POPULIST POLITICAL MASCULINITIES, GENDER EQUALITY AND NORM CONTESTATION IN GEORGIA AND ARMENIA

Over the past two decades, the literature on norm diffusion in the post-Soviet space has grown dramatically. Increasingly, norm diffusion scholars have stressed the role of geopolitical competition between powerful international actors, notably Russia and the EU, in achieving and/or resisting liberal-democratic reform in the region. This article contributes to this recent norm research by adding a corrective to the literature, exploring the agency of local rather than external actors in the contestation of global gender equality norms, utilizing the high-value case-studies of Georgia and Armenia. By uncovering taken-for-granted gendered power dimensions in local norm contestation – a subject barely addressed in norm diffusion literature – this article offers an explanation for the persistence of non-democratic trends in the post-Soviet space as a whole. Specifically, this article examines populist political masculinities contesting EU gender equality policies and related norms concerning violence against women and LGBT rights, arguing that in Georgia and Armenia, it is local populist actors, utilising patriarchal and heterosexual taken-for-granted discourses to ‘reclaim’ local masculinities and their political legitimacy, who represent a major challenge to gender equality norms.