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 postdoc you will study the following research question: How does voter identification among young people influence expectations and evaluations of political masculinities?

Design

To test how the identification of young voters (18-34) influences their evaluations and expectations of political masculinities claimed by male politicians, this subproject will develop a factorial survey with embedded vignette experiments. The factorial design allows to measure participants’ normative judgements and beliefs based on descriptions that mirror real-life hegemonic and subordinate political masculinities. The countries under study are: Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.

You will start with developing testable hypotheses. The questionnaire and the experiment will be designed in collaboration with the Horizon-funded MEN4DEM project, and in particular with Prof. Vera Lomazzi (University of Bergamo). The data collection will be carried out by a reputable bureau with access to panels of voters as diverse as possible. The survey with the embedded experiments will take around 15 minutes to complete and will be carried out online.

In each country 1.500 participants will be surveyed, 6.000 respondents in total. To test how identification influences the evaluation political masculinities the bureau will be asked to recruit a representative sample of the 18-34 national populations based on the characteristics of sex , geographical region and educational level. This subproject includes young women to understand how their expectation and evaluation of political masculinities differs from those of young men.

Using standardized questions the survey will collect a range of data pertaining to participants' demographics (e.g. socio-economic status), voting patterns, identification (e.g. gender, race, sexuality). secureness about their identification (e.g. insecurity about masculinity), and gender norms. The research participants will be randomly assigned different vignettes to test their expectations and evaluations. The first vignette will consist of pictures of different hypothetical male politicians (e.g. white, racially minoritized, very masculine, very feminine) – and combinations thereof. The second and the third vignettes will test voters’ evaluations of indirect and direct claims of masculinities that hypothetical politicians make in speeches. The first vignettes will apply between-person design, the second and third a within-person design. Participants will rate, among others, the extent to which they would support and trust a candidate as MP. This will show how identification and political ideology influence what kind of masculinities young voters value and why.