Gender, gender identity, and sexuality permeate interactions, institutions, and societies, including the organization of the political sphere, as well as the policies that states enact (Connell 1990, 2009; Orloff 1993; Risman 2004; Walby 2002). Expectations and norms around gender, gender identity, and sexuality vary from place to place, over time, and even within the same society, and play a central role in organizing all societies. Such cultural expectations are instantiated in the organization of the state, through its laws, policies, and institutions.

How will political sociology help us discern and analyze such changes now and in the next few decades? The future of politics is as uncertain as ever, but a brief overview of the history of political sociology may offer some clues to the theoretical challenges and opportunities ahead. For convenience, we divide the recent history of political sociology into three periods, suggesting that the field is now entering a fourth period with an expanding focus.

Global-scale economic crisis has brought renewed attention to issues of poverty and inequality, yet we often fail to critically examine what we mean by inequality. Poverty and inequality are social constructions; therefore, how they are defined has important implications for how societies understand and address inequality. This chapter provides an overview on measures and concepts used to study poverty and income inequality from a comparative perspective. We discuss the issue of poverty and consider how the social citizenship framework of T. H. Marshall opens new ways of understanding inequality. Increasing inequality has created a new class of poor, who are not only materially deprived but are also deprived of political and cultural life, unable to participate fully as members of a society, or are “socially excluded.” We argue that clarifying what we mean by social rights allows us to more concretely discuss the concepts of needs, equality, and social inclusion.

Gender is about power. Norms, traditions, and values concerning gender have served to maintain a system of inequality in virtually every society. From the moment a person is born, the state is involved in upholding and maintaining gender as an institution: Birth certificates always include the sex of the child (typically allowing for only two possibilities), sending a message that this is an important axis of difference. State policies often reflect patriarchal norms and may constrain both men's and women's choices. Yet states also may serve as arenas for challenging traditional gender norms (Gordon, 1990). Feminist political sociologists have called attention to both the gendered impact of state policies and structures and how gender ideologies and gendered social patterns shape politics (Wilson, 1977; Gordon, 1990; Ward, 1990; Orloff, 1993; Bose and Acosta-Belén, 1995).

Feminists tend to view states and state policies with some ambivalence. Although some feminists view the state as an agent of change and use the state to create legislation that may equalize women's and men's opportunities, others view the state as antithetical to feminist goals (MacKinnon, 1989; Sharp and Broomhill, 1988; Brown, 1992). Ambivalence about the role of the state in gendered policies may discourage some types of feminist mobilization (Miller and Razavi, 1998). But as Sainsbury (1999:270) suggests, “Irrespective of whether the state is conceived of as a structure or a terrain, the state is a crucial site in regulating and constructing gender relations. It is too important an arena not to enter because of ideological antipathy or fears of co-option.”