Gender and Politics Research: The Evolution of a New Strand in Italian Political Science between Delays and Accelerations

Abstract

The study of gender and politics has emerged as one of the most dynamic subfields in contemporary political science. Over the past three decades, research exploring the relationship between gender and politics has permeated the discipline, introducing a gender perspective in the majority of its subfields, ranging from public policy to comparative politics, and from international relations to political communication. In the Italian context, while sustained academic engagement with this field has emerged only in the last ten years, the literature has grown significantly in both scope and visibility. This contribution aims to trace the development of gender and politics within Italian political science by offering a historical overview of its key contributions and mapping the main lines of research currently pursued by Italian scholars.