Politics is traditionally a man's world. Despite much progress in recent years, most politicians are still men. What knowledge we have about gender and inequality in politics is mainly based on counting women and men. In contrast, we do not well understand the underlying gendered norms about behavior that is considered inappropriate and appropriate: political masculinities. This project’s research reveals how political masculinities change or persist among voters, elected politicians, leaders, and aspirants. The research results will bring much-needed nuance and depth to a currently polarized but ultimately simplistic debate about gendered inequality in politics. As PhD-student you will study the following research question:

Research question

How are political masculinities experienced by openly gay men in representative politics in European member states?

The aim of this project is to reveal how openly gay male elected politicians experience masculinities in their daily work and how this has changed over the course of their political career.  How has this been influenced, in their view, by personal factors, their identification, their political party, their political socialization, and by socio-political transformations?

In a preparatory phase the PhD will make an inventory of existing databases of openly gay male politicians elected in the national, state or provincial parliaments in the EU27 and complement this data by sending inquires to national LGBTQI+ organizations. The PhD will collect relevant publicly available basic background information from gay politicians’ websites (e.g. party, age). Additionally, the PhD will do desk research about the parties that these gay politicians represent, for example about the presence of LGBTIQ+ networks, election of the first openly politician in the party, gender ideological position on LGBTIQ+ rights.

The data collection will start with a first round of organizational ethnography consisting of interviews with chairs of LGBTIQ+ networks of political parties in different European member state regions (north, south, east and west) and different ideologies (e.g. left, social-democratic, Christian-democrat, liberal). These interviews will clarify the institutionalization of masculinities in political parties. The PhD will conduct short-term participant observation within these networks located in four countries (e.g. ‘hanging around’, attending meetings) to gain trust and insight in masculinities' construction within the safe spaces of the LGBTQI+ networks.

Based on this preparatory phase the PhD will develop interview protocols and contact research participants. The aim is to conduct approximately 40-50 interviews—preferably in person—with openly gay male politicians across European regions and party families. The PhD will also conduct elaborate organizational ethnographies of the political spaces of four male gay politicians for the duration of four weeks each. These will add to a deeper understanding of the informal institutionalization of political masculinities and how they relate to the daily experiences of elected gay politicians.