Gender, Sexuality, and Political Careers

Political careers, the pathways through which individuals enter, exercise, and ultimately relinquish public authority, span the full arc of professional life and shape whose voices count in democratic decision-making. Women as well as sexual and gender minorities face distinctive hurdles at entry, during advancement, while in office, and at exit, as institutional rules, organisational cultures, and broader social hierarchies interact to structure opportunity and constrain influence. Building on this premise, this section interrogates the gendered architecture of political careers across elected, appointed, and informal roles, and invites theoretically, empirically, and methodologically diverse work, including normative and critical scholarship, to explain how gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, disability, age, and migration status to produce unequal outcomes. We welcome analyses of the formal levers of power over political careers (candidate recruitment and selection, electoral rules and quotas, leadership selection, cabinet formation, portfolio allocation) alongside the informal and less visible dynamics that also shape career behaviour (care burdens, non-inclusive working conditions, harassment, homosocial and closed networks, cross-party alliances, mentorships, lobbying circles). We encourage research that asks how to empower and support the political careers of diverse politicians so they can represent diverse electorates and become effective leaders; that assesses whether policies which improve career equality in one context can travel to others; and that probes whether minoritised leaders encounter distinct opportunities and constraints while in power. We equally welcome contributions that question and refine our core concepts, i.e. what counts as a “successful” political career, how “power” is defined and measured across institutions and cultures, and how behind-the-scenes brokerage, advisory roles, civil service and party work, or non-linear and episodic trajectories are recognised or rendered invisible. Methodological innovations are especially encouraged, including longitudinal designs that track careers over time and strategies for measuring gender identity/expression or capturing informal influence at scale. We are also keen to explore the consequences of anti-gender and anti-LGBTQIA+ mobilisation for the representation and career sustainability of both women and gender and sexual minorities, as well as work on leadership perceptions and evaluations across identities and institutions. We welcome individual paper submissions and will organize panels to maximise dialogue between early-career and established scholars. Pre-formed panel submissions are also welcome, provided they promote diversity in composition. We maintain a strong commitment to geographic, methodological, and demographic inclusivity. Panel/paper topics may include (but are not limited to): • Entry and recruitment: candidate emergence and selection, electoral rules and quotas, leadership selection, cabinet formation. • Advancement, allocation, and evaluation: committee assignments, portfolio allocation, promotion to party/executive leadership, and leadership perceptions in voter/selector/media assessments. • Informal power and networks: party machines, homosocial/closed networks, cross-party alliances, mentorship and sponsorship, youth wings, lobbying circles, and their inclusivity for women as well as sexual minorities. • Working conditions, safety, and well-being: legislative schedules, care burdens, harassment (including online), non-inclusive institutional cultures, precarity, and security risks, and their career consequences. • Intersectionality and minoritisation: how gender intersects with ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, age, and migration status to shape opportunities, evaluations, constraints, and experiences while in power. • Institutions and interventions: effects of quotas, childcare/leave policies, work-time reforms, pay/benefits, candidate training, and mentoring schemes; transferability across contexts. • Anti-gender and anti-LGBTQIA+ mobilisation: impacts on supply, selection, safety, retention, and career sustainability; resilience and counter-strategies. • Concepts, methods, and measurement: redefining “success” and “power”, recognising informal/behind-the-scenes influence, non-linear/episodic careers and exits; methodological innovation (longitudinal and sequence/event-history designs, network and text-as-data, measuring gender identity at scale) and comparative/multilevel approaches.