Deliverable 8.1 of the UNTWIST project: Summary of findings (WP8)

This document represents the first version of the deliverable and is subject to review and approval by the European Commission. Following this process, and once any revisions deemed necessary have been duly incorporated, an updated version of the deliverable will be submitted and made available accordingly.

This Deliverable 8.1 Summary of Findings forms part of Work Package 8 of the Horizon
Europe UNTWIST project. It presents key insights drawn from the analysis of the UNTWIST
survey dataset—one of the project’s central empirical contributions—designed to explore the
role of gendered identities, perceived status loss, and political behaviour in contemporary
Europe. The results offer valuable empirical evidence to assess core project hypotheses and
support the development of grounded, country‐specific policy recommendations.

The UNTWIST survey was conducted between October 2024 and January 2025 in six
European countries: Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, and the United
Kingdom. The survey targeted adult population, with a total of 10,356 interviews collected
through Computer‐Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI). After quality control, 9,698 valid cases
were included in the final dataset. To ensure the inclusion of voters with lower prevalence in
standard samples—specifically, those who support right‐wing populist parties (RWPPs)—a
targeted “Boost” sample was incorporated using a vote propensity question. Sampling was
stratified by age, sex, education, and geographic region, with data weighting applied to
maintain representativeness. The dataset, numeric in format and openly accessible on
Zenodo (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15083113 ), follows FAIR data principles and
is provided in CSV, SAV, and DTA formats. While technical documentation is openly available,
microdata access is embargoed until March 31, 2026.

The structured questionnaire consisted of 60 closed‐ended questions (over 100
response categories), covering political attitudes, voting behaviour, values, and sociodemographics.
Fieldwork was divided into pilot, main, and Boost phases, with careful design
and implementation across countries led by VERIAN and coordinated by DEUSTO. The survey
employed a master version adapted to each national context and incorporated technical
refinements after a soft launch. Overall, the instrument was designed to align with the
theoretical framework and hypotheses set out in earlier stages of the project, particularly
those concerning gender status perceptions, collective identity, and support for RWPPs.

A key area of focus in this report concerns individuals who perceive themselves as
Losers of Feminism—those who believe that recent social, economic and cultural changes
associated with feminism and gender equality have disadvantaged them. This includes both
men and women who report status loss or threat, express anger about these experiences,
and, in some cases, attribute responsibility to feminism. Though only a minority of
respondents fall fully into this profile, the findings indicate that this narrative is significantly
more common among RWPP voters, particularly men. These perceptions reflect broader
feelings of gendered positional deprivation, in which individuals view their social status or
symbolic role as having deteriorated, often in ways perceived as unfair. Indeed, men who
identify as Losers of Feminism are 2.7 times more likely to report voting for a RWPP, while for
those categorised as Losers of Globalisation, the figure is 2.4 times.

The analysis also shows that relative deprivation—both past (status loss) and futureoriented
(status threat)—is reported by a significant proportion of respondents (34% and
51%, respectively), with men consistently more likely to report such feelings than women
(with a gender gap of 4% and 2% across the two respective dimensions of relative
deprivation). These perceptions are not only cognitive but also emotional: a notable share of
respondents, particularly those facing economic strain, report anger linked to perceived
status decline, supporting the idea that affective responses play a role in political
mobilisation. RWPP voters, again, emerge as particularly susceptible to these perceptions,
suggesting that their support is shaped by both material and symbolic dimensions of
perceived injustice. Among men, these feelings of deprivation are not only driven by financial
insecurity, but also by perceived contradictions between their gender identity and changing
societal norms—especially among those with high household income and strong male GCI.
For women, economic hardship remains the key driver, but higher education and strong
female GCI can mitigate these feelings.

Another major finding concerns to gendered collective identity (GCI). The data reveal
that around one‐third of men and nearly half of women report some sense of collective
identity aligned with their gender. However, the political alignment of these identities differs
significantly: male GCI is most prevalent among RWPP voters, while female GCI is more
common among supporters of left‐wing parties. This is particularly pronounced among young
male RWPP voters, where male GCI is especially strong, whereas female RWPP voters exhibit
weaker gender identification than their left‐leaning counterparts. These patterns reveal that
gendered identity is not only unevenly distributed but ideologically structured, reinforcing the
association between male collective identity and right‐wing populist support. This distinction
underscores the ideological structuring of collective gender identity in political attitudes and
reinforces the need to understand radical right support as partly driven by collective identity
concerns, particularly among men.

The analyses also identify two distinct logics of RWPP voting. The first is expressive:
for some, voting for RWPP is a way to symbolically reject mainstream parties, liberal social
changes, or perceived cultural marginalisation. The second is instrumental: many voters,
especially women, cite the party’s perceived strength or credibility in delivering policy
outcomes as a reason for support. These logics are not mutually exclusive and often co‐exist
within individuals. Among RWPP voters, 8% are classified as expressive voters, while a
substantially larger 48% are instrumental voters, suggesting that strategic considerations
outweigh symbolic ones in aggregate terms. However, men are overrepresented in the
expressive group, while women dominate the instrumental group, pointing to gendered logics
of mobilisation. Importantly, while men tend to prioritise symbolic concerns and identityrelated
grievances, women’s support for RWPPs is more often grounded in economic
insecurity and institutional distrust.

Taken together, these findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of
political behaviour in contemporary Europe, particularly in relation to gender, inequality, and
support for the right‐wing populist parties. They highlight that attitudes often considered
irrational or affective—such as resentment or symbolic grievance—are in fact rooted in
consistent patterns of identity, perception, and experience. Importantly, the distinction
between Losers of Globalisation and Losers of Feminism is empirically robust: our analyses
show little overlap between the two, confirming that they capture distinct forms of perceived
disadvantage affecting different segments of the electorate. This complexity must be
considered in both academic analyses and in designing policy responses to democratic
disaffection and polarisation.