Comparative Politics Of Gender Research Articles

Gendering Comparative Politics

This essay offers a conceptualization of a comparative politics of gender (CPG) and some explanations for why CPG work is marginalized in the comparative politics subfield. I delineate CPG as a field of study in which gendered dependent or independent variables are the defining feature and present illustrative examples of four different types of CPG research. I contend that institutional and historical factors account for much of the marginalization of CPG research, and I propose some courses of actions through which CPG scholars can lessen this marginalization. The failure of comparative politics scholars to engage with gendered work is also a serious problem. The essay concludes by offering some suggestions for better integrating CPG scholarship into the subfield.

A Comparative Politics of Gender: Limits and Possibilities

I explore some of the limits and possibilities for a comparative politics of gender (CPG). It argues that a CPG should analyze how major political processes and institutions are gendered thereby increasing our understanding of the major themes of comparative politics and enhancing the subfield. But a CPG should also go beyond this. It should be problem driven and should seek to answer some “big questions” that are important for any efforts to achieve gender equality such as how political change that lessens gender inequality occurs; and how positive gender outcomes come about in a range of contexts. A CPG therefore has an integral connection to a feminist project. I explore some of these themes using the recent literature on gender and transitions to democracy to answer the question under what circumstances can the gender outcomes of transitions be positive.

Comparison and Integration: A Path toward a Comparative Politics of Gender

Moving from a “gender and comparative politics” to a “comparative politics of gender” is a challenging proposition. In this essay, I offer two mechanisms for doing this—emphasizing the comparative nature of gender politics research and encouraging greater integration of gender research into the subfield of comparative politics. I illustrate how current research generally uses a “gender and comparative politics” approach that is insufficient for advancing the field and then describe how scholars can work to emphasize greater comparison and integration in the literature. This will help to move the gender and politics literature toward a comparative politics of gender.

Toward a Comparative Politics of Gender Research in which Women Matter

I ask whether comparative politics of gender (CPG) can maintain its normative roots in concerns related to social justice as it moves increasingly away from its interdisciplinary moorings in gender/women's studies and gravitates toward disciplinary concerns. I call for a broad framework for CPG, examining 1) the range and relevance of the questions we ask, the utility of interdisciplinarity, and the range of methods employed; 2) the research collaborations we develop, especially outside of the US–Europe nexus; 3) the way our work is disseminated; and 4) how it engages the policy and practitioner community.

The Comparative Politics of Gender

This paper supplements the usual economic and sociological explanations of women's economic status with an exploration of the effects of partisan and electoral variables. Using OECD-wide data, as well as on the basis of a more careful look at four very different countries, we find that women piggyback on the strength of organized labor for achieving relative hourly wage equality. Proportional electoral systems are more likely to give labor a strong political voice than are plurality systems, and are therefore more likely to compress the wage structure in a way that brings up the bottom quartile, where working women disproportionately are. A more complete look at the constraints on women's choices, using fertility as an indicator, suggests that strong labor unions may make it difficult for outsiders - including women - to break into the work force on an equal basis.

The Structure of Intersectionality: A Comparative Politics of Gender

A comparative analysis of gender relations incorporates and goes beyond a “women and politics” approach by focusing on the organization of political life, illuminating the systematic way that social norms, laws, practices, and institutions advantage certain groups and forms of life and disadvantage others. In order to illuminate the various ways that women and men are advantaged and disadvantaged as women and men, gender analysis must incorporate analysis of race, class, sexuality, and other axes of disadvantage, and explore interactions among them. These axes are defined differently in different national contexts, and so examining variation across national borders illuminates the variety of social arrangements that are consistent with human biology: This type of analysis thereby denaturalizes and politicizes gender, racial/ethnic, and class relations (among others). The wide variety of modes and degrees of resistance to these forms of social organization, and success in challenging them, illuminate and inspire new strategies of resistance for people in other countries.

Relating to Privilege: Seduction and Rejection in the Subordination of White Women and Women of Color

Dans le cadre de la hierarchie sociale aux Etats-Unis, prenant en compte les facteurs de classe, d'ethnicite, de race, et de sexe, etude des relations entre femmes blanches ou de couleur et homme blancs, et de l'impact de ces relations sur le mouvement feministe blanc et de couleur