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Politics, Gender, and Concepts
A critique of concepts has been central to feminist scholarship since its inception.
However, while gender scholars have identified the analytical gaps in existing social
science concepts, few have systematically mapped out a gendered approach to issues
in political analysis and theory development. This volume addresses this important
gap in the literature by exploring the methodology of concept construction and
critique, which is a crucial step to disciplined empirical analysis, research design,
causal explanations, and testing hypotheses. Leading gender and politics scholars use
a common framework to discuss methodological issues in some of the core concepts
of feminist research in political science, including representation, democracy, welfare
state governance, and political participation. This is an invaluable work for researchers
and students in women’s studies and political science.
Gary Goertz teaches political science at the University of Arizona. He is the author
or coauthor of seven books and over forty articles on issues of international poli-
tics, methodology, and conflict studies, including Contexts of International Politics
(Cambridge, 1994).
Amy G. Mazur is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington
State University. Focusing her research on comparative feminist policy issues, she has
published numerous book chapters and articles and is author or editor of four books,
including Theorizing Feminist Policy (2002).
Politics,
Gender, and Concepts
Theory and Methodology
Edited by
Gary Goertz
and
Amy G. Mazur
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜
ao Paulo, Delhi
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521723428
c
Cambridge University Press 2008
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2008
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Goertz, Gary, 1953–
Politics, gender and concepts / Gary Goertz, Amy G. Mazur.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-89776-1 (hardback)
1. Women–Government policy. 2. Women in politics. 3. Feminism.
I. Mazur, Amy. II. Title.
HQ1236.G55 2008
306.201 – dc22 2008023547
ISBN 978-0-521-89776-1 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-72342-8 paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of figures page vii
List of tables viii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction 1
Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
2 Mapping gender and politics concepts: ten guidelines 14
Gary Goertz and Amy G. Mazur
Part I Gendering concepts
3 Gendering democracy 47
Pamela Paxton
4 Gendering representation 71
Karen Celis
5 Gendering the welfare state 94
Diane Sainsbury
6 Gendering governance 114
Georgina Waylen
7 Gendering development 136
Kathleen Staudt
vi Contents
Part II Gender-specific concepts
8 Gender ideology: masculinism and feminalism 159
Georgia Duerst-Lahti
9 Intersectionality 193
S. Laurel Weldon
10 Women’s movements, feminism, and feminist movements 219
Dorothy E. McBride and Amy G. Mazur
11 State feminism 244
Amy G. Mazur and Dorothy E. McBride
Appendix A website for additional gender and politics concepts 270
References 271
Index 303
Figures
2.1 Concepts and ideal types: polity democracy measure page 31
3.1 Great Britain’s electorate, 1831–1931 58
3.2 Comparison of waves of democracy with and without women’s
suffrage 63
8.1 Gender as protoideology in US politics 176
8.2 Binary sex-gender, gray zones, alternative gender ideations 180
8.3 Examples of gender content analysis 185
8.4 Binary poles, dimension constructs, and sample continua 186
9.1 Intersectional and autonomous effects of gender, race, class, and
nation 204
9.2 Matrix of domination: race, class, gender 211
Tables
2.1 List of guidelines page 15
2.2 Possible structures for the concept “mother” 37
3.1 Comparison of transition dates of democracy to female
suffrage 56
3.2 Comparison of polity with dates of female suffrage 57
4.1 Dimensions of representation 82
8.1 Gender ideology: names and negations 168
9.1 Applying the guidelines to the two versions of intersectionality 216
11.1 Categories for the state feminism continuum 262
Notes on contributors
Karen Celis has been Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Adminis-
tration and Public Management of the University College Ghent since 2004. Her
research and publications focus on the political representation of women and on
state feminism. Besides a book on gender, politics, and policy in Belgium (with
Petra Meier, 2006) she has (published and forthcoming) articles in the Journal of
Women, Polit ic s a n d Polic y ,Representation,Parliamentary Affairs,andRes Publica,
and book chapters in J. Outshoorn and J. Kantola (eds.), Changing State Feminism:
Women’s Policy Agencies Confront Shifting Institutional Terrain (with Petra Meier,
2007); J. Magone (ed.) Regional Institutions and Governance in the European Union.
Subnational Actors in the New Millennium (with Alison Woodward, 2003); D. Stetson
(ed.) Abortion Politics, Women’s Movements and the Democratic State: A Comparative
Study of State Feminism (2001).
Georgia Duerst-Lahti is Professor of Political Science and a faculty member of
the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Beloit College. Her research interests
center on the gendering of political institutions and on gender in campaigns. Recent
contributions include a book, coauthored with Cathy M. Johnson and Noelle Norton,
entitled Creating Gender: The Sexual Politics of Welfare Policy (2007) and a chapter on
masculinity on the campaign trail for Lori Han and Caroline Heldman (eds.), Rethink-
ing Madame President (2007). Her research appears in several journals, including Sex
Roles,Women and Po l i t i c s ,andPolitical Science Quarterly. Her best-known work con-
tinues to be Gender Power,Leadership,and Governance, with Rita Mae Kelly (1995).
She has been elected as President of the Midwest Women’s Caucus for Political Science
and the President of the national Women’s Caucus for Political Science, and has
served on the Executive Council of the Midwest Political Science Association and on
the Committee on the Status of Women of the American Political Science Association.
Gary Goertz is Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona. He is
the author or coauthor of five books and over twenty-five articles on issues of
international institutions, methodology, and conflict studies, including Contexts of
International Politics (1994), War and Peace in International Rivalry (with Paul Diehl,
2000), and International Norms and Decision Making: A Punctuated Equilibrium
xNotes on contributors
Model (2003). The topic of necessary conditions, their theory and methodology, has
also been a research agenda item for a number of years. Heis coeditor of the anthology
Necessary Conditions: Theory, Methodology, and Applications (with Harvey Starr,
2003). His most recent methodological work deals with the construction of concepts:
Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide (2005). He is editor of a special issue of the
journal Poli tical Analysis entitled “Causal complexity and qualitative methods” (2006).
DorothyE.McBride(formerly Stetson) is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at
Florida Atlantic University, where she was a founder of the women’s studies program.
She is coconvener (with Amy G. Mazur) of the Research Network on Gender, Politics
and the State (RNGS), an international group of scholars engaged in the study of
women’s movements and state feminism in postindustrial democracies. She is author
of Abortion in the United States: A Reference Handbook (2008) and Women’s Rights
in the USA: Policy Conflict and Gender Roles (3rd edn., 2004) and has published
articles in Politics & Gender, Political Research Quarterly, French Politics and Women &
Politics. She co-edited Comparative State Feminism (with Amy G. Mazur, 1995) and
was editor and contributing author of Abortion Politics, Women’s Movements and the
Democratic State: A Comparative Study of State Feminism (2001). She has been a Ful-
bright Senior Fellow in France and received research grants from the National Science
Foundation. During 2006–8 she was visiting scholar at the University of Washington.
Amy G. Mazur is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington
State University. Her research and teaching interests focus on comparative feminist
policy issues with a particular emphasis on France. She is coeditor of Political
Research Quarterly. Her books include Comparative State Feminism (editor, with
Dorothy McBride Stetson, 1995); Gender Bias and the State: Symbolic Reform at
Work in Fifth Republic Fra n c e (1995); State Feminism, Women’s Movements, and
Job Training: Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy (editor, 2001); and
Theorizing Feminist Policy (2002). She has published articles in Political Research
Quarterly,French Politics and Society,Policy Studies Journal,West European Po l i t ics,
European Journal of Political Research,European Political Science,Review of Policy
Research,Contemporary French Civilization,French Politics,Travail, Genre et Soci´
et´
e
and EspacesTemps. She is coconvener of the Research Network on Gender Politics and
the State and convener of the French Politics Group of the APSA. In 2007–8, she was
a visiting professor at Sciences Po-Paris, and in Fall 2001 she was the Marie-Jahoda
Professor of International Feminist Studies at Ruhr University, Bochum, and a
Havens Center Visiting Scholar at the University of Wisconsin in Spring 2003. In
2005–6 she was an expert for the United Nations for the Expert Group Meeting
on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Decision-making Processes and
rapporteur of the final meeting report. She has received research grants from the
National Science Foundation, the European Science Foundation, and the French
Ministry of Social Affairs.
xi Notes on contributors
Pamela Paxton is Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Ohio State
University. She is the coauthor of Women, Politics, and Power (2007) and over thirty
articles covering topics that include women in politics and the link between social
capital and democracy. Representative articles include “Detection and determinants
of bias in subjective measures” (1998); “Women’s suffrage in the measurement
of democracy: problems of operationalization” (2000); “Subjective measures of
liberal democracy” (2000); “Women’s political representation: the importance of
ideology” (2003); and “The international women’s movement and women’s political
representation, 1893–2003” (2006). She has received several research grants from the
National Science Foundation, most recently to study women in politics.
Diane Sainsbury is Professor Emerita, formerly Lars Hiereta Professor of Political
Science, Stockholm University, Sweden. She is author of Gender, Equality and Welfare
States (Cambridge University Press, 1996), “Gender and the making of welfare
states: Norway and Sweden”, Social Politics (2001) and “Social welfare policies and
gender,” International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2001);
editor of Gendering Welfare States (1994) and Gender and Welfare State Regimes
(1999); and coeditor of State Feminism and Political Representation (Cambridge
University Press, 2005). Her most recent articles include “Migrants’ social rights,
ethnicity and welfare regimes,” JournalofSocialPolicy(2005) and “Immigrants’
social rights in comparative perspective: welfare regimes, forms of immigration
and immigration policy regimes,” Journal of European Social Policy (2006). She is
also a contributing author to The Feminization of Poverty in Rich Countries: An
International Phenomenon? (forthcoming).
Kathleen Staudt, PhD (University of Wisconsin, 1976) is Professor of Political
Science and Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at the University of Texas
at El Paso. At the global frontlines – the international border with Mexico – she has
published four books that connect international and comparative politics; the most
recent is Violence and Activism at the Border: Gender, Fear, and Everyday Life in Ciudad
Juarez (2008). Staudt published earlier books and articles on women, advocacy
administration, and institutional resistance to women’s programs (1982, 1985). With
other feminist scholars, she coedited pioneering books on women and the state (1987,
1988).
Georgina Waylen is Reader in Politics at the University of Sheffield, UK. She
has researched and published on many aspects of gender and politics, including
transitions to democracy and gendered political economy. As well as articles in a
range of journals such as World Politics,Review of International Studies,Journal of
LatinAmericanStudies,andComparative Political Studies, she is the author of Gender
in Third World Politics (1996) and Engendering Transitions (2007), and the coeditor
of Gender, Politics and the State (1998), Towards a Gendered Political Economy (2000),
xii Notes on contributors
and Global Governance: Feminist Perspectives (2008). She is currently an associate
editor of Politics and Gender.
S. Laurel Weldon is Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University.
She has published a book (Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women
[2002]) and articles on gender politics in the Journal of Politics,Political Research
Quarterly,Perspectives,Politics and Gender, and the International Journal of Feminist
Politics. She serves on the Council of the Midwest Political Science Association as
well as the APSA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Professions. She is
currently Chair of the Alice Paul Committee for the women’s caucus of the APSA
(awarding recognition to the best dissertation prospectus on women and politics)
and is Newsletter Editor for the APSA’s women and politics research section. In
2007, Professor Weldon became a Fellow in the Center for Behavioral and Social
Sciences at Purdue, working on a project on intersectionality and the welfare state.
She is currently writing a book on social movements and representation as well
as developing (with Mala Htun of the New School) a seventy-country database on
women’s rights with support from the Political Science program of the NSF.
Acknowledgments
This book is a collective effort on a variety of levels. It builds from a host
of scholarly work on concept formation and gender and politics across a
variety of sub-areas of political science. We hope we have fully recognized the
scholars who have contributed to this body of work in the pages that follow.
More specifically, we would like to recognize the collaborative spirit of all
of the contributors, who respected the structure of the guidelines, followed
the timeline of the project, and most importantly brought an incredibly rich
and deep knowledge of their areas of expertise to the project. Without their
dedication and cooperation this book would never have seen the light of day.
Two panels cosponsored by the Women and Politics and Qualitative Methods
Divisions of the American Political Science Association in 2005 and 2006 gave
us the crucial forum to develop and fine-tune the book as a group.
Shirin Rai provided us with priceless advice throughout the entire project.
We would also like to thank Karen Beckwith, Lisa Baldez, Mala Htun, David
Collier, Joni Lovenduski, and Birgit Sauer for their input at various stages of
the project. The comments of the anonymous reviewers also greatly strength-
ened the final manuscript. Our respective departments at Washington State
University and Arizona State University furnished us with the all-important
infrastructure and support for the completion of this book as well. It has been
a distinct pleasure to work with John Haslam at Cambridge University Press,
whose enthusiasm for the book made our jobs a delight from beginning to
end.
December 1, 2007 Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
1Introduction
Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
Gender and politics researchers have been developing new and exciting con-
cepts and modifying existing concepts since the late 1980s. Their goal has
been to make research on politics better account for the realities of gender
as a complex process and in doing so to make our theories and studies more
accurate and scientifically meaningful; or as we say in the trade, gendering
political science. Gender scholars have identified the analytical gaps in exist-
ing social science concepts, have suggested how to better incorporate gender
into those concepts, and have developed new gender-specific concepts. These
reflections on concepts, however, are not systematically assembled in one
location. Much work is a fugitive literature, hidden in long research papers,
in hard to find specialized research articles, or in chapters buried in edited
books. The aim of this book is to assemble expert gender researchers to map
out some of the major concepts of current politics and gender research, con-
cepts on which they have spent a good portion of their careers working. While
by no means making the claim to cover all concepts, some of the most central
concepts in political science and gender and politics research are treated –
democracy, representation, the welfare state, governance, development, gen-
der ideology, intersectionality, women’s movements/feminism, and state
feminism.1
It is important to take note of this book’s use of the concept of gender
itself. Reflecting current scholarship,2the authors treat gender as a complex
process that involves the social construction of men’s and women’s identities
in relation to each other. In some of the research covered in this book, gender
is used as a synonym for biological sex. For example, in the chapters on
1The Appendix describes a website for this book. The website provides a place and a forum for information
about concepts not covered by chapters in this anthology. We also see this website as a resource for
classroom use; many of these concepts could be assigned as classroom exercises.
2See for example the series of articles on the “Concept of gender” in Poli tics & Ge nder 2005 (1.1).
2Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
democracy and representation, the focus is on women’s roles in politics. The
operating premise of this book, however, takes to heart Joan Scott’s initial call
(1986) for using the complex version of “gender as a category of analysis”
as well as the lead of the plethora of gender and politics research that has
taken gender seriously since. Many of the chapters discuss in detail what it
means to treat gender as a category for analysis, as well as presenting the
vast literature on gender; see in particular Georgia Duerst-Lahti’s chapter on
gender ideology. All of the authors clearly state how they use the notion of
gender in their conceptual discussions.
Given what we see as the fundamental link between concepts, research, data
collection, and theory-building, we develop a set of ten concept construction
guidelines, to be followed by all researchers interested in producing scientif-
ically meaningful studies. The guidelines are presented in chapter 2, and the
authors in this volume follow them in their specific concept discussions. The
guidelines were developed in the context of their application by the authors
in this volume. In other words, the lessons learned from the complexities
and challenges of conceptualizing gender and politics concepts are used to
create better approaches to concept construction more generally speaking.
The guidelines presented in chapter 2, therefore, reflect how the intersection
between feminist and nonfeminist analysis, embodied by this book more gen-
erally, can strengthen our tools for the analysis of any and all political science
concepts.
Thus, this volume represents a marriage between a systematic concern for
concept formation found in much political science research outside of gen-
der (e.g. Sartori 1970, Collier and Mahon 1993, Adcock and Collier 2001)
and the feminist-oriented study of gender and politics that has as its goal to
identify the gender/sex-specific patterns of politics and the often inherently
gender-biased nature of political science analysis.3The editors themselves
reflect this marriage. Gary Goertz does not work on gender, but he has done
extensive work on qualitative methods in general and the methodology of
concepts in particular. Amy Mazur has worked extensively in the gender and
politics field in general, and has devoted special attention to conceptual devel-
opments in this area (see her chapters with McBride). We believe that the
confrontation of the general methodology of concepts with the specific con-
cerns of gender and politics scholars will provide benefits and insights to both
sides.
3For more on core analytical meanings of feminism see Mazur (2002). The chapters on women’s move-
ments and state feminism discuss in more detail operational definitions of feminism.
3Introduction
The collective outcome of this volume, we hope, is to move gender and
politics research and the field of political science forward toward better analysis
and science. In other words, the systematic treatment of gender and politics
concepts that follows has the potential to improve the practice of political
analysis itself. In this chapter, we first provide the rationale for a book on
gender and politics concepts, discussing why it is important to take a systematic
and international approach to mapping concepts. Next, we discuss the two
major strategies that have been pursued by gender and politics researchers
to address gender issues in the development and application of concepts. In
the last section, we present our plan and approach by showing how these two
strategies structure the book as well as different ways of grouping the chapters
with regard to methodological approaches and theory-building.
Why focus on concepts and methods in gender and politics research in a
comparative/international perspective?
The beginning of major new research agendas always involves significant
attention to and debate about concepts. It is no coincidence that over 150 years
ago, J. S. Mill began his famous System of Logic, a foundational treatise on the
methods of social science analysis, with a long discussion of “names.” Names,
better known as concepts, allow us to understand and analyze the world in
a systematic way through identifying a set of phenomena and providing us
with categories for researching and explaining it. Ultimately, sound concept
construction leads us to develop better theories about the complex world
around us and evaluate those theories using empirical evidence.
It is thus not surprising that as researchers have increasingly turned their
attention to gender as a complex social phenomenon, they are immediately
concerned with concepts. A critique of concepts has been central to feminist
scientific literature since its inception (Hawkesworth 2006). The concern for
concept analysis and the recent turn toward its applications in research among
gender and politics scholars is exemplified by the fact that the new journal
Politics & Gender – the journal of the American Political Science Association’s
Division of Women and Politics Research – devoted its first discussion forum
to the concept of gender.
Despite the centrality of concept analysis in the gender and politics litera-
ture, there is little work that provides systematic guidelines, examples, and the
methodology for the construction and use of concepts in empirically based
4Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
theory-building. Some work has taken a normative theoretical approach iden-
tifying the weaknesses in thinking on politics from a feminist perspective and
identifying new theoretical approaches (e.g. Squires 1999). Other studies iden-
tify a single concept to study in both theoretical and empirical terms either
by a single author (e.g. Siim 2000, Sainsbury 1999) or a series of contributors
(e.g. McBride Stetson and Mazur 1995, Sainsbury 1994, Parpart, Rai, and
Staudt 2002). Phillips (1998) republishes some of the most important pieces
on concept development in gender and politics from both empirical and nor-
mative perspectives. Hobson, Lewis, and Siim (2002) bring together a group
of scholars to examine a series of concepts specific to the social policy and
welfare state literature and to assess the “contested” nature of the concepts for
feminist analysis. Ackerly, Stern, and True (2006) discuss feminist approaches
to methodology in International Relations, without mentioning the word
concept. But nothing in this literature provides systematic procedures for the
construction, critique, and use of concepts.
Work that focuses on the methodology of concepts has done little to provide
meaningful guidance to gender and politics research either. While much work
has recently turned its attention to the principles of good concept formation
in political analysis (e.g. Brady and Collier 2004, Goertz 2005, and Collier
and Mahon 1993) none of the books in this area has placed a central focus
on gender. Only Goertz 2005 specifically focuses on gender as an issue in
concept formation through the “gendering welfare state” literature. Like the
divide between quantitative and qualitative analysis, therefore, there is a divide
between feminist and nonfeminist research on concepts. This book is an
attempt to bridge this second divide, with advantages to be gained by both
sides.
To address the feminist/nonfeminist divide, we explicitly link work on con-
cepts and gender to larger literatures on methodology, measurement, and
research design. We feel that the way researchers on gender have dealt with
conceptual problems can inform the larger debate about methodology. Con-
versely, explicit comparisons with other work on concept formation and mea-
surement can have important implications for work on gender. Importantly,
we stress the intimate ties between conceptualization and theory. One cannot
construct or evaluate concepts without considering the implicit causal argu-
ments embedded in them. To discuss concepts without considering how they
are used in practice, in categorization, in case selection, in operationalization,
etc., means only half the job is done.
We use the term “methodology” in a large sense to cover epistemological
approaches, research design, and the tools of data collection and analysis. It
5Introduction
can be qualitative, such as Sartori’s classic article on conceptual stretching
(1970), or statistical, as in Bollen’s work on democracy (e.g. 1980). In short,
methodology means in this volume a wide range of considerations ranging
from theory to concrete empirical analysis.
Feminist scholars, those interested in showing how the social construc-
tion of sex-based hierarchies play out in the social and political realm, have
“problematized” – often in a highly critical fashion – many concepts central
to feminist research ever since such research first became prominent in the
1980s. For many, rethinking concepts from a critical feminist perspective was
an essential first step in any research enterprise. Many of these analyses were
informed by normative feminist theory. Given the breadth of the critical lit-
erature, this volume focuses less on the shortfalls in concepts and more on
systematizing good procedures and methodology for developing, evaluating,
and using concepts in gender-oriented analysis. Over time, feminist scholars
have redefined old concepts and introduced new ones to improve the analysis
of gender overall. What is lacking in the literature is guidance on concept
development and application, in other words the methodology of gender and
concepts. What we propose here, for students, researchers, and theorists, is a
manual on how to develop and apply gender and politics concepts in compar-
ative theory and empirical research. As such, this book is an essential step in
the ongoing research cycle of gender and politics and political science more
broadly speaking.
This book takes a decisively comparative and international approach to
concepts. Thinking about concepts must include how well the concept “trav-
els” (Sartori 1970) to a variety of cultural and national contexts. To be sure,
there is a strong tradition of gender and politics research within individual
countries. In the USA, the gender, women, and politics enterprise is a boom
industry with obvious practical implications for citizens, activists, and policy
practitioners. Thinking about conceptualizing gender and politics from a sci-
entific perspective necessarily implies more cross-national, cross-sectoral, and
cross-temporal approaches, and hence takes a comparative eye – a viewpoint
that is taken to heart by all of our contributors in their chapters and in their
research as well as in the essence of the concept guidelines.
It is also interesting to note that much of the nonfeminist work on concept
formation is done in the context of comparative political analysis. A central
issue raised in the comparative development and use of gender and politics
concepts is Sartori’s (1970) “concept traveling.” That is, whether concepts
can be developed and used in empirical analysis across a variety of national
settings. In the infancy of the study of gender and politics, scholars taking
6Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz
a comparative approach asserted that the feminist conceptual analysis was
ethnocentric, tending to reflect the Anglo-American context. Indeed, many
of the early feminist theorists came from the USA or the UK. Conceptual
analysis in gender and politics, as a result, increasingly has focused on how to
develop concepts that can be applied in a variety of national settings across
the globe.
This volume takes seriously these efforts to develop and apply concepts that
travel not only across national boundaries, but also across all levels of state and
civil society – local, subnational, national, international and transnational –
and across time. Recently, feminist analysts (e.g. Hawkesworth 2006) have
asserted that to include the complex notion of gender is necessarily to deal
with issues of diversity between cultures, classes, ages, etc., and many chapters
make this point. In addition, one of the ten guidelines proposed in chapter 2
and followed by each author covers how to make concepts better travel across
cultural and temporal contexts. Thus, although some of the chapters deal
with concepts that have been developed either in or for the context of western
postindustrial democracies – democracy, representation, the welfare state,
women’s movements, and state feminism – they all deal with the issue of
how to make the concepts applicable to a diversity of cultural and national
settings, often outside of the West. In addition, the chapters on governance,
development, gender ideology, and intersectionality bring cultural diversity
in, both within and across national borders, as a major operating requirement.
This volume is then a methodological reflection on the development of
a large body of work that has sought to “gender” political science analysis
by systematically introducing gender dimensions into established concepts
and gender concepts into the study of politics. The goal of gendering has
been to improve the explanatory power of empirical theory-building that uses
core concepts as well as the very process of concept formation itself. Political
scientists who gender concepts assert that research, methodology, and theory-
building that ignore gender as a complex analytical concept are not good
science. Thus, by intersecting the methodology of concepts with gender and
politics scholarship, this volume’s ultimate aim is better social science.
Introducing gender to concepts: gendering existing concepts and
developing new gender-specific concepts
A major common theoretical and methodological operation in the gender
and politics literature involves the “gendering” of existing central concepts.
By this we mean taking an existing concept and introducing gender, as a
7Introduction
complex concept, into the concept analysis. As many examples illustrate,
the gender bias often does not lie on the surface, but lies hidden. Gender-
ing means bringing out and making explicit hidden biases and assumptions
in standard conceptualizations. Most scholars reject the “add women and
stir” way of introducing gender considerations into the analysis, where sex
is added as an additional variable or the analysis examines women as an
afterthought. Adding is only one of the many ways gender can be inserted. If
one is sticking to mathematical metaphors, multiplication is another. Besides,
adding is not always a simple task. To continue with the implicit cooking
metaphor, to add salt to a dessert is not a minor modification. If one thinks in
terms of catalysts, combining hydrogen with oxygen produces something quite
different.
The “add gender and stir” metaphor suggests that the result of the addition
of gender is minor. However, the key issue is what happens to the mix after
stirring: if the mixture blows up, then the addition of gender is of importance.
The key questions are “How does one insert gender?” and “What results?”
Adding gender can have catalytic effects that radically transform the original
mixture into something quite new. Pamela Paxton’s chapter in particular
shows how, by just adding a relatively simple variable of women’s suffrage to
categorizing democratic systems, the whole enterprise of regime classifications
changes significantly. This then means that one needs to revisit the theories
that explain democratization. For example, one might relativize the role played
by labor unions and upgrade the importance of other social actors.
An illustration of what happens when a more complex notion of gender
is folded into <