My research in this area focuses on women at the grassroots of political parties. While we know a lot about women’s participation as candidates and politicians, less attention is paid to party members – the main pool from which candidates and politicians are recruited. If we want to understand the drivers of gender inequality among elected representatives and officials, party grassroots are a good place to look at.
My book Grassroots Women in the Populist Radical Right (Oxford University Press) shows that although women are more active members than men (!) and fulfil key functions for populist radical right parties, party elites conceive of them as a source of short-terms gains, and not as a group they should invest on.
As part of the YOUMEM project, I am working on women’s involvement in mainstream party youth wings. My research examines various aspects, including women’s reasons for joining and staying in youth wings, their aspirations, and what they see as the costs and benefits of their membership. Ultimately, I am interested in whether youth wings can provide an inclusive environment for young women to be socialised in politics.
Book
Ammassari, S. (2026). Grassroots women in the populist radical right. Oxford University Press. [Link]
- Featured in Vrij Nederland, ‘Women really shine on the right’.
Journal articles
Ammassari, S., McDonnell, D., Bolin, N., Werner, A., Valbruzzi, M., Wegscheider, C., Heinisch, R., & Jungar, A.-C. (2026). Party youth wings as forces of renovation: A study of young women members’ efficacy and ambition. Politics and Gender. Advance online publication. [Link] [PDF]
Ammassari, S., McDonnell, D., Werner, A., Heinisch, R., Valbruzzi, M., & Wegscheider, C. (2026). More social, less material, more influenced by family ties: Why young women join political parties. European Journal of Political Research. Advance online publication. [Link] [PDF]
Ammassari, S. (2025). “Men’s parties”, but with more active women: Gender and party activism in the populist radical right. Comparative Political Studies, 59(5), 1083-1119. [Link] [PDF]
- Winner of the ECPR Extremism & Democracy Best Paper Prize 2023.
Ammassari, S., McDonnell, D., & Valbruzzi, M. (2023). It’s about the type of career: The political ambition gender gap among youth wing members. European Journal of Political Research, 62(4), 1054-1077. [Link] [PDF]
Work in progress
Ammassari, S., & Off, G. The role of women candidates in legitimising and normalising far-right parties.
Abstract
Do voters perceive women candidates of the far right as more democratic and socially acceptable than men candidates of the far right? If so, far-right parties may strategically use women candidates to appear as legitimate and ‘normal’ actors in the eyes of voters, thereby reducing the stigma they face. Building on the literature on gender stereotypes and candidates, we theorise that voters perceive women far-right candidates as more cooperative, empathetic, respectful of rules and moderate – and therefore, more socially acceptable and more likely to behave in line with democratic principles – than men far-right candidates. This should be the case even when candidates explicitly favour positions that strongly break with the principles of liberal and electoral democracy. To test this, we run an original online vignette survey experiment in Germany (N = 3,881), where the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is still relatively stigmatised compared to its counterparts in other European countries. We find that, overall, women AfD candidates are perceived as more socially acceptable than their men counterparts, but not as more democratic. However, when they engage in anti-immigration rhetoric, women candidates are perceived as more democratic. Our findings bring a novel gender perspective to the literature on far-right normalisation and legitimisation, showing that women are key actors in both these processes.