IPW Lecture with Wendy Brown (Princeton University)
Gender and Politics
Mission statement
Why are more women now voting for radical right parties? Why have Trans and LGBTIQ+ rights become so contested in recent years? How do class and race deepen inequalities in politics, particularly for women of migrant backgrounds? How does militarization contribute to the rise of femi(ni)cide and gender-based violence? And can we think of feminism as a global movement?
These are some of the timely questions addressed in the research area Gender & Politics, which examines political conflicts, institutions, actors, norms, processes, and affects from a gender perspective. The focus lies on understanding how gender, sexuality, race, and class structure politics and society – and how these categories and inequalities are themselves shaped by political and social transformations.
Research and teaching in the area Gender & Politics are grounded in feminist, queer, post- and decolonial, materialist, and intersectional perspectives. Topics include right-wing populism and anti-gender backlash, feminist theories of the state, feminist welfare state research, the politics of care, social movements and activism, queer and feminist subjectivities, and affective politics. These issues are explored using qualitative methods such as ethnography, interviews, archival research, and discourse analysis, in national and transnational contexts.
Gender & Politics enhances the University of Vienna’s political science profile by making gender analysis a central pillar of research and teaching. It contributes to the department’s global reputation, informs public debate, and equips students to engage critically with the most pressing political and societal challenges of our time.