In the Name of "Human Flourishing" : A Frame Analysis of the 2026 Global Gag Rule Expansion

Sammanfattning

In 2026, the Trump administration expanded the so-called “Global Gag Rule” policy, extending the existing banon abortion promotion to include restrictions on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology”. Whilethe policy openly targets these “issues”, analyzing how the policy frames them as legitimate grounds forrestriction remains underexamined, prompting the question: “How is “gender ideology” constructed as a basisfor foreign aid conditionality in the 2026 Global Gag Rule expansion?”. The question aims to investigate theintersection between aid conditionality and the broader anti-gender movement of which the Global Gag Rule isa part. This is examined through qualitative frame analysis, applying Pajnik, Kuhar and Smrdelj’s (2026) masterframe analysis of four discursive mechanisms - blending, simplifying, time-shifting and relabelling, to the policythat consists of three separate rules. The analysis reveals all four mechanisms operating across the rules, thoughunevenly distributed. The presence of all four mechanisms in official state policy demonstrates that theanti-gender master frame has been institutionalized. This finding contributes to scholarship on anti-gendermobilization and aid conditionality by showing how contested ideological positions are constructed as legitimatepolicy grounds.