🌈 New scholars at the helm for The Loop’s Gendering Democracy series

Back in March 2023, The Loop published the first instalment in an exciting new blog series, 🌈 Gendering Democracy, exploring the gendered face of democratic backsliding. The series was spearheaded by two longstanding members of ECPR's Gender and Politics Standing Group: Conny Roggeband (UvA) and Andrea Kriszán (CEU).

Since the editors’ inaugural blog piece, the Loop has published more than 30 path-breaking instalments under the 🌈 banner, which, at the time of writing, have chalked up an impressive 25,000 readers.

Contributions tackle topics as varied as Why male MPs still get it all and how Indigenous women are defending democracy in the Amazon rainforest. The series has attracted contributions from a stellar line-up of gender scholars, including Jennifer Piscopo, Emanuela Lombardo and Elin Bjarnegård.

Having established Gendering Democracy as a thriving conversational thread, Conny and Andrea felt the time was right to hand the reins to a fresh team. The Loop is therefore delighted to welcome Paloma Caravantes González, Laura Eigenmann and Francesca Feo into the fold!

Paloma Caravantes González

Autonomous University of Madrid

Laura Eigenman

Freie Universität Berlin

Francesca Feo

Universitetet i Bergen

A new direction

Paloma, Laura and Francesca are keen to receive pitches to the series from scholars working in the gender and politics field, and in particular from fellow ECPR Standing Group members. They welcome approaches from established or early career political scientists, and they are keen to publish contributions from colleagues in the Global South.

In particular, they seek contributions examining:

• How power relations determined by the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability shape the quality, inclusiveness, and boundaries of democratic institutions, participation, and rights.
• How sexist, racist, anti-LGBTQI+ and exclusionary politics contribute to democratic decline and the rise of authoritarian or anti-democratic systems.
• How feminist, queer, and intersectional activism and everyday acts of resistance can broaden and expand democratic imaginaries.
• How looking at gender and sexuality politics through global, historical, and cross-disciplinary lenses helps us better understand how power and identity shape political life.

Why blog?

The accessible, shorter format of a blog piece, with its swift turnaround time, can get your research noticed beyond the academy. It’s also a great way to drive readers to the academic research from which your blog piece derives, driving up formal citations. If you research in this field, the new 🌈 Gendering Democracy team would love to hear your blog ideas! Pitch your proposal via the online portal below – please select ‘Gendering Democracy’ from the drop-down menu.

The Loop editorial team extends its heartfelt thanks to Conny and Andrea for working hard to get this important series off the ground, and for commissioning such varied and innovative contributions.

Keywords: Democracy, Gender