Gender and democratic resilience against autocratisation: the case of Romania’s ‘gender identity’ bill

Abstract

This article argues that, given the centrality of gender for recent processes of autocratisation, it has become imperative to understand and theorise the conditions underpinning democratic resilience against opposition to gender equality. I conceptualise democratic resilience as the outcome of critical actors’ efforts to represent marginalised groups in the face of threats to existing gender equality rights. The case study is Romania’s 2020 ‘gender identity’ bill, which would have prohibited discussion of ‘gender’ within the educational system but was eventually ruled unconstitutional. I identify two key causal mechanisms through which civil society organisations were able to shape this outcome: framing, which emphasised the bill’s non-compliance with democratic norms and constitutional principles; and learning, which prompted a reflection by the two key institutional actors, that is, the president and the Constitutional Court, as to the importance of core democratic principles for politics and society in post-communist Romania.