equality endorsements within anti-immigration campaigns. Second, we concentrate on the youth which is an understudied group within research on the far-right, and explore the importance of gender for this demographic as a key avenue of identity formation and politicisation. Third, we focus on far-right youth formal leaders at local levels, and new types of leadership such as online influencers. Four, we offer a thorough understanding of how far-right youth ideas on gender impact on democracy by charting how they inform policy debates and become normalised. YOU-DARE will also produce methodological and policy innovation (a) by using qualitative methods to investigate far-right youth leadership; (b) mapping online ‘gender controversies’ engaging far-right youth; (d) overcoming methodological nationalism through a focus on local levels and the creation of a transnational network of researchers, activists and stakeholders and (c) conducting crosscutting comparative analyses across the 8 countries and selected
localities. Finally, to maximise impact, YOU-DARE establishes a Policy Lab as a collaborative platform for policy design, recommendation and implementation. Implementation of policy recommendations generated by the project will be sought through the funding of local level pilot-tested solutions seeking to minimise the appeal of far-right ideas on gender among the youth, and thus reduce their impact on democratic values and practices.