What Does Feminist Political Science Mean and to Which End Do We Do it? Reflections and Combative Visions for the Future

In 2027, Femina Politica celebrates its 30th anniversary. As the only German-language journal for feminist political science, it provides in-depth analyses and commentaries on political science and contemporary political issues from a gender perspective. Marking this anniversary, we reflect in multiple ways on what constitutes feminist political science and highlight the histories, insights, and future visions of feminist political science as an emancipatory and critical scholarly discipline. This seems even more urgent given we are currently witnessing a global increase in the defamation of feminist research, the questioning of human and gender rights, and far-reaching attacks on feminist, queer, and trans politics and lifestyles.

Feminist political science has set out to transform society, politics, and academia. From the very beginning, feminist scholars navigated a complex and contested landscape. On the one hand, feminist political science critically examines and delineates itself from a broader perspective, critiquing science in general and political science in particular, aiming to transform the discipline. On the other hand, it pursues integrating feminist perspectives into the “main-/malestream” and establishing the discipline institutionally within universities. Furthermore, feminist political science faces the challenge of comprehensively grasping its subject matter, thereby repeatedly exploring the boundaries between theory and practice. Controversial questions include, for instance, the latitude institutions and institutionalization offer and to what extent they constrain feminist claims, the relationship between the state as the central political authority and other forms of politics, and the role of civil society, culture, and participation therein.

We invite contributions that engage with the history of feminist political science, its current challenges, and its future. We also conceptualize the planned issue as an intervention against current authoritarian efforts seeking to repress archives of resistant knowledge, solidarity-based knowledge production, and emancipatory narratives.

What defines feminist political science?

This question explores the relationship between feminist political science and other critical sciences and interdisciplinary collaborations. We welcome contributions on theoretical traditions, analytical tools, and methodologies. We also encourage engaging with the diverse feminist political science traditions: What was central in early phases, and how can changes of the past 30 years be captured and situated? What constitutes the core of feminist political science, what has been lost, which forms of knowledge have become hegemonic, and which have been marginalized? How can different theoretical, epistemological, and methodological approaches be productively combined – and what are persisting controversies?

For whom does feminist political science seek to produce knowledge – for mainstream political science, for institutionalized politics, for activists, for social movements?

Which voices are prominentin the canon of feminist political science, and which are missing? How, for instance, do racialized, cis-heteronormative, and capitalist social inequalities manifest themselves (within the discipline)?

Why do we still need feminist political science – especially today?

We invite contributions addressing the challenges of feminist political science in light of its successful institutionalization on the one hand and the increasing attacks on gender studies on the other. How do current antifeminist discourses affect the identity and institutional anchoring of feminist political science? What insights does feminist political science contribute to current crises, topics, and problems such as the climate crisis, militarization, and authoritarianism? How does it deal with the contradictions and simultaneities of being ambivalently embedded in white, cis-heteronormative, ability-centred, capitalist, and masculinist structures in politics and society, and the aspiration to transform, radically overturn, or abolish these structures? (How) Can feminist political science influence state institutions, logics, and structures – and what forms of adaptation and translation are required of feminist political science in this context?

To what extent constitutes feminist political science a counter-space for alternative forms of research and teaching?

Feminist political science has been and continues to be a practical counter-space to male-dominated structures, making research, teaching, and solidarity-based networking more viable. We call for contributions that address these diverse practices of feminist political science in research and teaching. Which practices of self-organization have existed and continue to exist in academia? What was or is indispensable for the success of such counter-spaces What were setbacks, controversies, errors, and ruptures – and which lessons have been learned from them? How can knowledge exchange be achieved in the spirit of an ethics of care, ensuring that neither new knowledge hierarchies are created, nor knowledge is extracted and exploited without co-determination? What do intersectional, solidarity-based networks and support structures within academia look like?

What are future visions of feminist political science?

As global crises of the economy, climate, and democracy intensify, the need for intersectional, interdisciplinary, and transregional feminist responses becomes increasingly urgent. We invite contributions that envision the future and open spaces for utopias in dystopian times. How will a feminist political science of the future look like? Which new perspectives, alliances, and coalitions can and should shape the field in the coming years and decades? We welcome empirical, methodological, and theoretical scholarly contributions covering a broad range of topics and geographical areas. Given that feminist political science also aims to critique power dynamics of hegemonic dichotomies, we particularly encourage contributions from Black Feminism, Queer Studies, Trans Studies, and post- and decolonial studies. Furthermore, and with the aim of producing an anniversary issue that opens up space for reflection, we also welcome submissions in other formats such as essays, interviews, comics, images, poems, and similar contributions.

Abstracts and Contact

The peer-reviewed Special Issue section will be overseen by all Femina Politica editors. Abstracts of one or two pages should be sent to redaktion(at)femina-politica.de by 15 June 2026. Femina Politica perceives itself as an intersectional feminist journal. We promote scholarly work by women and other gender-marginalized people (such as trans*, inter*, non-binary or gender-nonconforming people) both within and outside of academia and invite the submission of high-quality abstracts.

Submission Deadline for Contributions

The Femina Politica editors will select contributions from the abstracts and invite authors to submit full papers until 6 July 2026. The deadline for manuscripts between 35,000 and 40,000 characters (including spaces, notes, and bibliography), prepared for anonymous double-blind review, is 30 September 2026. Information concerning the author should only be given on the title page. All manuscripts are reviewed by external reviewers (double blind) and editors. The reviews will be returned by 15 November 2026. The final selection will be based on the full-length paper. The deadline for the final version is 15 January 2027.

All other contributions such as essays, interviews, comics, images, and poems are exempt from peer review. For these, the usual editorial deadline of 15 January 2027 applies.

Femina Politica

www.femina-politica.de ;

www.budrich-journals.de/index.php/feminapolitica ;

de-de.facebook.com/FeminaPolitica ;

contact: redaktion(at)femina-politica.de 

Call for Papers (PDF)