Defending patriarchal arrangements: explaining men’s disproportionate support for populist radical right in Europe

Men are consistently more likely than women to vote for populistradical right (PRR) parties across Europe, yet standard explanationscentred on socio-economic vulnerability and issue positions accountfor only a modest share of this gap. This article proposes a frame-work, grounded in feminist theories of patriarchy and political mas-culinities, distinguishing three domains of patriarchal normativity:public-sphere male authority, productive-sphere breadwinnerarrangements, and private-sphere heteronormative family norms.Using survey data from 20 European democracies, results show thatbreadwinner and sexual-normative attitudes significantly predict PRRvoting and, jointly, absorb the direct gender effect almost entirely.Interaction analyses further show that a preference for male politicalleadership drives men towards PRR parties significantly more thanwomen, concentrated among men in status-vulnerable class posi-tions, while the other two dimensions operate similarly across gen-ders. These findings advance an intersectional, demand-side accountof the radical right as a vehicle for threatened political masculinities.