Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as
ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
,
race,
nationality
Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
In international law, n ...
,
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
,
denomination,
gender
Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...
,
social background,
political affiliation
Political identity is a form of social Identity (social science), identity marking membership of certain groups that share a common struggle for a certain form of power. This can include identification with a political party, but also positions o ...
,
caste
A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
,
age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone has been alive or something has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older
...
,
education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
,
disability
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, d ...
,
opinion
An opinion is a judgement, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are true statements.
Definition
A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal ...
,
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...
, and
social class
A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...
. The term encompasses various often-
populist
Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...
political phenomena and rhetoric, such as governmental migration policies that regulate mobility and opportunity based on identities, left-wing agendas involving
intersectional politics
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
or
class reductionism, and right-wing nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic "others."
The term ''identity politics'' dates to the late twentieth century, although it had precursors in the writings of individuals such as
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft ( , ; 27 April 175910 September 1797) was an English writer and philosopher best known for her advocacy of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional ...
and
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
.
Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an
intersectional perspective, which they argue accounts for a range of interacting systems of oppression that may affect a person's life and originate from their various identities. To these advocates, identity politics helps center the experiences of those they view as facing systemic oppression so that society can better understand the interplay of different forms of demographic-based oppression and ensure that no one group is disproportionately affected by political actions. Contemporary identity
labels
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product. Labels are most often affixed to packaging and containers using an adhesive, or sewing when affixed to ...
—such as people of specific race, ethnicity, sex,
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...
, age, economic class, disability status, education, religion, language, profession, political party, veteran status, recovery status, or geographic location—are not mutually exclusive but are, in many cases, compounded into one when describing hyper-specific groups. An example is that of
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...
women
A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl.
Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...
, who can constitute a particular hyper-specific identity class.
Criticism of identity politics often comes from either the
center-right
Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...
or the
far-left
Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...
on the political spectrum. Many
socialists
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...
,
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state w ...
and
Marxists
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and ...
have criticized identity politics for its divisive nature, claiming that it forms identities that can undermine their goals of
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...
unity and
class struggle
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
.
On the other hand, many conservative
think tank
A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
s and
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Interactive media, media that is inter ...
outlets have criticized identity politics for other reasons, such as that it is inherently
collectivist
In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...
and prejudicial. Center-right critics of identity politics have seen it as
particularist, in contrast to the
universalism
Universalism is the philosophical and theological concept within Christianity that some ideas have universal application or applicability.
A belief in one fundamental truth is another important tenet in universalism. The living truth is se ...
espoused by many
liberal politics, or argue that it detracts attention from non-identity based structures of oppression and exploitation.
A leftist critique of identity politics, such as that of
Nancy Fraser
Nancy Fraser (; born May 20, 1947) is an American philosopher, critical theorist, feminist, and the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science and professor of philosophy at The New School in New York City.Jadžić, Milo ...
, argues that political mobilization based on identitarian affirmation leads to surface redistribution—that is, a redistribution within existing structures and relations of
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stat ...
that does not challenge the status quo. Instead, Fraser argued, identitarian deconstruction, rather than affirmation, is more conducive to leftist goals of economic redistribution. Similarly, Marxist academics such as Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, writing for
Dialectical Anthropology
''Dialectical Anthropology'' is a Marxist peer-reviewed academic journal of anthropology published by Springer Science+Business Media. It was established in 1975 by Stanley Diamond (The New School). Following Diamond's death in 1991, Donald Nonin ...
, argue that because the term "''identity politics''" is defined differently based on a given author's or activist's ideological position, it is analytically imprecise. The same authors argue in another article that identity politics often leads to reproduction and
reification of
essentialist notions of identity, which they view as inherently erroneous.
Terminology
The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' traces the phrase "identity politics" to 1973.
Mark Mazower writes of the late 20th century: "In general, political activism increasingly revolved ... around issues of
'identity.' At some point in the 1970s this term was borrowed from
social psychology
Social psychology is the methodical study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field ...
and applied with abandon to societies, nations and groups."
During the late 1970s, increasing numbers of women—namely Jewish women, women of color, and lesbians—criticized the assumption of a common "woman's experience" irrespective of unique differences in race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and culture.
The term ''identity politics'' was (re-)coined by the
Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, an ...
in 1977. The collective group of women saw identity politics as an analysis that introduced opportunity for Black women to be actively involved in politics, while simultaneously acting as a tool to authenticate Black women's personal experiences. In the ensuing decades, the term has been employed in myriad cases with different connotations dependent on context.
It subsequently gained currency with the emergence of
social activism
Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...
, manifesting in various dialogues within the
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
, American
civil-rights, and
LGBT
LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...
movements, as well as within multiple
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
and
postcolonial
Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...
organizations.
[
In academic usage, the term ''identity politics'' refers to a wide range of political activities and theoretical analyses rooted in experiences of injustice shared by different, often excluded social groups. In this context, identity politics aims to reclaim greater ]self-determination
Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage.
Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...
and political freedom for marginalized peoples through understanding particular paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm ( ) is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word ''paradigm'' is Ancient ...
s and lifestyle factors, and challenging externally-imposed characterizations and limitations, instead of organizing solely around ''status quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...
'' belief-systems or traditional party-affiliations. ''Identity'' is used "as a tool to frame political claims, promote political ideologies, or stimulate and orient social and political action, usually in a larger context of inequality or injustice and with the aim of asserting group distinctiveness and belonging and gaining power
Power may refer to:
Common meanings
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power, a type of energy
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
Math ...
and recognition."[
]
History
The term ''identity politics'' may have been used in political discourse since at least the 1970s. The first known written appearance of the term is found in the April 1977 statement of the Black feminist
Black feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism. Black feminism philosophy centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently va ...
socialist
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
group, Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, an ...
, which was originally printed in 1979's ''Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism'', later in ''Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology,'' edited by Barbara Smith
Barbara Smith (born November 16, 1946) is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, ...
, a founding member of the Collective, who have been credited with coining the term. In their terminal statement, they said:
Identity politics, as a mode of categorizing, are closely connected to the ascription that some social groups are oppressed (such as women, ethnic minorities
The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...
, and sexual minorities
Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) comprise individuals whose sexual identity, sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or gender identity differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Sexual minorities include lesbians, gay men, bisexual peo ...
); that is, the idea that individuals belonging to those groups are, by virtue of their identity, more vulnerable to forms of oppression such as cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism (also cultural colonialism) comprises the culture, cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" describes practices in which a country engages culture (language, tradition, ritual, politics, economics) to creat ...
, violence
Violence is characterized as the use of physical force by humans to cause harm to other living beings, or property, such as pain, injury, disablement, death, damage and destruction. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence a ...
, exploitation of labour
Exploitation is a concept defined as, in its broadest sense, one agent taking unfair advantage of another agent. When applying this to labour (or labor), it denotes an unjust social relationship based on an asymmetry of power or unequal exchange ...
, marginalization
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...
, or subjugation. Therefore, these lines of social difference can be seen as ways to gain empowerment or avenues through which to work towards a more equal society. In the United States, identity politics is usually ascribed to these oppressed minority groups who are fighting discrimination. In Canada and Spain, identity politics has been used to describe separatist
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
movements; in Africa, Asia, and eastern Europe, it has described violent nationalist and ethnic conflicts. Overall, in Europe, identity politics are exclusionary and based on the idea that the silent majority
The silent majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. The term was popularized by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a televised address on November 3, 1969, in which he said, "A ...
needs to be protected from globalization
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
and immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...
.
During the 1980s, the politics of identity became very prominent and it was also linked to a new wave of social movement activism. Social movement
A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...
s have a significant influence on the law through statutory and constitutional evolution according to William Eskridge
William Nichol Eskridge Jr. (born October 27, 1951) is an American legal scholar who is the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. He is one of the most cited law professors in America, ranking fourth overall for the period ...
.
By race or ethnicity
In the United States
Racial identity politics dominated American politics in the 19th century, during the Second Party System
The Second Party System was the Political parties in the United States, political party system operating in the United States from about 1828 to early 1854, after the First Party System ended. The system was characterized by rapidly rising leve ...
(1830s–1850s) as well as the Third Party System
The Third Party System was a period in the history of political parties in the United States from the 1850s until the 1890s, which featured profound developments in issues of American nationalism, modernization, and race. This period was marke ...
(1850s–1890s). Racial identity has been the central theme in Southern politics since slavery was abolished.
Similar patterns which have appeared in the 21st century are commonly referenced in popular culture, and are increasingly analyzed in media and social commentary as an interconnected part of politics and society. Both a majority and minority group phenomenon, racial identity politics can develop as a reaction to the historical legacy of race-based oppression of a people as well as a general group identity issue, as "racial identity politics utilizes racial consciousness or the group's collective memory
Collective memory is the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collect ...
and experiences as the essential framework for interpreting the actions and interests of all other social groups."
Carol M. Swain has argued that non-white ethnic pride and an "emphasis on racial identity politics" is fomenting the rise of white nationalism
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a Race (human categorization), raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara ...
. Anthropologist Michael Messner has suggested that the Million Man March
The Million Man March was a large gathering of African-American men in Washington, D.C., on Monday, October 16, 1995. Called by Louis Farrakhan, it was held on and around the National Mall. The National African American Leadership Summit, a ...
was an example of racial identity politics in the United States.
Arab identity politics
Arab identity politics concerns the form of identity-based politics which is derived from the racial or ethnocultural consciousness of the Arabs
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
. In the regionalism of the Arab world
The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
and the Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
, it has a particular meaning in relation to the national and cultural identities of the citizens of non-Arab countries, such as Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
and Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
. In their 2010 ''Being Arab: Arabism and the Politics of Recognition'', academics Christopher Wise and Paul James challenged the view that, in the post-Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
and Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
invasion era, Arab identity-driven politics were ending. Refuting the view that had "drawn many analysts to conclude that the era of Arab identity politics has passed", Wise and James examined its development as a viable alternative to Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Qut ...
in the Arab world.
According to Marc Lynch
Marc Lynch is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, where he is also director of both the Institute for Middle East Studies and the Middle East Studies Program.
Lynch is also a non-resident s ...
, the post-Arab Spring
The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
era has seen increasing Arab identity politics, which is "marked by state-state rivalries as well as state-society conflicts". Lynch believes this is creating a new Arab Cold War
The Arab Cold War ( ''al-ḥarb al-`arabiyyah al-bāridah'') was a political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s and a part of the wider Cold War. It is generally accepted that the beginning of the Arab Cold War is ...
, no longer characterized by Sunni-Shia sectarian divides but by a reemergent Arab identity
Arab identity () is the objective or subjective state of Identity (social science), perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other Cultural identity, cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional linea ...
in the region. Najla Said
Najla Said (; born 4 April 1974) is an American author, actress, playwright, and activist. Said's literary and academic work addresses racism, stereotyping, social and economic inequality, with a particular focus on the challenges that face immi ...
has explored her lifelong experience with Arab identity politics in her book ''Looking for Palestine''.
Asian-American identity politics
In the political realm of the United States, according to Jane Junn and Natalie Masuoka, the possibilities which exist for an Asian American vote are built upon the assumption that those Americans who are broadly categorized as Asians share a sense of racial identity, and this group consciousness has political consequences. However, the belief in the existence of a monolithic Asian American bloc has been challenged because populations are diverse in terms of national origin and language—no one group is predominant—and scholars suggest that these many diverse groups favor groups which share their distinctive national origin over any belief in the existence of a pan-ethnic racial identity. According to the 2000 Census, more than six national origin groups are classified collectively as Asian American, and these include: Chinese (23%), Filipino (18%), Asian Indian (17%), Vietnamese (11%), Korean (11%), and Japanese (8%), along with an "other Asian" category (12%). In addition, the definitions which are applied to racial categories in the United States are uniquely American constructs that Asian American immigrants may not adhere to upon entry to the United States.
Junn and Masuoka find that in comparison to blacks, the Asian American identity is more latent, and racial group consciousness is more susceptible to the surrounding context.
Black and Black feminist identity politics
Black feminist identity politics are the identity-based politics derived from the lived experiences of struggles and oppression faced by Black women.
In 1977, the Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, an ...
(CRC) argued that Black women struggled with facing their oppression due to the sexism present within the Civil Rights Movement and the racism present within second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred ...
. The CRC coined the term "identity politics", and in their opinion, naming the unique struggle and oppression Black women faced, aided Black women in the U.S. within radical movements and at large. The term "identity politics", in the opinion of those within the CRC, gave Black women a tool, from which they could use to confront the oppression they were facing. The CRC also claimed to expand upon the prior feminist adage that "the personal is political," pointing to their own consciousness-raising sessions, centering of Black speech, and communal sharing of experiences of oppression as practices that expanded the phrase's scope. As mentioned earlier K. Crenshaw, claimed that the oppression of Black women is illustrated in two different directions: race and sex.
In 1988, Deborah K. King coined the term multiple jeopardy, theory that expands on how factors of oppression are all interconnected. King suggested that the identities of gender, class, and race each have an individual prejudicial connotation, which has an incremental effect on the inequity of which one experiences.
In 1991, Nancie Caraway explained from a white feminist perspective that the politics of Black women had to be comprehended by broader feminist movements in the understanding that the different forms of oppression that Black women face (via race and gender) are interconnected, presenting a compound of oppression (Intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
).
A contemporary example of Black identity politics is # BlackLivesMatter which began with a hashtag. In 2013, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi created the hashtag in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman
George Michael Zimmerman (born October 5, 1983) is an American man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American, in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. On July 13, 2013, he was acquitted of second-degree murder in '' F ...
, the man who killed Trayvon Martin
Trayvon Benjamin Martin (February 5, 1995 – February 26, 2012) was a 17-year-old African-American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was killing of Trayvon Martin, fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic an ...
in 2012. Michael Brown and Eric Garner
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man, was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, after the latter put him in a prohibited chokehold while a ...
were killed by police in 2014, which propelled the # BlackLivesMatter movement forward, first nationally, and then globally. The intention of # BlackLivesMatter was to create more widespread awareness of the way law enforcement engages with the black community and individuals, including claims of excessive force and issues with accountability within law enforcement agencies. The hashtag and proceeding movement garnered a lot of attention from all sides of the political sphere. A counter movement formed the hashtag, # AllLivesMatter, in response to # BlackLivesMatter.
White identity politics
In 1998, political scientists Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg predicted that, by the late 20th-century, a "Euro-American radical right" would promote a trans-national white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
identity politics, which would invoke populist grievance narratives and encourage hostility against non-white peoples and multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''Pluralism (political theory), ethnic'' or cultura ...
. In the United States, mainstream news has identified Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
's presidency as a signal of increasing and widespread utilization of white identity politics within the Republican Party and political landscape. Journalists Michael Scherer and David Smith have reported on its development since the mid-2010s.
Ron Brownstein believed that President Trump uses "White Identity Politics" to bolster his base and that this would ultimately limit his ability to reach out to non-White American
White Americans (sometimes also called Caucasian Americans) are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the United States Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as " person having ...
voters for the 2020 United States presidential election
United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and California junior senator Kamala H ...
. A four-year Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
and Ipsos
Ipsos Group S.A. (; derived from the Latin expression, ) is a multinational market research and consulting firm with headquarters in Paris, France. The company was founded in 1975 by Didier Truchot, Chairman of the company, and has been publ ...
analysis concurred that "Trump's brand of white identity politics may be less effective in the 2020 election campaign." Alternatively, examining the same poll, David Smith has written that "Trump’s embrace of white identity politics may work to his advantage" in 2020. During the Democratic primaries, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( ; born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former naval officer who served as the 19th United States Secretary of Transportation, United States secretary of transportation from 2021 to 2025. A me ...
publicly warned that the president and his administration were using white identity politics, which he said was the most divisive form of identity politics. Columnist Reihan Salam
Reihan Morshed Salam (; born December 29, 1979) is an American conservative political commentator, columnist and author who, since 2019, has been president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He was previously executive editor of ...
writes that he is not convinced that Trump uses "white identity politics" given the fact that he still has significant support from liberal and moderate Republicans—who are more favorable toward immigration and the legalization of undocumented immigrants—but believes that it could become a bigger issue as whites become a minority and assert their rights like other minority groups. Salam also states that an increase in "white identity" politics is far from certain given the very high rates of intermarriage and the historical example of the once Anglo-Protestant cultural majority embracing a more inclusive white cultural majority which included Jews, Italians, Poles, Arabs, and Irish. undue weight? – discuss'']
A contemporary example of "White identity politics" is the right-wing group Proud Boys
The Proud Boys is an American far-right politics, far-right, Neo-fascism, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence and militancy: ...
. Proud Boys
The Proud Boys is an American far-right politics, far-right, Neo-fascism, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence and militancy: ...
was formed by Gavin McInnes
Gavin Miles McInnes (; born 17 July 1970) is a Canadian writer, podcaster, far-right commentator and founder of the Proud Boys. He is the host of '' Get Off My Lawn with Gavin McInnes'' on his website, Compound Censored. He co-founded ''Vic ...
in 2016. Members are males who identify as right-wing conservatives. They take part in political protests with the most infamous being January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, which became violent and led to the arrest of their leader, Henry "Enrique" Tarrio and many others. Proud Boys
The Proud Boys is an American far-right politics, far-right, Neo-fascism, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence and militancy: ...
identify as supporters of Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
for President and are outspoken supporters of Americans having unfettered access to firearms by way of the 2nd amendment of the US constitution, having expressed the belief that gun law reform is a “sinister authoritarian plot” to disarm law abiding citizens. According to an article published by Southern Poverty Law Group, Proud Boys
The Proud Boys is an American far-right politics, far-right, Neo-fascism, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence and militancy: ...
members are regularly affiliated with white nationalist extremists and are known for sharing white nationalist content across social media platforms.
Another contemporary example is the hashtag movement # AllLivesMatter. # AllLivesMatter began as a counter narrative to # BlackLivesMatter. People who identify with this countermovement use this hashtag to represent what they call “anti-identity” identity politics, which is supposed to symbolize a movement against racial identities, but they've been criticized as being a white nationalist movement. Created, adopted and circulated beginning in 2016, # WhiteLivesMatter exalted themselves as an anti-racist movement, while identifying # BlackLivesMatter as the opposite.
Columnist Ross Douthat
Ross Gregory Douthat ( ; born November 28, 1979) is a conservative American author and ''New York Times'' columnist. He was a senior editor of '' The Atlantic''. He has written on religion, politics, and society.
Early life and education
Ross Gr ...
has argued that white identity politics have been important to American politics since the Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
-era of the Republican Party. Historian Nell Irvin Painter
Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin; August 2, 1942) is an American historian notable for her works on United States Southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University as the Edwards Professor of Amer ...
has analyzed Eric Kaufmann
Eric Peter Kaufmann (born 11 May 1970) is a Canadians, Canadian professor of politics at the University of Buckingham. He was appointed in October 2023, following his resignation from his post at Birkbeck, University of London, after two decades ...
's thesis that the phenomenon of white identity politics is caused by immigration-derived racial diversity
Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...
, which reduces the white majority, and an "anti-majority adversary culture". Writing in '' Vox'', political commentator Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein (born May 9, 1984) is an American American liberalism, liberal political commentator and journalist. He is currently a ''The New York Times, New York Times'' columnist and the host of ''The Ezra Klein Show'' podcast. He is a co-founde ...
believes that demographic change has fueled the emergence of white identity politics.
Viet Thanh Nguyen says that "to have no identity at all is the privilege of whiteness, which is the identity that pretends not to have an identity, that denies how it is tied to capitalism, to race, and to war".
Hispanic/Latino identity politics
According to Leonie Huddy, Lilliana Mason, and S. Nechama Horwitz, the majority of Latinos in the United States identity with the Democratic Party. Latinos' Democratic proclivities can be explained by: ideological policy preferences and an expressive identity based on the defense of Latino identity and status, with a strong support for the latter explanation hinged on an analysis of the 2012 Latino Immigrant National Election Study and American National Election Study focused on Latino immigrants and citizens respectively. When perceiving pervasive discrimination against Latinos and animosity from the Republican party, a strong partisanship preference further intensified, and in return, increased Latino political campaign engagement.
Indian politics
In India, caste, religion, tribe, ethnicity play a role in electoral politics, government jobs and affirmative actions, development projects.
Māori identity politics
Due to somewhat competing tribe-based versus pan-Māori concepts, there is both an internal and external utilization of Māori identity politics in New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. Projected outwards, Māori identity politics has been a disrupting force in the politics of New Zealand
The politics of New Zealand () function within a framework of an Independence of New Zealand, independent, unitary state, unitary, parliamentary democracy. The system of government is based on the Westminster system, and the legal system is ...
and post-colonial conceptions of nationhood. Its development has also been explored as causing parallel ethnic identity developments in non-Māori populations. Academic Alison Jones, in her co-written ''Tuai: A Traveller in Two Worlds'', suggests that a form of Māori identity politics, directly oppositional to Pākehā
''Pākehā'' (or ''Pakeha''; ; ) is a Māori language, Māori-language word used in English, particularly in New Zealand. It generally means a non-Polynesians, Polynesian New Zealanders, New Zealander or more specifically a European New Zeala ...
(white New Zealanders), has helped provide a "basis for internal collaboration and a politics of strength".
A 2009, Ministry of Social Development journal identified Māori identity politics, and societal reactions to it, as the most prominent factor behind significant changes in self-identification from the 2006 New Zealand census.
By religion
Muslim identity politics
Since the 1970s, the interaction of religion and politics has been associated with the rise of Islamist movements in the Middle East. Salwa Ismail posits that the Muslim identity is related to social dimensions such as gender, class, and lifestyles (Intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
), thus, different Muslims occupy different social positions in relation to the processes of globalization. Not all uniformly engage in the construction of Muslim identity, and they do not all apply to a monolithic Muslim identity.
The construction of British Muslim identity politics is marked with Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...
; Jonathan Brit suggests that political hostility toward the Muslim "other" and the reification of an overarching identity that obscures and denies cross-cutting collective identities or existential individuality are charges made against an assertive Muslim identity politics in Britain. In addition, because Muslim identity politics is seen as internally/externally divisive and therefore counterproductive, as well as the result of manipulation by religious conservatives and local/national politicians, the progressive policies of the anti-racist left have been outflanked. Brit sees the segmentation that divided British Muslims amongst themselves and with the anti-racist alliance in Britain as a consequence of patriarchal, conservative mosque-centered leadership.
A ''Le Monde
(; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...
''/ IFOP poll in January 2011 conducted in France and Germany found that a majority felt Muslims are "scattered improperly"; an analyst for ''IFOP'' said the results indicated something "beyond linking immigration with security or immigration with unemployment, to linking Islam with a threat to identity".
Christian identity politics
By gender
Gender identity politics is an approach that views politics, both in practice and as an academic discipline, as having a gendered nature and that gender is an identity that influences how people think. Politics has become increasingly gender political as formal structures and informal 'rules of the game' have become gendered. How institutions affect men and women differently are starting to be analysed in more depth as gender will affect institutional innovation.
Women's identity politics
A key element of studying electoral behavior in all democracies is political partisanship. In 1996, Eric Plutzer and John F. Zipp examined the election of 1992 election, also commonly referred to as "Year of the Woman
The Year of the Woman was a popular label attached to 1992 after the election of a number of female senators in the United States. The term has also been used with respect to the 2018 House elections, in which a record 103 women were electe ...
", where a then-record- breaking fourteen women ran for governor or U.S. senator, four of whom were successfully elected into office. In analyzing the possibility that male and female voters react differently to the opportunity to cast a vote for a woman, the study provided lent support to the idea that women tend to vote for women and men tend to vote against them. For example, among Republican voters in California, Barbara Boxer
Barbara Sue Boxer (née Levy; born November 11, 1940) is a retired American politician, lobbyist, and former reporter who served in the United States Senate, representing California from 1993 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United St ...
ran 10 points behind Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
among men and about even among women, while Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Emiel Feinstein (; June 22, 1933 – September 29, 2023) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from California from 1992 until her death in 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the 38th ...
ran about 6 points among men but 11 points ahead among women. This gender effect was further amplified for Democratic female candidates who were rated as feminist. These results demonstrate that gender identity has and can function as a cue for voting behavior.
Scholars of social movements and democratic theorists disagree on whether identity politics weaken women's social movements and undermine their influence on public policy or have reverse effects. S. Laurel Weldon argues that when marginalized groups organize around an intersectional social location, knowledge about the social group is generated, feelings of affiliation between group members are strengthened, and the movement's agenda becomes more representative. Specifically for the United States, Weldon suggests that organizing women by race strengthens these movements and improves government responsiveness to both violence against women of color and women in general.
Masculinism
By sexual orientation
LGBT
By the early-1960s, lesbian
A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...
, gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...
, bisexual
Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
, and transgender
A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth.
The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...
people in the United States were forming more visible communities, and this was reflected in the political strategies of American homophile
Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been '' sodomite'', '' Sapphic'', '' Uranian or Urning'', '' homop ...
groups. Frank Kameny
Franklin Edward Kameny (May 21, 1925 – October 11, 2011) was an American gay rights activist. He has been referred to as "one of the most significant figures" in the American gay rights movement.
During the Lavender scare, in 1957, Kame ...
, an American astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
and gay rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Not ...
activist, had co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961. While the society did not take much political activism to the streets at first, Kameny and several members attended the 1963 March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (commonly known as the March on Washington or the Great March on Washington) was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rig ...
, where having seen the methods used by Black civil rights activists
Civil may refer to:
*Civility, orderly behavior and politeness
*Civic virtue, the cultivation of habits important for the success of a society
*Civil (journalism)
''The Colorado Sun'' is an online news outlet based in Denver, Colorado. It lau ...
, they then applied them to the homophile movement. Kameny had also been inspired by the black power movements slogan "Black is Beautiful
Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko ...
", coining his own term "Gay is Good".
The gay liberation
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoff ...
movement of the late-1960s urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action
Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a governm ...
, and to counter societal shame with gay pride
In the context of LGBTQ culture, pride (also known as LGBTQ pride, LGBTQIA pride, LGBT pride, queer pride, gay pride, or gay and lesbian pride) is the promotion of the rights, self-affirmation, dignity, Social equality, equality, and increas ...
. In the feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...
to family, friends and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
By the mid-1970s, an "ethnic model of identity" had surpassed the popularity of both the homophile movement and gay liberation. Proponents operated through a sexual minority
Sexual and gender minorities (SGM) comprise individuals whose sexual identity, sexual orientation, sexual behavior, or gender identity differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Sexual minorities include lesbians, gay men, bisexual peo ...
framework and advocated either reformism
Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution.
Within the socialist movement, ref ...
or separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
(notably lesbian separatism
Feminist separatism or separatist feminism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's sex segregation from men.Christine Skelton, Becky Francis, ''Feminism and the Schooling Scandal'', Taylor & Francis, ...
).
While the 1970s were the peak of "gay liberation" in New York City and other urban areas in the United States, "gay liberation" was the term still used instead of "gay pride" in more oppressive areas into the mid-1980s, with some organizations opting for the more inclusive "lesbian and gay liberation". Women and transgender activists had lobbied for more inclusive names from the beginning of the movement, but the initialism
An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps wi ...
LGBT
LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...
, or "queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...
" as a counterculture shorthand for LGBT, did not gain much acceptance as an umbrella term until much later in the 1980s, and in some areas not until the '90s or even '00s. During this period in the United States, identity politics were largely seen in these communities in the definitions espoused by writers such as self-identified, "black, dyke, feminist, poet, mother" Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde ( ; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, Intersectional feminism, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Bl ...
's view, that lived experience matters, defines us, and is the only thing that grants authority to speak on these topics; that, "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."[Kemp, Yakini B. (2004). "Writing Power: Identity Complexities and the Exotic Erotic in Audre Lorde's writing". ''Studies in the Literary Imagination''. 37: 22–36.][Leonard, Keith D. (28 September 2012)]
""Which Me Will Survive": Rethinking Identity, Reclaiming Audre Lorde"
. ''Callaloo''. 35 (3): 758–77. . .
Straight
Debates and criticism
The term ''identity politics'' has been applied retroactively to varying movements that long predate its coinage. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his 1991 book '' The Disuniting of America''. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
, argues that a liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...
requires a common basis for culture and society to function. Rather than seeing civil society as already fractured along lines of power and powerlessness (according to race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.), Schlesinger suggests that basing politics on group marginalization is itself what fractures the civil polity, and that identity politics therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that "movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than … perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference."
Similarly in the United Kingdom, author Owen Jones
Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a left-wing British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist, author and political activist.
He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'', ''Tribune (magazine), Tribune ...
argues that identity politics often marginalize the working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
, saying:
Some supporters of identity politics take stances based on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (; born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative ...
's work (namely, "Can the Subaltern Speak?") and have described some forms of identity politics as strategic essentialism, a form which has sought to work with hegemonic
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global.
In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' ...
discourses to reform the understanding of "universal" goals.[G. Ritze/J. M. Ryan eds., ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology'' (2010) p. 193] Others point out the erroneous logic and the ultimate dangers of reproducing strong identitarian divisions inherent in essentialism. For queer theorist Paul B. Preciado, "movements for the emancipation of subaltern minorities (racial, gender and sexual, etc.) ended up crystallizing into identity politics. Without having dismantled the regimes of racial, sexual or gender oppression, identity politics have ended up renaturalizing and even intensifying the differences."
Anies Baswedan
Anies Rasyid Baswedan (, born 7 May 1969) is an Indonesian academic, activist, and politician who served as the Governor of Jakarta from 2017 to 2022. A student activist and political analyst before entering public service, he served as the Recto ...
, who has been doing identity politics in Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
since 2017, referred to it as unavoidable because every candidate competing in a political contest will always have an identity as their nature. During his 2024 Presidential Candidate, he added that identity politics is a form of support and conveying the aspirations of society that should not be met with concern.
"Divide and rule" critique
Critics argue that groups based on a particular shared identity (e.g. race, or gender identity) can divert energy and attention from more fundamental issues, similar to the history of divide and rule
The term divide and conquer in politics refers to an entity gaining and maintaining political power by using divisive measures. This includes the exploitation of existing divisions within a political group by its political opponents, and also ...
strategies.
In response to the formulations of the Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, an ...
that necessitated the organization of women around intersectional identities to bring about broader social change, socialist and radical feminists insisted that, instead, activism would require support for addressing more "basic" forms of oppression. Other feminists also mirrored this sentiment, implying that a politics of issues should supersede a politics of identity. Tarrow also asserts that identity politics can produce insular, sectarian, and divisive movements incapable of expanding membership, broadening appeals, and negotiating with prospective allies. In other words, separate organization undermines movement identity, distracts activists from important issues, and prevents the creation of a common agenda.
Classical liberal critique
According to Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan David Haidt (; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. Haidt's main areas of study are the psyc ...
, those who criticize identity politics from the right see it as inherently collectivist
In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, struct ...
and prejudicial
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that perso ...
, in contradiction to the ideals of classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited governmen ...
.
Jordan Peterson
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. He received widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. Often described as Conservatism, conservativ ...
has criticized identity politics and argues that it is practiced on both sides of the political divide: " e left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relativ ...
plays them on behalf of the oppressed, let's say, and the right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...
tends to play them on behalf of nationalism
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
and ethnic pride". He considers both equally dangerous, saying that what should be emphasized, instead, is individual focus and personal responsibility.
Socialist critique
Those who criticize identity politics from the left, such as Marxists
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and ...
and Marxist–Leninists, see identity politics as a version of bourgeois nationalism
In Marxist theory, bourgeois nationalism is the ideology of the ruling capitalist class which aims to overcome class antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie by appealing to national unity. It is seen as a distraction from engaging in class ...
, i.e. as a divide and conquer
The term divide and conquer in politics refers to an entity gaining and maintaining political power by using divisive measures. This includes the exploitation of existing divisions within a political group by its political opponents, and also ...
strategy
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...
by the ruling class
In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society.
In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the class who own the means of production in a given society and apply ...
es to divide people by nationality
Nationality is the legal status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
In international law, n ...
, race, ethnicity
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...
, religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
, etc. so as to distract the working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
from uniting for the purpose of class struggle
In political science, the term class conflict, class struggle, or class war refers to the economic antagonism and political tension that exist among social classes because of clashing interests, competition for limited resources, and inequali ...
and proletarian revolution
A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialist ...
.
Sociologist Charles Derber
Charles Derber is an American academic, author and political activist. He is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. His work focuses on capitalism, globalization, corporate power and oligarchy, populism, authoritarianism and democracy, milita ...
asserts that the American left is "largely an identity-politics party" and that it "offers no broad critique of the political economy of capitalism. It focuses on reforms for blacks and women and so forth. But it doesn't offer a contextual analysis within capitalism." Both he and David North of the Socialist Equality Party posit that these fragmented and isolated identity movements which permeate the left have allowed for a far-right resurgence. Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual. West was an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election and is an ou ...
asserted that discourse on racial, gender and sexual orientation identity was "crucial" and "indispensable", but emphasized that it "must be connected to a moral integrity and deep political solidarity that hones in on a financialized form of predatory capitalism. A capitalism that is killing the planet, poor people, working people here and abroad." Historian Gary Gerstle
Gary Gerstle (born 1954) is an American historian and the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.
Early life and education
Gerstle received his BA from Brown University ...
writes that identity politics and multiculturalism thrived in the neoliberal
Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...
era precisely because these movements did not threaten capital accumulation
Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form ...
, and over the same period "pressure on capitalist elites and their supporters to compromise with the working class was vanishing." The ideological space to oppose capitalism shrank with the fall of communism
The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...
, forcing the left to "redefine their radicalism in alternative terms".
Critiques of identity politics have also been expressed by writers such as Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. His best-known works include his tetralogy about what he called the "long 19th century" (''Th ...
, Todd Gitlin
Todd Alan Gitlin (January 6, 1943 – February 5, 2022) was an American sociologist, political activist and writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He wrote about the mass media, politics, intellectual life, and the arts for both popular an ...
, Adolph Reed, Michael Tomasky
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960) is an American columnist, progressive commentator, and author. He is the editor of ''The New Republic'' and editor in chief of ''Democracy''. He has been a special correspondent for ''Newsweek'', '' Th ...
, Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher, historian of ideas, and public intellectual. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, Rorty's academic career included appointments as the Stu ...
, Michael Parenti
Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is ...
, Jodi Dean
Jodi Dean (born 1962) is an American political theorist and professor in the Political Science department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state. She held the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professorship of the Humanities and Social Scie ...
, Sean Wilentz
Robert Sean Wilentz (; born February 20, 1951) is an American historian who serves as the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. His primary research interests include U.S. ...
, Gabriel Rockhill and philosopher Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual.
He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...
. Hobsbawm, as a Marxist, criticized nationalisms and the principle of national self-determination adopted in many countries after 1919, since in his view national governments are often merely an expression of a ruling class or power, and their proliferation was a source of the wars of the 20th century. Hence, Hobsbawm argues that identity politics, such as queer nationalism
Queer nationalism is a phenomenon related both to the gay and lesbian liberation movement and nationalism. Adherents of this movement support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs.
Q ...
, Islamism
Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism ...
, Cornish nationalism
Cornish nationalism is a cultural movement, cultural, political movement, political and social movement that seeks the recognition of Cornwall – the South West Peninsula, south-westernmost part of the island of Great Britain – as a nation ...
or Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Unionism in Ireland, Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland (and formerly all of I ...
are just other versions of bourgeois nationalism
In Marxist theory, bourgeois nationalism is the ideology of the ruling capitalist class which aims to overcome class antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie by appealing to national unity. It is seen as a distraction from engaging in class ...
. The view that identity politics (rooted in challenging racism, sexism, and the like) obscures class inequality is widespread in the United States and other Western nations. This framing ignores how class-based politics are identity politics themselves, according to Jeff Sparrow. Marc James Léger has noted that the cross-class alliances that are proposed by identity movements have ideological affinity with not only nationalism but the political right and that moreover, the micro-political emphasis on difference and lifestyle associates identity politics with the petty-bourgeois concerns of the professional-managerial class.
Considering the effectiveness of identity politics for achieving social justice, Kurzwelly raised four main points of critique: .an argument for identity politics and strategic essentialism ould be r example, claims that because racism is real, and that people keep perceiving social race as real (despite scientific rejection of biological races), may justify using racial and other racialising categories to correct social injustices based upon them. Yet, there are several arguments against such a stance: (1) Social essentialism is inherently erroneous so seeking to address social injustices using essentialist thinking perpetuates that error and risks unforeseen consequence
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences, more colloquially called knock-on effects) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was po ...
s (even if motivated by good intentions ... (2) Addressing injustices through using essentialist identity categories assumes that people are necessarily underprivileged primarily because of their identity. Even if, in specific contexts, experiences of oppression and exploitation statistically correlate with identity, using identity categories is an imprecise and indirect strategy for addressing their exploitation and oppression. Rather than using fixed identity categories as variables for social justice, one could take account of contextual relative positionality, or use processual variables, both of which would be more precise in assessing relative privilege and capability to seek justice and access rights. (3) Seeking to address injustices on the basis of identities sometimes forces people to adopt and perform an unwanted identity, and to comply with normative expectations about its contents. For example, ..gender-specific legislation in Argentina forced gender-non-conforming persons to choose between seeking justice and expressing their identity. Similarly, a shift from justice based on fixed categories to justice based on processes might offer a solution. (4) Overall, using essentialist identities in struggles for justice and political change—the strategy of identity politics—stands in an uneasy tension with a politics that prioritises redistribution of means of production and seeks sustained change in economic relations ..
Intersectional critique
In her journal article ''Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color,'' Kimberlé Crenshaw
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (born May 5, 1959) is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues.
Cr ...
treats identity politics as a process that brings people together based on a shared aspect of their identity. Crenshaw applauds identity politics for bringing African Americans (and other non-white people), gays and lesbians, and other oppressed groups together in community and progress. But she critiques it because "it frequently conflates or ignores intragroup differences." Crenshaw argues that for Black women, at least two aspects of their identity are the subject of oppression: their race and their sex. Thus, although identity politics are useful, we must be aware of the role of intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
. Nira Yuval-Davis supports Crenshaw's critiques in ''Intersectionality and Feminist Politics'' and explains that "Identities are individual and collective narratives that answer the question 'who am/are I/we?"
In ''Mapping the Margins'', Crenshaw illustrates her point using the Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served since 1991 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. President George H. W. Bush nominated him to succeed Thurgood Marshall. Afte ...
/ Anita Hill controversy. Anita Hill accused US Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment; Thomas would be the second African American judge on the Supreme Court. Crenshaw argues that Hill was then deemed anti-Black in the movement against racism, and although she came forward on the feminist issue of sexual harassment, she was excluded because when considering feminism, it is the narrative of white middle-class women that prevails. Crenshaw concludes that acknowledging intersecting categories when groups unite on the basis of identity politics is better than ignoring categories altogether.
Queer critique
In postmodernist
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
analyses, labels
A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product. Labels are most often affixed to packaging and containers using an adhesive, or sewing when affixed to ...
are a form of regulation, and any activism based on them increases their regulatory power over subordinate groups. Consequently, "identity politics appears to be narrow, political, state-centered activism that fails to adequately address the cultural bases of power." This view responds to the emergence of queer politics in the late 1980s, exemplified by the group Queer Nation
Queer Nation is an LGBTQ activist organization founded in March 1990 in New York City, by HIV/AIDS Activism, activists from AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of Violence against LGBT peopl ...
. Scholars have identified queer politics as the opposite of identity politics, aiming to unite diverse marginalized groups and transcend traditional categories.
Writers in the field of queer theory
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...
have at times argued that ''queer'', despite generations of specific use to describe a "non-heterosexual" sexual orientation, no longer needs to refer to any specific sexual orientation at all; that it is now only about "disrupting the mainstream", with author David M. Halperin arguing that straight people may now also self-identify as "queer". However, many LGBT people believe this concept of "queer heterosexuality
Queer heterosexuality is the heterosexual practice or identity that is also controversially called queer. "Queer heterosexuality" is argued to consist of heterosexual, cisgender, and allosexual persons who show nontraditional gender expression ...
" is an oxymoron and offensive form of cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or cultural identity, identity by members of another culture or identity in a manner perceived as inappropriate or unacknowledged. Such a controversy typically ari ...
which not only robs gays and lesbians of their identities, but makes invisible and irrelevant the actual, lived experience of oppression that causes them to be marginalized in the first place. "It desexualizes identity, when the issue is precisely about a sexual identity."[ Jagose, Annamarie, 1996. ''Queer Theory: An Introduction''. New York: New York University Press.]
Criticism of identity politics also appears in contemporary queer activism. The insurrectionary anarchist network Bash Back!
Bash Back! was a network of queer, Insurrectionary anarchism, insurrectionary anarchist cells active in the United States between 2007 and 2011.
Formed in Chicago in 2007 to facilitate a convergence of radical trans and gay activists from arou ...
, for example, understood identity politics as being fundamentally reformist and based on a fallacy
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. The term was introduced in the Western intellectual tradition by the Aristotelian '' De Sophisti ...
of coherent communities.
Representation in modern democracies
One of the major challenges in providing quality representation within all modern democracies comes from the many different ways in conceptualizing representation. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, in her seminal study ''The Concept of Representation'', identifies four forms: descriptive, substantive, formalistic, and symbolic representation.
Formalistic representation
Formalistic representation focuses on the formal procedures of institutions and has two dimensions: authorization and accountability. Authorization looks at the means by which a representative obtains their position in office. Accountability centers around the ability of constituents to ''punish'' representatives for failing to act according to their wishes or the ''responsiveness'' of the representative to the constituents.
Symbolic representation
Symbolic representation involves constituents' perception of their representatives, including the represented's feelings of being fairly and effectively represented. Work on symbolic representation by scholars of race and ethnic politics indicate that marginalized group's presence cues the legitimacy of both outcomes and procedure. A study by Nancy Scherer and Brett Curry was concerned with the question if racial diversity on the federal bench impact citizens' views of the U.S. courts. They found that African-Americans had more trust in the legitimacy of the federal courts as the proportion of African-American judges rose. Another study by Matthew Hayes and Matthew V. Hibbing evaluated that when the level of black representation was below proportional levels, perceptions of fairness and satisfaction decreased (e.g. symbolic representation).
Descriptive representation
''Descriptive representation'' refers to whether officeholders resemble those being represented. It is concerned only with who a representative is, such as their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, etc.
Substantive representation
Substantive representation is defined as having one's policy views expressed by an elected representative, independent of whether the representatives resemble their constituents and their social and demographic
Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration.
Demographic analy ...
identities. There have been studies that examined the substantive benefits of minority groups's representation. In a series of experiments by Amanda Clayton, Diana Z. O'Brien, and Jennifer M. Piscopo, these researchers controlled both the makeup of the decision-making body and the outcome reached. Across all decision outcomes and issue topics, women's equal presence legitimized the decision-making process for respondents. Moreover, gender balance helped improve perceptions of substantive legitimacy when the decision-making body reached an anti-feminist decision. This effect was more pronounced among men, who tend to hold less certain views on women's rights
See also
References
Further reading
*
* Mike Gonzales. 2018. "". The Heritage Foundation.
*
* Christopher T. Stout. 2020.
The Case for Identity Politics: Polarization, Demographic Change, and Racial Appeals
'. University of Virginia Press.
*
External links
at Harvard
*Joan Mandel
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a Public university, public research university in Catonsville, Maryland named after Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County. It had a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 un ...
"A Marxist Critiques Identity Politics"
''Seattle Weekly
The ''Seattle Weekly'' is an alternative biweekly distributed newspaper in Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded by Darrell Oldham and David Brewster as ''The Weekly.'' Its first issue was published on March 31, 1976, and it becam ...
''. 25 April 2017.
"Identity Politics Can Only Get Us So Far"
''Jacobin
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...
''. 3 August 2017.
"Why identity politics benefits the right more than the left"
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. 14 July 2018.
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Human rights
Intersectionality
Majority–minority relations
Political terminology