The Gender Lacuna in Comparative Politics
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| | ⅜ Symposium The Gender Lacuna in Comparative Politics Lisa Baldez What accounts for the glaring inattention to work on gender within mainstream political science? Part of the problem lies in the substance of scholarship itself. The concepts, central questions, and key variables that predominate in the mainstream literature on comparative democratization and in the literature on gender and democratization have contributed to the gulf between them. But a more fundamental explanation lies in the starting assumptions of scholars in the two camps. Mainstream scholars rarely question whether gender is relevant to politics, and gender scholars rarely question whether gender isn’t relevant to politics. I illustrate some ways in which gender could be incorporated into mainstream work, and discuss how gender research could be made more broadly comparative. esearch on gender and politics has now become a tutionalized, and women and politics has become more legitimate field of research within political science. securely entrenched as an enduring subfield within polit- R Scholars who focus on women and gender work full ical science.”1 time at the top colleges and universities in the world. The Research on gender is no longer marginalized, but it Organized Section on Women and Politics is one of the remains separate from mainstream political science. Most ⅜ American Political Science Association’s largest research political science continues to be conducted as though gen- sections. The new journal, Politics & Gender, is published der is not relevant to politics. A dichotomy between gen- by one of the top presses in the discipline (Cambridge der politics and political science cuts through all the major University Press) and is in its sixth year of production. subfields in the discipline. We might well expect gender to Political science now boasts three peer-reviewed journals be more widely accepted within the comparative subfield, that focus exclusively on women and gender, along with given, as Karen Beckwith notes, “[its] longstanding con- International Feminist Journal of Politics and The Journal of cern with issues of culture, cultural difference, values, atti- Women, Politics & Policy. Articles on women or gender tudes and beliefs.”2 Gender warrants barely a mention in now regularly appear in highly-ranked journals such as two recent and ostensibly comprehensive volumes, Carlos American Political Science Review, American Journal of Boix and Susan Stokes’ The Oxford Handbook of Compar- Political Science and Journal of Politics. As Sue Tolleson- ative Politics and Gerardo Munck and Richard Snyder’s Rinehart and Sue Carroll note, in the past couple of Passion, Craft and Method in Comparative Politics.3 The decades “gender-related scholarship has become more insti- 2009 edition of Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman’s Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structurepro- vides more examples of research on women and gender Lisa Baldez is Associate Professor of Government and Latin than the original 1997 edition, but does not consider gen- American, Latino and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth der analysis to be a legitimate theoretical approach.4 College ([email protected]). She is the author of The gender lacuna is perhaps most notable in research Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile on democratization. Hundreds of books and articles on (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and editor, along with gender and democratization in every region of the world Christina Wolbrecht and Karen Beckwith, of Political have been published in the past twenty years but, as Geor- Women and American Democracy (Cambridge Univer- gina Waylen maintains, “the mainstream democratization sity Press, 2008). She wishes to acknowledge support and literature has remained largely gender-blind, with very lit- helpful comments from Karen Beckwith, Leslie Butler, tle to say about the participation of women in transitions Colleen Boggs, Soyica Colbert, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, to democracy or the gendered nature of those processes.”5 Christopher MacEvitt, two anonymous Perspectives on Of the ten most frequently cited articles on democratiza- Politics reviewers and her teammates from the Upper Valley tion published in political science journals since 1990, Rowing Foundation. not one mentions women or gender, or cites work on doi:10.1017/S1537592709992775 March 2010 | Vol. 8/No. 1 199 ⅜ | | ⅜ Symposium | A Comparative Politics of Gender women or gender.6 Of numerous review essays published ers simply do not want to dedicate their limited time to on democratization in the top journals since 1989, not the additional project of educating people about the impor- one mentions or cites any research on women or gender, tance of gender. To put it in the vernacular: “if people despite comprehensive-sounding titles such as “What Do choose to ignore work on gender, that’s their problem.” We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Others explain the separation between gender and main- and “Rethinking Recent Democratization.”7 These obser- stream work as the result of old-fashioned sexism, but I vations are nothing new; in fact, the exclusion of women don’t think it’s that simple. Many mainstream scholars, and gender from the research on democratization is what including many women, are exemplary feminists in other created the field of gender and democracy in the first place. areas of their professional careers and private lives. Whether All studies of gender and democracy begin by noting the someone holds one or the other perspective may come puzzling inattention of political science research to the down to life experiences or personal choice—something participation of women, or lack thereof, in the transition that is beyond the scope of this essay. Regardless, however, process. Nonetheless, framing research on gender in terms the lack of integration of the two fields limits our ability of the mainstream literature has not met with equal atten- to understand some of the major problems that plague the tion from the other side. world today. This essay seeks to explain the gender lacuna within I envision a comparative politics of gender as an mainstream comparative politics research and to make the approach that integrates gender politics and political sci- case for integration. Part of the problem lies in the sub- ence more closely. Integration requires two things. The stance of scholarship itself. The concepts, central ques- first is attention to the ways that the key terms, concepts, tions, and key variables on which the two approaches rely and variables used in the two fields have kept “democra- have contributed to the gulf between them. But a more tization” separate from “women and gender.” Such meth- fundamental explanation lies in the starting assumptions odological considerations are pretty standard fare in of scholars in the two camps. Mainstream scholars rarely bridging distinct literatures. The second is for both main- question whether gender is relevant to politics, and gen- stream and gender scholars to be more open-minded. der scholars rarely question whether gender isn’t relevant Mainstream scholars must take seriously the exclusion of to politics. From the perspective of mainstream scholars, women from research on the process of democratic tran- ⅜ existing apart is not unique to gender politics, and it is not sition. They must consider gender analysis as a valid theo- necessarily problematic. Other subfields—social move- retical approach, one among many competing explanations ments, qualitative methods, and presidency research, for for political phenomena. Gender scholars must subject example—complain about their marginality from a per- the idea that women have a distinctive relationship to ceived “mainstream” too. Women are but one constitu- the political arena to systematic empirical scrutiny. One ency of political claimants among many and gender is but way to do this is to make gender work more broadly one variable among many (i.e., “race, gender, ethnicity, comparative, by comparing women to other collective etc.”). From the perspective of gender scholars, gender is political actors and by defining variables in ways that different because gender is constitutive of politics. It is facilitate cross-national comparison. central to politics in the same way race or class is central. As historian Joan W. Scott writes, “gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power . [and] it seems Considering Gender in the to have been a persistent and recurrent way of enabling Mainstream Literature on the signification of power in the West, in Judeo-Christian Comparative Democratization as well as Islamic traditions.”8 From this perspective, a Two characteristics of the mainstream literature on democ- science of politics that does not apprehend the relation- ratization prove particularly problematic for the incorpo- ship between gender and power is missing something cen- ration of women and gender: a narrow definition of what tral to political life. Failing to consider gender as a valid constitutes democratization and an elite focus.11 Democ- category of analysis risks presenting—and sustaining—an racy may be an essentially contested concept, but the com- incomplete and inaccurate view of the political world. parative democratization literature tends to define it in a Similarly, scholars of gender who do not avail themselves narrow way that impedes recognition of the relevance of of the full range of tools in political science limit their gender. Comparative studies