The resilience of the European Union's values: article 2 TEU and subnational gender dissidence in Poland

The values of the European Union (Art. 2, TEU) protect Member Statesagainst democratic backsliding with a strong focus on the rule of law. In Poland, theLaw and Justice (PiS) party, in power from 2015-2023, threatened the rule of lawand gender equality, while advocates for gender equality fought to safeguard theseprinciples. Using this example, this article explores structural and social-normativefactors that enable or hinder gender concerns’ access to the EU, starting at thesubnational level. Gender representation and policies in Poland’s 2018 localelections and their bottom-up translatability to EU institutions show that theresilience of EU values depends on national provisions. Furthermore, the role of theEuropean Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union in supportinggender equality and the rule of law display how bottom-up dissidence and top-downEU approaches interact in developing resilience against democratic backsliding inEU Member States. These dependencies show that Member States have aresponsibility in providing the conditions for gender dissidence to flourish. This canbe achieved through the promotion of educational diversity and the development oflegal frameworks that allow traditional gender norms to be challenged at the local,regional, and national levels.