Thesis Title:
Liberal Norms, (Il)liberal Ends: The Politics of Homonativism across the European Right
Thesis Abstract:
My doctoral research examines how right-wing parties and publics across Europe combine liberal attitudes toward homosexuality with exclusionary stances on immigration – a phenomenon I conceptualise as homonativism. While populist radical right parties are conventionally associated with social conservatism and hostility toward minorities, many have strategically adopted pro-LGBT positions to portray themselves as defenders of national identity against allegedly “illiberal” outsiders. My project develops homonativism as an original theoretical contribution, distinguishing it from existing frameworks such as Puar’s homonationalism, and situating it within contemporary debates on nativist politics, sexual liberalism, and the reconfiguration of belonging in European democracies.
The project employs a mixed-methods design combining party-level and public-level analysis. At the party level, I construct an original dataset of 394 party-election dyads across 29 European countries (1999–2024), drawing on manifesto coding alongside Chapel Hill Expert Survey positional data to track shifts in sexuality and immigration positions over time, assess issue salience, and identify where explicit homonativist appeals emerge. At the public level, I use European Social Survey data spanning over two decades and 32 countries, applying multilevel logistic regression to identify individuals who hold sexually liberal yet nativist attitudes simultaneously, map their distribution across national and regional contexts, and assess the demographic and cultural determinants of such configurations.
The quantitative analyses are complemented by a comparative case study component, employing a Most Similar Systems research design with process tracing and documentary analysis to examine the conditions under which homonativist politics emerges and consolidates at the party level. Together, these analytical levels demonstrate how liberal values can be strategically re-framed in exclusionary ways, with significant implications for how scholars understand nativist politics and the conditions under which selective inclusion becomes a mechanism of exclusion.
Primary Supervisor:
Dr. Isabelle Hertner
Dr Russell Foster
Publications:
Grainger, J. (2026) Inclusive rhetoric, exclusive boundaries: strategic homonativism on the British right, British Politics, 21(5). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-026-00298-9
Grainger, J. (2026) Non-legislative engagement with LGBTQ Issues in the UK parliament: evidence from EDMs, petitions, and representation, Parliamentary Affairs, (Online First). https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsag009
Grainger, J. (2024) Why Israeli-palestinian tensions in the UK matter for ReformUK, Europinion. Available at: https://www.europinion.uk/post/why-israeli-palestinian-tensions-in-the-uk-matter-for-reformuk
Grainger, J. (2024) An emerging homo-nativist electorate?, British Politics and Policy at LSE. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/an-emerging-homo-nativist-electorate/
Grainger, J. (2024) ‘Coming In: Sexual Politics and EU Accession in Serbia – Koen Slootmaeckers’, Europe-Asia Studies, 76(5), pp. 813–814. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2024.2339737