What Triggers Emotions and Polarization in Gender Equality Conflicts? A Decade of German Newspaper Coverage on Gender Quotas

Debates on gender equality policies unfold in a political environment characterized by increasing polarization and the strategic intensification of social conflicts. This is particularly evident for measures such as gender quotas, which challenge gendered assumptions about merit, representation, and institutional neutrality that underpin formally egalitarian political and economic orders. Despite extensive formal equality, persistent structural disadvantages render gender-related topics susceptible to political instrumentalization, as recent developments in right-wing populism illustrate, and endow them with high conflict potential. This contribution investigates, through the lens of newspaper coverage, which aspects of gender quota debates elicit emotional responses and contribute to polarization. It addresses a research gap, as public debates on gender quotas have so far received little systematic attention from either political science or communication studies, particularly over extended periods. The analysis encompasses quotas in both the economic and political spheres. The study is based on an extensive corpus of articles from Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2010–2021), two leading German newspapers. To systematically capture discursive patterns, articles are segmented into individual statements, which are defined according to specific criteria and subsequently coded along several content-related and actor-related dimensions. Analytically, the study draws on the trigger-points framework developed by Mau et al., which serves as a theoretical lens for identifying mechanisms of emotionalization. The qualitative analysis demonstrates how actors mobilize specific triggers, such as moral boundaries, notions of merit, or identity constructions, to frame debates, thereby transforming ostensibly factual discussions into identity-based conflicts. By tracing these mechanisms over time, the study contributes to gender and politics research by showing how media arenas function as sites where gendered inequalities are reproduced, contested, and politicized in ways that shape democratic discourse.