"Not in my Parliament". Violence and gender in the German Bundestag from an intersectional perspective

• Applicants: Dr. Dorothee Beck; Professorin Dr. Annette Henninger; Professorin Dr. Antje Röder
• Subject Area: Political Science ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 507688504

In 2018, the UN reported that violence against women in politics is a global problem that has not been investigated sufficiently. In two exploratory international studies commissioned by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), female politicians were interviewed on this issue. Between 81.8% (psychological violence) and 21.8% (sexual harassment) of the respondents had experienced violence personally. Younger women and representatives of ethnic minorities were affected in particular. Parliamentary staff also appear to be at considerable risk. The project "'Not in my Parliament'. Violence and gender in the German Bundestag from an intersectional perspective" gathers empirical data about this form of violence in Germany for the first time. The overarching question is: What implications and effects does gender-based personal violence in parliaments have for the political participation of elected representatives and how can this be reflected in democratic theory? We assume that violence not only threatens the affected politicians’ health or lives, but also their political agency. Thus, it also has an impact on democracy itself. Our field of research will be the German Bundestag. In contrast to other studies, we do not only investigate violence against women. Rather, we focus on the importance and meaning of gender for personalized violence, thus also rendering non-heterosexual orientations as well as non-hegemonic masculinities, trans-persons, and non-binary genders visible. Furthermore, we do not only examine sexualized violence, but also physical and psychological violence. The project adopts an intersectional perspective. According to existing evidence, politicians with a migration background also bear a higher risk of being affected by violence. Furthermore, we include age, class, physical or mental impediments and physical appearance. We want to interview members of parliament as well as their staff, and address incidences of violence in the real world as well as online. We plan a mixed-methods design consisting of a quantitative online survey of all members of parliament, and their staff, qualitative interviews with a sample selected based on theoretical considerations, and a qualitative content analysis of online violence. The project is innovative both empirically and theoretically. It will be the first study internationally on this topic with a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative research design. By combining a broader understanding of gender and systematically applying an intersectional perspective, it develops an analytical framing of gender-based violence against politicians as a question of democracy theory. Above all, this relates to the question of how personalized violence in the political field can be contained in such a way that democratic discourse is not curtailed by explicit or implicit power and violence relations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants