Elections, Parties and Voters

2024 was the biggest electoral year in history, with democratic elections taking place across Europe (e.g. UK, Sweden, France, Spain, and the European Parliament) and further afield in some of the world’s largest democracies such as India, the US, Brazil, South Africa and South Korea. Gender shaped the behaviour of both parties and voters at this bumper crop of elections, with early analysis suggesting both the continuation of established trends, such as the shift from the “traditional” to the “modern” gender gap, and emergent ones, such as the increasing politicisation of gendered, feminist, and LGBT+ issues. These developments raise key questions about the gendered nature of contemporary elections across the globe, including how political parties and candidates are selecting, framing, and politicising gender-related issues in their electoral campaigns, and how voters are responding to this politicisation. Party systems are changing and fragmenting in the face of challenger parties and populist candidates in gendered ways. Simultaneously, voter behaviour in the face of challenges such as economic uncertainty, climate crisis, and increases in immigration is shaped by gendered interests and priorities. In many contexts, women, especially younger women, are increasingly supporting left parties, and/or some men, including young men, are turning towards the populist radical right and/or participating in an anti-feminist backlash. Alongside this, there has been substantial growth in the number of successful women candidates globally, but this has come with a growing concern about the discrimination and even threats of violence – online and offline – experienced by candidates, especially women who face additional discrimination due to their race, sexuality, class or other intersections. Combined, these developments make this a crucial time to study the role of gender in elections, on both the supply-side (parties, candidates, and campaigns) and the demand-side (voter behaviour, preferences, and priorities). This section seeks proposals for papers and panels which look at any aspect of party behaviour, candidates, or voters at contemporary elections. We especially invite papers on the following themes. • The role of gender in party system change, especially the growth of Green parties and Populist Radical Right parties; • The role of feminist and LGBT+ issues in party competition, and the increasing politicisation of these issues; • Gendered policy appeals and party targeting of men and women; • The role of gender in candidate selection and election; • The experiences of women as candidates, and how candidate race, class, disability, sexuality, and other identities interact with gender to shape these experiences; • Generational gender gaps in vote choice and gender divides among young voters; • How gender interacts with other factors including (but not limited to) race, class, disability, and sexuality to shape vote choice, policy appeals, and candidate experiences; • How parties, candidates, and voters are participating in and reacting against the populist backlash against feminism and the broader anti-gender movement. We strongly encourage proposals which address or link more than one of the above points, which are methodologically innovative and/or utilise new sources of data, which take an intersectional approach, or which examine elections beyond the US and Western Europe.