Gender and Political Science: Lessons from the French Case
Résumé
In this paper I present some of the arguments put forward with my colleague, Laure Bereni, in the introduction of the dictionary we edited, Dictionnaire Genre et science politique: Concepts, objets, problèmes, concerning the links between gender and political science (Achin and Bereni, 2013).With this book we aimed to offer a practical and accessible guide for the studies on gender and politics and to further the integration of gender studies in the discipline of political science. We sought to demonstrate how a gender approach challenges and breathes new life into the main issues of political science and to summarize in 40 entries related developments in terms of knowledge, findings, innovative research, and new tools. The book also provides an extensive bibliography, comprising mostly books and articles written in French or English. The 40 entries reflect different areas of political science in France: political sociology, public policies, political theory, and international relations. They map some canonical concepts and objects of the discipline (democracy, political parties, institutions, representation…) but also some topics and concepts drawn up by gender specialists or re-addressed from a gender perspective (feminism, care, intersectionality, body, globalization, and so on). The articles were written by French-speaking specialists on these issues, mostly from the field of political science, but also from history, philosophy, and sociology. We asked for contributions from a diverse range of authors who have developed various approaches but share a critical concept of gender. In the different articles, gender is considered as a category for critical analysis and as a power relationship constructed, relational, and embedded in other social power relationships.I will first review the main factors that may explain the strong and long resistance of political science to gender studies in France. I will then highlight the structural conditions that have allowed a relative recognition of this approach in the last 15 years. Finally, I will set out what the gender perspective has done to political science (and vice versa) and all that remains to be done.