Call for papers “Culture war and international relations: the rollback of women’s rights”

Scientific coordinators: Esther Barbé (UAB/IBEI) and Lorena Oyarzún (University of Chile) 

Deadline for submitting abstracts: June 9^th, 2025

Barcelona-Santiago de Chile, May 2025

Founded in 1982, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals is a cultural-academic journal that publishes original works on international relations. A pioneering publication in the Spanish-speaking world, each edition is a monograph curated by experts in the field. It offers in-depth, interdisciplinary analysis of an issue on the international agenda. Papers are subject to external double-blind peer review and are indexed and summarised in the main social sciences academic databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. 

Subject matter and content of Issue 142:

“Culture war and international order: the rollback of women’s rights”

Thirty years on from the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 – a key milestone in the promotion and understanding of women’s rights as universal and indivisible human rights – gender equality is under increasing challenge. This special issue of Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals seeks to explore the state of play of the international agenda of women’s rights (gender equality norms) in the current context of a fragmenting global order driven by a culture war (liberalism vs. illiberalism) and by a ruleless transactionalism (institutions).

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action not only shone a light on the multiple forms of discrimination and violence that impact women throughout the world; they also established a normative complex that has guided the development of policies and legal instruments at a global, regional and national level. By recognising gender equality as a fundamental human right, the conference consolidated the principle that advancing women’s rights is inseparable from democratic progress, sustainable development and global justice.

Yet at the present time there are clear signs of a rollback. The European Parliament in 2018 adopted a resolution that recognised the backlash gender equality norms are facing. Ultraconservative, religious and/or far-right movements are contesting these norms, using the term “gender ideology” to vilify the assertion of women’s rights and of sexual and gender diversity. This “transnational conservative patriarchal network” has global reach (culture war goes global) and one of its most striking manifestations is the “war on gender”. 

Sexual and reproductive rights, the elimination of violence against women and the gender perspective itself, which conceptualises the structural inequality between men and women, are particularly contested. In the United States, Donald Trump’s second term – starting on January 20^th, 2025 – began with an executive order aimed at counteracting “gender ideology”. In the European Union (EU) the Patriots for Europe parliamentary group, characterised by its Eurosceptic, pro-national sovereignty base and ideologies rooted in national conservatism and far-right populism, gathers leaders such as Viktor Orbán (Fidesz, Hungary), Marine Le Pen (National Rally, France) or Santiago Abascal (Vox, Spain). These actors promote traditional roles for women and challenge advances in reproductive rights and gender equality.  At the same time, in Latin America figures such as Javier Milei in Argentina have used the term “gender ideology” to revile established social policies that, according to them, undermine traditional values. These stances represent a setback in the progress made on women’s equity and rights, challenging the liberal principles that foster gender equality.  

Taking a theoretical and empirical academic approach, Issue 142 of Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals aims to analyse how this “culture war” is coordinated and waged, spurred by a “transnational conservative patriarchal network” – with global reach and operating on multiple levels – which undermines the progress achieved on women’s rights. 

From a theoretical point of view, the issue falls within the studies on the contesting of international norms and the polarisation of the political and social agenda, applied to the case of gender equality norms. We will favour a comparative, multilevel perspective that enables analysis of how local, regional and global dynamics interact in the contesting of women’s rights in the context of this “war on gender”. 

The issue will contain an introductory article written by the scientific coordinators which presents the general analytic framework and the main findings, followed by contributions selected from this call and some specifically commissioned texts.

Aims of the issue:

• To contribute to the debate on the normative contestation and transformation of the international order from a gender perspective, paying particular attention to the political and social actors that form the so-called “transnational conservative patriarchal network”.

• To reflect on specific cases of “culture and gender war” on a global level (international institutions), regional level (EU, Latin America) and national level (prominent cases such as the United States). 

• To tackle the debate on the various social, institutional and normative responses in the face of the rollback of women’s rights, with attention to “support networks” in defence of established rights.

Suggested topics for contributions:

We invite specialists from different disciplines – chiefly from the fields of international relations, political science, law and gender studies – to submit original contributions on the following central themes:

• The role of international organisations as spaces for contesting gender equality norms (e.g. the differences on the subject within the EU, creation of antigender alliances in the United Nations, etc). Who is behind the contestation and how do they carry it out?

• The role of international organisations, through their institutions, as spaces for defending gender equality norms (e.g. UN Women, international courts). Who is responding to the contestation and how?

• Transnational social movements (and their globalisation) contesting gender norms. How are they organised? Where and how do they operate?

• Specific cases of the process of contesting gender norms: health and sexual and reproductive rights, violence against women, sexual violence in conflict zones, etc. Is there a positive/negative interaction between different norms? How does the general debate on gender impact on women’s rights?

• National policies characterised by their rejection of international norms regarding gender and their impact on national public policy and/or on the delegitimisation of international institutions.

Timetable of the call for papers:

June 9^th, 2025: Deadline for submission of abstracts (300 words) and a short note on the CV of the author(s) (100 words). Proposals can be sent to publicaciones@cidob.org until June 9^th, 2025.

June 10^th-16^th, 2025: Authors will be notified of the result of the selection. 

September 16^th, 2025: Deadline for submission of full manuscripts (see Style Guide).

Selection process:

• The editorial board – coordinated in this issue by Esther Barbé Izuel and Lorena Oyarzún Serrano – will draw up a shortlist of proposals based on the abstracts received. 

• The authors of the shortlisted proposals will receive detailed instructions on submitting the full manuscripts within the stipulated time limit.

• Following scientific screening, the final texts will proceed to a process of external double-blind peer review. Final acceptance will be subject to compliance with the journal’s academic and editorial standards. 

• Proposals can be sent to publicaciones@cidob.org until June 9^th, 2025.

• For any questions or queries, please contact publicaciones@cidob.org

Additional requirements: 

• Submissions must be unpublished originals. 

• Abstracts will be accepted in Spanish and English. 

• Papers will be published in Spanish with abstracts in English. Original works in English may be published in this language in the online version of the journal. 

Processing of personal data

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