The unquestioned power relationships of two french democratization policies. parity and participation

Abstract

Two main policies of despecialization have been implemented in the french political system: participatory democracy and parity. To understand political specialization and despecialization it is necessary to go beyond the classical sex-race-class intersectional tryptic. One should take into account other social divisions structured around social resources like political, cultural and social capitals. This article argues that to be useful in studying political (de)specialization, intersectionality needs to be enriched by sociological theory of forms of capital. Indeed, social divisions structured around forms of capital are particularly relevant to understand the social selections of political electives and that of ordinary citizens in participatory devices.