At the time of post-crisis austerity policies, the rise of nationalisms, conservatism and populist right parties in Europe, political analysis is in special need to connect theory and practice and to adopt broader approaches to the study of politics to make sense of these developments, their effects and significance. Gender analyses, by linking theory and practice in order to assess inequalities and strive for social transformation, are particularly apt to do political analysis. Yet, they contain their own limitations that we are interested in in this paper. Applying gender to political analysis involves scrutinizing power, agency, polity, politics, and policy from different gender perspectives. By assessing the different ways of doing gender and political analysis – that range from focusing on women and men; to analysing gender; to doing intersectionality; and to adopting post-structural and new materialist approaches – we will explore the contributions and the limitations of each approach. This allows us to explore where feminist theoretical debates currently are, assess old and new developments, and absences in the debate. Our twofold argument is that dominant approaches in political science influence the emergence and marginalization of particular gender approaches to political analysis, but also feminist theorizing in gender and politics, in striving for recognition within mainstream political science, reproduces its own hegemonies and marginalizations.
