Country Focus

What states and regions does intersectional research published in Politics & Gender focus on? In terms of country focus, empirical analysis of the United States as a case remains very heavily dominant, present in 60% of articles (N=55) (Table 1, below). This is important because racialization is context specific, and exploration of the ways that race and gender (among other inequalities) intersect in other national or regional contexts has been generally marginalized within intersectionality scholarship (Bassel and Emejulu forthcoming; Boulila Reference Boulila2019; El-Tayeb Reference El-Tayeb2011; Emejulu and Sobande Reference Emejulu and Sobande2019; Mirza Reference Mills1997, Reference Mirza2003; Wekker Reference Wekker2016). Outside of the US, the UK, France, and Canada have also featured relatively frequently. However, although intersectional approaches have been applied to contexts as diverse as The Pacific Islands Countries and Territories (Corbett and Liki, Reference Corbett and Liki2015; Siow and James Reference Siow and James2024), Russia (Avdeyeva and Matland Reference Avdeyeva and Matland2021), South Korea (Lee Reference Lee2023), Ghana and South Africa (Reid and Ritholtz Reference Reid and Ritholtz2020), and Uruguay (Townsend-Bell Reference Townsend-Bell2014), there remains a paucity of work on contexts beyond North America and Western Europe.

Table 1.

Country focus of articles employing intersectionality

The lack of intersectional data and analysis in Global South contexts exacerbates intersectional inequalities in development programming and governance (Siow and James, Reference Siow and James2024). The marginalization of Global South scholarship, as well as scholarship by women of color in Europe and North America, is well documented and reflects the wider context in which Politics & Gender operates. These inequalities are not limited to Politics & Gender, but relate to those that characterize academic publishing globally, including hegemony of English as the language of publication in “top” journals; increasingly hostile border regimes that restrict Global South participants from accessing academic conferences, at which many collaborations are born; resource disparities among institutions to meet the costs of publication, including open access fees; and a privileging of academic authorship to the exclusion of that of activists and practitioners (Dołowy-Rybińska Reference Dołowy-Rybińska2021).

Notably, only a very small minority of articles in the sample (11%, N = 11) include a comparative element, despite early calls for work which does so (e.g., Weldon Reference Weldon2006). Those which do are primarily small N-comparative case studies. For example, Bassel and Emejulu (Reference Bassel and Emejulu2010) compare struggles for intersectional space in France and the UK, demonstrating that “even though France and the UK are often portrayed as opposites with regard to constructions of citizenship, […] these seemingly differing traditions of citizenship end up having a similar effect of misrecognizing minority women and men’s experiences and demands” (517). More recently, Reid and Ritholtz (Reference Reid and Ritholtz2020) compare Ghana and South Africa in terms of LGBT vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that “it is not enough to make LGBT people the object of inquiry, but to queer — as a verb — and deconstruct the intersectional factors that produce specific forms of marginality within LGBT communities” (1102). Their analysis reveals that while “LGBT migrants in South Africa and lesbian and bisexual women in Ghana both experience discrimination that contributes to pushing them into the informal economy and distances them from familial/communal bases of support, the processes of their marginalization differ. These differences, however, are obscured when the analytical lens only takes into account sexuality” (1105).

While these studies demonstrate the empirical and theory testing contributions of comparative intersectional work, larger N studies are much scarcer. This in part speaks to the difficulty of simultaneously taking seriously the complexity of intersectionality while developing robust cross-national indicators, especially where race and ethnicity are concerned. An illustrative example is Pepin-Neff and Wynter’s (Reference Pepin-Neff and Wynter2020) four country survey, which investigates the intersectional effects of race, gender identity, and sexuality on the affective costs experienced by LGBT activists. While the study is pathbreaking in many ways, the operationalization of race is limited to “white” versus “non-white,” drawing on country specific definitions. This indicates some of the trade-offs and ambivalences in a comparative approach. Therefore, while Politics & Gender has published intersectional scholarship covering a wide range of countries and regions, there remains huge potential for both the application of intersectional approaches to cases beyond the US and Western Europe (drawing on diverse feminisms articulated by women of color and context-specific operationalizations of race), as well as building on the methodological innovations and substantive insights generated by exemplary cross-national and large-N studies.

Topics

Turning to the empirical and theoretical focus of studies employing intersectionality, we consider the extent to which the approach has been applied to the various subfields within scholarship published by Politics & Gender, as well as the degree to which it has opened up new areas of analysis. What topics are prevalent and to what extent do these reflect or contrast with the concerns of Black feminist theory, activism, and scholarship more broadly? The subject matter that has been considered through an intersectional lens is extremely varied. While quintessential topics such as the political experiences of Black women are considered in contexts ranging from the civil rights movement (Simien and McGuire Reference Simien and McGuire2014), Black lesbians’ self-representation online (Jordan-Zachery Reference Jordan-Zachery2012), and Michelle Obama and the first lady as an institution (Handau and Simien Reference Handau and Simien2019), recent publications focus on issues as multifarious as prostitution, trafficking and child sexual abuse (Baker Reference Baker2018), the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda (Burgess, Brettschneider, and Keating Reference Burgess and Brettschneider2018), and COVID-19 (Forester and O’Brien Reference Forester and O’Brien2020). See Figure 2 for a list of all topics which appeared in two or more articles.

Figure 2.

Most frequent topics.

Despite this diversity, the implementation of intersectionality itself is the single most prevalent topic, appearing as a major focus in 27% of articles (N = 25). This includes articles concerned with the implementation of intersectionality in political science research and those concerned with intersectionality’s implementation in institutions such as policymaking and civil society. Ongoing debates around how to employ intersectionality as scholars of politics are indicative of the further potential for development of future intersectional research, given both its infancy in gender and politics compared to political sociology in particular (Alexander-Floyd Reference Alexander-Floyd and Mitchell2014). Meanwhile, the increased attention to operationalizing intersectionality in public policy represents an important political development not observed in prior reviews such as that of Garcia and Zazicek (Reference Garcia and Zajicek2022), who examined articles published up to 2017. Increasing numbers of purposeful implementations of intersectionality by government policymakers and advocates require analyses of its implementation (La Barbera, Espinosa-Fajardo, and Caravantes Reference La Barbera, Espinosa-Fajardo and Caravantes2023) and the ambivalences in state take-up of intersectionality (Townsend-Bell Reference Townsend-Bell2014). The continuation of this scholarship and related scholar activism will continue to be important frontiers for political scientists taking intersectional approaches in the future.

The second most prevalent topic is descriptive and substantive representation. This has historically been a core issue of gender and politics scholarship (and responds to Smooth’s classic “Mess Worth Making” [2006] text). However, it is important to note that these concerns regarding representation among elected representatives (as opposed to, for example, grassroots activism) have been somewhat less central to Black feminist theory, and there is substantial room for greater engagement with the ways that intersectionality problematizes traditional theories of representation (see Christoffersen Reference Christoffersen2024). Two particularly promising developments toward work more strongly aligned with Black feminist theory is scholarship on civil society — especially that which centers actors from intersectionally marginalized groups — and policy scholarship which employs intersectionality as a lens to consider intersecting structural inequalities.

Examples include Siim (Reference Siim2014), who considers a wide range of democratic political actors in the struggle for political intersectionality in the European public sphere. Likewise, English (Reference English2019) analyzes which women are represented by groups constituted as “women’s organizations.” As the titles suggest, much of this scholarship is concerned with the struggles of civil society coalition building (e.g., Bassel and Emejulu Reference Bassel and Emejulu2014; Price Reference Price2018; Unal Reference Unal2019), and the search for ways of constituting groups (in activism and policy) in ways that center the most marginalized (see, e.g., Bassel and Emejulu Reference Bassel and Emejulu2010; Strolovitch Reference Strolovitch2012, Baker Reference Baker2018). There are striking differences in the attention paid to these important issues within intersectional research about civil society and policy, compared with the relative rarity that they appear in intersectional scholarship on descriptive and substantive representation. For many of those most intersectionally marginalized, their descriptive representation among elected representatives is impossible (Christoffersen and Siow Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024), at the same time that there is often a disconnect between the claims-making of civil society coalitions and the issues articulated by more powerful elected representatives within the discursive constraints of liberal institutions.

In sum, despite frequency of discussion about how to do intersectionality, the most frequent topics of intersectional research beyond this (representation, public opinion, and voting), reflect the stalwarts of mainstream Anglo-American political science rather than those of Black feminist theory more widely. Meanwhile, increased attempts to operationalize intersectionality in policy and civil society provide both opportunities and imperatives for future research.

Framing

The vast majority of articles employing or including significant discussion of intersectionality advocate unequivocally for its usage (91%, N = 84). Intersectionality has not been without critique, however. A small number problematize or articulate a degree of ambivalence toward intersectionality. Some do so from a queer theoretical perspective (e.g., Burgess, Brettschneider, and Keating Reference Burgess and Brettschneider2018; Duong Reference Duong2012; Robertson and Sgoutas Reference Robertson and Sgoutas2012). Collectively, these scholars problematize the naturalization and reification of categories (such as “woman” and categories pertaining to sexuality) in many operationalizations of intersectionality (see, more recently, Murib Reference Murib2024; also e.g., Bey Reference Bey, Nash and Pinto2023; Puar Reference Puar2013). Meanwhile Al-Ali and Käser (Reference Al-Ali and Käser2022) analyze the concept of Jineolojî and the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement, showcasing alternative approaches grounded in marginalized women’s experiences which align with, but are distinct from, Black feminism.

More adversarial critiques of intersectionality argue in favor of emphasizing “unity” among women rather than diversity. For example, Hirschman (2012) argues, “It is a feminist truism how ‘different’ women are from one another, and such difference is said to make the category ‘woman’ impossible. And yet we use the term for the most part without confusion, incorporating those differences into our usage. Despite our repeated insistence that women are so different from one another, perhaps we share more than we differ”(402). Squires (Reference Squires2007) considers similar discourses in relation to threats perceived by some women’s policy agencies in relation to intersectionality. In both cases, this is a necessarily additive operationalization of intersectionality, since “gender” is the constant in constructing “women,” while other inequalities are not thought to always be in operation, qualitatively changing gender’s status to create substantive differences.

Despite the rarity of outright critique, proponents of intersectional approaches have, since the journal’s inception, voiced concerns around questions of how and to what end intersectionality is employed. The staunchest advocates have simultaneously acknowledged and confronted methodological and theoretical challenges head on (Hancock Reference Hancock2007a; Smooth Reference Smooth2006). In the context of these ongoing debates, we highlight the following important areas of contention: the construction of categories, marginalization of intersectionally marginalized groups, and erasure of race within intersectional work; the distinction between individual versus structural analyses; additive versus mutually constitutive operationalization of intersectionality, and the detachment of intersectionality from its normative commitments.

Constituting Groups and Identities

The majority of articles (68%, N = 63) focused upon a particular population, inequality, or intersection. However, not all offered a rationale for doing so, or for the selection of the specific populations, inequalities, or intersections that they focused upon. In the field of intersectionality and public policy studies, it has been argued that applying intersectionality requires an open-ended empirical investigation of where the greatest intersecting inequalities lie, in order to identify priority populations, inequalities, and intersections (Hankivsky and Jordan-Zachery Reference Hankivsky and Jordan-Zachery2019). Erica Townsend-Bell (Reference Townsend-Bell2011) also advocates for considering the perspectives of local activists as to which inequalities are most relevant in the particular context.

The group most frequently constituted within the empirical or theoretical analysis is Black women (31 articles - Figure 3). This reflects the scholarly and activist roots of intersectionality, the predominant focus on the US, and the erasure of race in Europe (Emejulu and Bassel Reference Emejulu and Bassel2021). More widely, articles analyzing one or more groups constituted primarily in terms of gender and race as women who are racially minoritized — either as Black, Asian, Latinx, Muslim, Indigenous, or migrant — made up 55% of the sample (N = 51). There were significant differences, however, and scholarship on Indigenous, migrant, and Muslim women’s experiences is very rare, highlighting the need for greater political science scholarship which centers these groups’ political experiences.

Figure 3.

Identities constituted.

In contrast, the group constituted most frequently after Black women is simply “women,” with no further explicit reference to race, ethnicity, or other characteristics. This reflects a popular operationalization of intersectionality as “diversity among women” (Christoffersen Reference Christoffersen2021; Christoffersen and Emejulu Reference Christoffersen and Emejulu2023). Christoffersen and Siow (Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024) have argued elsewhere that intersectional political science research can make the greatest gains by taking intersectionally marginalized groups as a starting point, taking care not to leave privileged categories and structures such as whiteness as undefined norms. Indeed, only 40% (N = 37) of articles employing intersectionality center an intersectionally marginalized group in their analysis. Of these 37 articles, the vast majority (31) center racially minoritized women (including those constituted variously as “Black,” “minority,” “Aboriginal,” or “Kurdish”). Within this group, 13 center Black women, and two center Black lesbians specifically. The decentering of minoritized women and other intersectionally marginalized groups (along with the normative concerns of Black feminist theory) has received substantial critique elsewhere (see. e.g., Bilge Reference Bilge2013; Junn and Brown Reference Junn and Brown2008; Mügge et al. Reference Mügge, Montoya, Emejulu and Weldon2018).

We also note that some articles within the sample do center intersectionally marginalized groups when summarizing the wider contributions and implications of their research (e.g., Badas and Stauffer Reference Badas and Stauffer2019), yet they fall short of doing so in analysis, employing additive approaches, and using white women and men as a baseline for comparison. However, the wider body of work published in Politics & Gender shows clearly how we can move beyond this approach. Within qualitative and theoretical articles, centering an intersectionally marginalized group can be accomplished through placing members of this group’s perspectives, experiences, needs, and interests at the center of analysis. In quantitative articles, intersectionally marginalized groups can serve as the baseline, to which other intersectional groups (versus variables such as “race” or “gender”) can be compared.

It remains important to employ intersectionality not only to study intersectional marginalization, but to study the ways that intersectional privilege confers advantages for others, in a relational process. Without such focus, intersectionally privileged social positions are rendered as normative and invisible (Carbado Reference Carbado2013). A significant minority of articles (21%, N = 19) explicitly studied processes of intersectional privilege. For example, Hancock (Reference Hancock2009) provides an early “untraditional” intersectional analysis, employing intersectionality to study the ways that not only gender, but also race and class, positioned prominent white women candidates in the 2008 US election; as well as how not only race, but also gender and class, positioned Black men. More recently, Tolley (Reference Tolley2023) examines the advantages that white women politicians accrue from Canadian political party selection processes and efforts to “diversify,” that disadvantage racially minoritized men and women in relational processes.

The erasure of race has also been a key point of debate regarding the constitution of categories and groups in work claiming to take “intersectional” approaches (see, e.g., Alexander-Floyd Reference Alexander-Floyd2012; Bilge Reference Bilge2013; Jordan-Zachery Reference Jordan-Zachery2013; Lewis Reference Lewis2013; May Reference May2015; Tomlinson Reference Tomlinson2013a, Reference Tomlinson2013b). One way that this erasure is accomplished, particularly in European research contexts (Lewis, Reference Lewis2013; Mügge et al. Reference Mügge, Montoya, Emejulu and Weldon2018), is through scholars’ choice to constitute groups in relation to migration background rather than race, or even ethnicity. For example, focusing on Sweden, Folke, Freidenvall, and Rickne (Reference Folke, Freidenvall and Rickne2015) employ “foreign born” as a proxy variable for racial minoritization, which the authors call “the simplest possible definition of polyethnic minority status” (359). This operationalization is typical of the Swedish (and wider European) context in which official data is not collected on race. The author’s use of “foreign born” in this context nevertheless serves to erase race through: assuming similarity between, thereby erasing racial distinctions among, white and racially minoritized migrants; and making invisible the experiences, structured by racism, of racially minoritized citizens who are not “foreign born,” and whose parents were similarly not “foreign born.” The authors include in the appendix as a relevant robustness test an expanded analysis capturing whether at least one parent was “foreign born.” The article nevertheless purports to speak about “ethnic minorities.” While, as in this case, these limitations reflect those in official data, this limitation is not always recognized or commented upon by article authors. Moreover, there are alternative approaches in which scholars themselves collect data on the race and ethnicity of representatives (including the self-presentation of representatives themselves [Funk and Hinojosa Reference Funk and Hinojosa2023]) to overcome limitations of official data.

A second way in which the erasure of race is accomplished in the constitution of groups and identities is through expanding to other categories of analysis beyond race/gender, but demoting race in the process. For example, some articles expand beyond consideration of race and gender (and sometimes, class), central to intersectionality’s theoretical origins, to consider gender’s intersection with other categories (e.g., LGBT status or disability). Yet in doing so, race disappears from the forefront of analysis (Albaugh and Baisley Reference Albaugh and Baisley2023). For instance, as Hirschmann (Reference Hirschmann2012) argues in an article entitled “Disability as a New Frontier for Feminist Intersectionality Research,” “disability is the new gender,” while race and race/gender are not mentioned beyond noting that “Disability intersects with all vectors of identity, since disability affects people of all classes, races, ethnicities, and religions, male and female, straight and gayFootnote ¹” (397).

A third way in which the erasure of race is accomplished is to employ intersectionality to study dominant women, but not the relational processes that position them as advantaged at the expense of intersectionally marginalized women. In the context of Italy, Avanza (Reference Avanza2020) seeks to explicitly unlink intersectionality from what (Hancock Reference Hancock2016) calls intersectionality’s “political project:” “Working on dominant actors with a dislikable political agenda, I use intersectionality as a paradigm allowing empirical investigation, not as a political tool of emancipation for actors facing multiple oppressions” (558), concluding that “pro-life activism can certainly be a resource for women’s agency” (567). We argue therefore that future scholarship should take heed of these dangers in order not to perpetuate the erasure of race from intersectional scholarship.

Approximately one-third of articles (N = 29) do not focus on any specific population or group. Some of these make broad arguments across different inequality structures, namely “systems of domination such as racism, sexism, neoliberal capitalism, and ableism” (Forester and O’Brien Reference Forester and O’Brien2020, 1150), while others focus analysis upon institutions rather than social groups (e.g., Siim Reference Siim2014). More problematically, others employ a quantitative approach that operationalizes intersectionality simply as comparisons across different social groups without a normative element, and without centering any particular group (e.g., Folke, Freidenvall, and Rickne Reference Folke, Freidenvall and Rickne2015). As a result, we find that racially minoritized men feature primarily as comparisons between white women and men, and racially minoritized women and men (either with or without comparisons between women and men of different racially minoritized ethnicities). They are rarely constituted in a way that treats race and gender as mutually constitutive, resulting in simultaneous and contingent privilege and oppression, noting the specific vulnerabilities encountered by this group (see, e.g., Briscoe Palmer and Siow Reference Briscoe Palmer and Orlyforthcoming). Therefore, the risk of broad intersectional research uncoupled from what Hancock (Reference Hancock2016) has termed intersectionality’s “political project” is that intersectionality is operationalized in a generic way, that ultimately serves to uphold structural inequalities (Christoffersen Reference Christoffersen2021).

In contrast, we note that scholarship focused upon LGBTQIA+ and trans groups offers an approach to the constitution of categories which avoids many of the pitfalls discussed above. The influence of queer theory and focus on coalition building does not leave power structures of heteronormativity or cisnormativity as assumed and is much more ambivalent about the constitution of categories and identities in general. Twenty articles in the sample constituted queer/genderqueer identities in the analysis under various monikers. Of those, seven constituted racially minoritized queer identities, including Black US lesbians (Fogg-Davis Reference Fogg-Davis2006; Jordan-Zachery Reference Jordan-Zachery2012), LGBTQI+ migrants (Robertson and Sgoutas Reference Robertson and Sgoutas2012), queer voters (Bell and Borelli Reference Bell and Borelli2024), queer of color youth (Hancock Reference Hancock2014) and activists of color across multiple countries (Murib Reference Murib2018; Peppin-Neff and Wynter 2020). It was also notable that those articles that constituted queer/genderqueer identities, but did not focus on intersectionally marginalized queer identities, nevertheless diligently highlighted structural intersections, such as the links between, for example, racist and anti-trans politics. For example, Price (Reference Price2018) argues “The election of Trump and the subsequent actions of his administration have amplified a sense of urgency within both movements. It not only served as a reminder to the common adversaries — socially conservative Republicans and the far right — that the movements share, but it also, from their viewpoints, relegitimized and reinforced blatant racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia in political discourse and in the policy-making process” (591).

The attention to intersecting structures within articles informed by queer theory is also coupled with a striking ambivalence toward the constitution of categories. This is in somewhat stark contrast to intersectional scholarship on gender and representation that often employs a “diversity among women frame” (leaving the category “women” unproblematized).Footnote ² For example, as Price (Reference Price2018) argues, “Coalitions are born out of necessity. Most people belong to multiple social groups and are often situated between social movements. We need to re-envision identity categories as potential coalitions rather than view them as simply affinity groups” (592).

In summary, we argue that in terms of the categories constituted, intersectional research need not limit its focus to Black and other racially minoritized women as its quintessential subjects. Indeed, there has been and remains much to be gained from the expansion of intersectional analysis to other categories and structures. However, in doing so, we can make the greatest gains by centering (not just including) intersectionally marginalized groups (including intersectionally marginalized men), making privileged categories and associated power structures such as white supremacy and cisnormativity explicit, treating the constitution of groups and identities as fluid and contingent, and insisting that we neither erase race nor divorce intersectionality from its normative commitments in the process.

Individuals versus Structures

Intersectionality theorists have long argued for the importance of distinguishing between, and attending to, multiple levels of analysis. While different typologies of levels of analysis have been offered (Collins and Bilge Reference Collins and Bilge2020), in particular, theorists have highlighted the importance of attending to levels of both individual experience and identity, including as part of social groups, on the one hand, and institutions and structures of inequality that produce such experiences, on the other (Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1991). These distinctions are present in the research questions that articles seek to address. For instance, Bassel and Emejulu (Reference Bassel and Emejulu2010) explored the institutional space in policy processes that limited the opportunities for actors to make intersectional justice claims in France and the UK, resulting in the misrecognition of women and men experiencing intersecting inequalities. A focus on institutions, rather than on identity and experience decontextualized from power structures, enables a sophisticated analysis of the workings of power that shape and constrain experience.

We coded articles as to whether their core contributions and implications pertained to an individual/group level of analysis (for instance, highlighting the importance of inclusion of particular groups in political processes), or to an institutional/structural level of analysis (for instance, highlighting the importance of institutional or policy change), or both. Concerns around the importance of structural intersectionality, and attention to institutions as well as individuals and groups, do seem to have been taken up within research published by Politics & Gender. Nearly three-quarters (72%, N = 66) of articles employing intersectionality include analysis at the structural (or a combination of the structural and individual) level. Analysis at the level of structures and institutions is of the utmost importance to ultimately understand power and the ways in which it operates, as well as to create institutional change. However, taking a structural/institutional approach, rather than one focused upon individual experience and social groups, does not alone translate into an operationalization of intersectionality in line with its Black feminist theoretical origins. Some such articles do so and do refer to intersectionality, while gender remains the primary category of interest (Elomäki and Kantola Reference Elomäki and Kantola2023). Therefore, as Christoffersen and Siow (Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024) have argued, to operationalize intersectionality in line with Black feminist theory, we must relinquish positioning gender as superordinate and instead treat structures as mutually constitutive and contingent.

Additive versus Constitutive Operationalizations of Intersectionality

Theorists have also suggested that the level of analysis is related to whether intersectionality is operationalized in an additive, or a mutually constitutive, way. In particular, additive operationalizations of intersectionality tend to be restricted to or overly focused upon the level of individual experience (Yuval-Davis Reference Yuval-Davis2006). One remedy for an over-focus on intersectionally marginalized groups that is potentially further stigmatizing, a remedy that would trouble rather than reinforce inequities (Dhamoon Reference Dhamoon2011), is to instead focus upon intersectional advantage, which some articles do (Hancock Reference Hancock2009; Tolley Reference Tolley2023), as discussed above.

Articles were coded as to whether they operationalized intersectionality in an additive way, suggesting that inequalities can be separated from one another, or a mutually constitutive one, viewing inequalities as always shaping and indivisible from one another. Our analysis suggests that a substantial proportion of articles (28%, N = 26) apply an additive approach. The proportion is particularly high among quantitative studies (38%, N = 8/21). For example, Doan and Haider-Markel (Reference Doan and Haider-Markel2010) seek to explore the effect of “intersectional stereotyping” on public opinion but operationalize gender and sexual minority status additively as “dual membership in stigmatized groups.” This enables conclusions such as “in certain contexts gender stereotypes are more significant, and at other times stereotypes about sexual minorities appear to be driving evaluations of candidates” (63). Such conclusions separate gender and sexual minority status, treating them as “either/or” instead of “both/and,” rather than viewing these categories as always being interlocking and mutually constitutive, in line with intersectionality theory.

The journal has, however, showcased other important examples of how to combine quantitative methods and mutually constitutive operationalizations of intersectionality (Avdeyeva and Matland Reference Avdeyeva and Matland2021; Pepin-Neff and Wynter Reference Pepin-Neff and Wynter2020; Tolley Reference Tolley2023). Mutually constitutive approaches in quantitative research can be achieved by advancing beyond the use of interaction terms between variables, such as gender and race, to create variables for social groups. For example, rather than treating race and gender as discrete variables and modeling interaction effects between them, Ward (Reference Ward2016) analyzes press coverage of political campaigns positing minority women as the baseline category (thus centering minoritized women as a group), and modeling the differences in coverage of this group with white men, white women, and minoritized men, controlling for additional factors. While mutually constitutive quantitative approaches often take an individual person as a unit of analysis, they can also be employed when studying civil society organizations, by treating intersectional organizations (those constituted at the intersection of inequalities) as a distinctive group to those organized along a single axis of identity (English Reference English2019).

Additive approaches were also particularly prevalent within work focusing on descriptive and substantive representation (62%, N = 13/21) — highlighting the need for more structural intersectional analysis of institutions (Christoffersen and Siow Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024; Hawkesworth Reference Hawkesworth2003; Siow and Begum Reference Siow and Begumforthcoming). Theoretical work was found to be least likely to take additive approaches, and most likely to take mutually constitutive approaches. This attests to the challenges of applying intersectionality empirically, regardless of methodological approach (Bowleg Reference Bowleg2008; Hancock Reference Hancock2007b).

Ideologies and Normative Commitments

Finally, in the interest of exploring the potential detachment of intersectionality from the normative concerns of Black feminism, we examined articles’ ideologies or “definitions of success.” Over a third of articles in the sample (N = 33) advocated “liberal inclusion” — the largest number of articles coded to any one ideology category and representing 50% of articles whose conclusions and implications pertained to representative politics, broadly conceived. Here, liberal democratic institutions are assumed and unproblematized, and the focus is on increasing representation of women (and at times, other marginalized groups) within such institutions (for example, as representatives, or as voters), rather than upon the institutional change that might be required to do so, or upon the liberation from oppression or the social transformation that Black feminism calls for (hooks, Reference hooks1981; Spillers Reference Spillers1987). Sometimes this meaning is implicit. This finding lends empirical weight to the observations of Christoffersen and Siow (Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024) that feminist literature on representation has focused upon inclusion of women within liberal democracy, rather than the structural transformation and liberation from oppression Black feminist theory calls for, as well as to arguments long made by Black feminists and colleagues (inter alia Alexander-Floyd Reference Alexander-Floyd2012).

To illustrate, as one article concludes, “if we feel that the experiences of our representatives matter, and that certain relevant experiences will largely accrue only to certain types of person, we want a diversity of persons and, by implication, a diversity of experience” (Allen Reference Allen2022, 1137).

Here, in line with the other articles coded as “liberal inclusion,” the article’s “definition of success” is obtaining inclusion of a diversity of people within liberal democratic institutions, while such institutions as well as liberal democracy itself are unproblematized.

In particular, articles seek greater descriptive representation in the hope (or with the assumption) that this might lead to improved substantive representation: “Electing women from a diverse set of backgrounds, including younger women and women with young children, can shift the policy debates and outcomes in legislatures and produce greater substantive representation for women, children, and families…Doing away with notions of political leadership as a masculine pursuit can open more pathways for women’s political success in the future in the United States and beyond” (Sweet-Cushman and Bauer Reference Sweet-Cushman and Bauer2024, 18).

Here again, the emphasis is on women’s “political success,” — that is, increasing numbers of women representatives; yet for some of the most marginalized women (e.g., undocumented migrants, trans women who are being stripped of citizenship rights), descriptive representation is not possible (Christoffersen and Siow Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024). Moreover, the inherently inequitable and racialized nature of liberal institutions too often remains unquestioned in the literature under study (exceptions beyond work published by Politics & Gender are Brown Reference Brown2014; Kantola et al. Reference Kantola, Elomäki, Gaweda, Miller, Ahrens and Berthet2023). Given the prevalence of “women” as the identity constituted in analysis, liberal inclusion often problematically positions gender as the most important category of analysis, rather than treating structures of inequality as mutually constitutive, such that their relative salience shifts according to context, and they are qualitatively changed by one another. However, “An inclusion approach leaves us unable to normatively or theoretically distinguish between the perspectives, needs and interests of those women on either side of structures like race and class” (Christoffersen and Siow Reference Christoffersen and Siow2024, 9).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, less commonly, articles’ ideology or definition of success was coded as being “liberation from oppression” (N = 16) with reference to political institutions and/or structures of inequality, or, similarly, as “solidarity” (N = 7) when contributions and implications pertained specifically to social movements. Such articles go beyond the idea of including those excluded from liberal democratic institutions to explicitly identify the need for transformational change, centering power: “the roots of social biases stem from complex structural phenomena, such as limited labor opportunities for women and minorities, and thus require transformative political and economic changes” (Avdeyeva and Matland Reference Avdeyeva and Matland2021, 720).

Further still, some articles that seek liberation from oppression have been foundational to drawing attention to intersectionality’s detachment from such concerns in the wider literature: “As the concept of intersectionality has advanced, at times it appears that the second component — a liberation framework — has been lost…On the surface, it would appear that any work involving intersectionality, since it is a challenge to existing power structures, is inherently an act of liberation. Research that simply describes how marginalized groups operate or function in the face of their oppression can be helpful in the formulation of a political framework of liberation. However, when such research stands alone, it is not designed to liberate marginalized groups” (Jordan-Zachery Reference Jordan-Zachery2007, 256, 262; emphasis ours).

Yet such detachment persists in recent literature, and importantly, is reflected in the emphasis on liberal inclusion found most often in articles that engaged with intersectionality within Politics & Gender. Moreover, even considering research that centers Black women, and in line with our finding above that articles are frequently concerned with descriptive and substantive representation, “there is a tendency among researchers to focus on the actions of elected black women. This leaves one to wonder how black women who are not elected to office engage and grapple with issues of intersectionality. How do they define and respond to a multitude of issues that influence their daily lives?” (Jordan-Zachery Reference Jordan-Zachery2012, 409).

Some articles do examine political action beyond elected representatives, and explicitly call for solidarity in order to achieve liberation from oppression: “building intersectional political alliances is more important than ever. It is no longer sufficient for progressive social movements and advocacy groups to focus on single-axis political issues; they must now embrace issues they may have not considered to be part of their political bailiwick … This may mean building cross-movement coalitions as well as coalitions within their respective movements” (Price Reference Price2018, 582–3).

Other articles fall between the two ends of a spectrum comprised of “liberal inclusion” at one end and “liberation from oppression” at the other. Such articles were coded as seeking “institutional change” (N = 10). Such articles do not quite call for the transformation of liberal democratic institutions, but do problematize institutions to some extent, and call for some level of institutional change to respond to inequalities. For example, Bedolla (Reference Bedolla2014) outlines how intersectionality can guide institutional change within universities; Nooruddin (Reference Nooruddin2007) draws attention to changes required within the judicial system to counter “ostensibly neutral rules of evidence or sentencing guidelines as raced-gendered institutions” (345); while Begum and Sobolewska (Reference Begum and Sobolewska2024) look beyond surface level improvements in the descriptive representation of minority ethnic women among local politicians in the UK, to reveal the changes that would be required to selection and working conditions that would help to mitigate the gender and racial inequalities that continue to shape their experiences. Notably however, the number of articles coded as “liberal inclusion” exceeds that of liberation from oppression and institutional change combined.

Articles where the contributions and implications pertain to intersectionality and scholarship rather than political institutions, including social movements, were coded as to whether they strongly advocated for intersectionality (N = 17), such that their definition of success would be its wider or more authentic uptake or further development, or alternatively, as being equivocal in relation to intersectionality (N = 9). The latter category includes articles that may have taken an intersectional approach at the outset but conclude with alternative framings of intersectionality that depart from its Black feminist origins, or similarly where intersectionality disappears from the conclusions (e.g., Sterett Reference Sterett2018), and what is being argued for is strong gender machinery (e.g., Squires Reference Squires2007).

Those that strongly advocate for intersectionality argue, for example: “intersectionality research requires more than simply performing separate analyses by race and gender and using traditional theories to interpret the results. Political scientists must construct new theories and methodological approaches that address the complex processes through which social categories shape and, in effect, determine political outcomes. To this end, there is much work to be done” (Simien Reference Simien2007, 271).

Again, while this argument was made nearly 20 years ago, it remains extremely relevant in light of our findings concerning the frequency of additive approaches, even in qualitative work. Yet we did find strong examples of work, both quantitative and qualitative, which points to the possibility (as yet unrealized) of gender and politics scholarship that is not divorced from Black feminist aims of liberation and transformation (e.g., Alexander-Floyd Reference Alexander-Floyd2008; Handau and Simien Reference Handau and Simien2019; Walker and García-Castanõn Reference Walker and García-Castañon2017; White Reference White2007). We hope that future research will continue in this trajectory.