The Political Interests of Gender Revisited

"In the last two decades," J nasd ttir and Jones write in their introduction to this important new anthology, "two trends have characterized approaches to the concept of gender in political studies... one strategically centering gender in social and political analysis and the other deconstructing gender." Tensions between these trends led to an impasse in feminist theory, generating a "crisis in how to think about what we can do about gender, identity, or representation in the ethical/political sense." This unique collection of theoretical and empirical research on gender and politics pushes past this impasse. Investigating different institutional structures and discourses, contributors illustrate how to bridge the gap between discursive (post-structuralist, semiotic, philosophical) and socio-materialist accounts of gender relations and politics. Structured around three conceptual guideposts --politics, interests, and gender --the book demonstrates the continued relevance of these concepts in the context of a theoretical and material landscape in flux. Offering fresh models for theoretical and empirical research, the book sheds light on key concepts through case studies on human rights, women's movements, gendered labor markets, international monetary policy, equality policy, and queer politics.