Political and economic inequalities pose connected challenges for the quality of democracy, which rests on effective representation and institutions capable of responding to citizens’ needs (e.g. Rau and Stokes 2024; Lefkofridi, Giger and Kissau 2012). The workshop examines how these inequalities are gendered and intersectionally structured, how they are produced and experienced, and how institutions and public policies reproduce or mitigate them. We bring together research on participation, representation, economic inequalities and democratic support to develop theoretical connections and address methodological challenges from a comparative perspective. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions from all regions and career stages.
Political and economic inequalities can reinforce one another, although material disadvantage does not necessarily entail political exclusion. Research on participation and representation examines inequalities in political influence (e.g., Zwiener-Collins and Lefkofridi, 2023; Jansesberger and Lefkofridi, 2024; Lefkofridi, Wegscheider and Zwiener-Collins, 2025), while work on economic inequality focuses on differences in resources and their subjective experience (e.g., Ejrnæs et al.,2024;Mayne&Katsanidou,2023). Both literatures address related questions about democracy, but often study different parts of the processes through which inequalities develop and become politically consequential. Examining these processes separately limits our understanding of when political and economic inequalities reinforce one another and how their democratic consequences differ across groups and contexts.
Gender and its intersection with age, class and other social positions shape access to political institutions and material opportunities – in turn dependent on the institutional and policy context. How do these relationships vary across countries, institutions and policy fields? Under what conditions do inequalities undermine political trust and support for democracy? Such questions require a comparative perspective which has long been constrained by methodological challenges in scaling intersectional approaches (Strolovitch, 2013).
The workshop will bring scholars working on different parts of these processes to examine these connections while bridging across different research traditions, spanning theoretical and qualitative work as well as quantitative ones spanning survey research and computational approaches. The aim of the workshop is expanding the inclusivity of these discussions both geographically and across career stages developing joint publications and coordinating future grant applications.
Ejrnæs, A., Jensen, M. D., Schraff, D., & Vasilopoulou, S. (2024). Introduction: Regional inequality and political discontent in Europe. Journal of European Public Policy, 31(6), 1465–1493. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2333850
Jansesberger, V.A. and Lefkofridi, Z. (2024). Gender, Politics & the Market. European Journal of Politics & Gender. https://doi.org/10.1332/25151088Y2024D000000069
Lefkofridi, Z., Giger, N. and Kissau, K. (eds.) (2012). Inequality and Representation in Europe. Representation, 48(1).
Lefkofridi, Z., Wegscheider, C. and Zwiener-Collins, N. (2025). Gendered dynamics in representation: Examining candidates' policy congruence with parties and voters. Party Politics, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688251332188
Mayne, Q., & Katsanidou, A. (2023). Subnational economic conditions and the changing geography of mass Euroscepticism: A longitudinal analysis. European Journal of Political Research, 62(3), 742–760. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12528
Rau, E. and Stokes, S.C. (2024). Income inequality and the erosion of democracy in the twenty-first century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(1). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422543121
Reingold, B., Haynie, K.L. and Widner, K. (2020). Race, Gender, and Political Representation: Toward a More Intersectional Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.
Strolovitch, D.Z. (2013). Invisible Ink: Intersectionality and Political Inquiry. Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality, 1, 100.
Zwiener-Collins, N. and Lefkofridi, Z. (2023). Unequal political participation: Do gender roles matter? In: Grand, P., Fink, M. and Tiemann, G. (eds.) 20 Jahre Österreich im European Social Survey. Wien/Köln: Böhlau, 95–125.
1: How are political and/or economic inequalities gendered and intersectionally structured?
2: When do political and economic inequalities overlap, reinforce one another or diverge?
3: How do political and/or economic inequalities shape political trust and support for democracy?
4: How do institutions, political actors and public policies reproduce or mitigate these inequalities?
5: What theoretical and methodological approaches can analyse these relationships comparatively?
1: Political participation and inequalities in political voice and influence
2: Descriptive, substantive, subjective and affective political representation
3: Objective and subjective economic inequalities across groups and territories
4: Political trust, democratic support and attitudes towards democratic principles
5: Gendered and intersectional policy design, implementation and effects
6: Institutions, parties and actors representing or contesting equality claims
7: Comparative and mixed-method approaches to intersectional inequalities
8: Policy interventions that reproduce, mitigate or reshape inequalities
