Female Leaders and the Populist Radical Right in the Nordic Countries

Susi Meret, Liv Sunnercrantz and Ann-Cathrine Jungar
Additional contact information
Susi Meret: Department of Society and Politics, Aalborg University, Denmark
Liv Sunnercrantz: Department of Media and Social Science, University of Stavanger, Norway
Ann-Cathrine Jungar: School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Sweden

Politics and Governance, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: This article examines female leadership in populist radical right (PRR) parties in the Nordic countries, challenging the traditional view of these parties as “Männerparteien.” Building upon research on the centrality of gender to the radical right, we analyse biographical material covering the private and professional lives of two generations of female PRR leaders in Denmark (Pia Kjærsgaard), Finland (Riikka Purra), and Norway (Siv Jensen and Sylvi Listhaug). Our findings show that these leaders strategically balance hegemonic masculinity and femininity, drawing on masculine codes to frame themselves as top-down disciplining managers and tough party leaders while simultaneously invoking their private lives to highlight care, empathy, and softer values. The analysis also reveals generational differences tracking broader ideological transformations within the parties, with implications for leadership style and performance. Younger PRR female leaders place greater emphasis on radical and ethnonationalist agendas and appear less concerned about balancing masculine authority with feminine expectations.

Keywords: double bind; gender; leadership; pariah femininity; populism; radical right (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/12707 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v14:y:2026:a:12707

DOI: 10.17645/pag.12707

Access Statistics for this article

Politics and Governance is currently edited by Carolina Correia

More articles in Politics and Governance from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().