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DFG Research Project: 'Not in my Parliament'

Violence and Gender in the German Bundestag from an intersectional perspective

In the political field, harassment of female politicians and parliamentary staff is increasingly recognized as a problem, as shown by the #NotInMyParliament campaign initiated in 2018 by the Presidential Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and a report for the UN General Assembly. To date, however, this has not been systematically studied. There is also a lack of comparable studies on male politicians.

Based on an analysis of violence and gender in the German Bundestag, the research project aims to contribute to closing this research gap, but rather than assuming a pre-determined allocation of harassment regarding a specific gender, this project concerns itself with the analysis of physical, sexual and psychological personal violence against any gender. Especially considering, violence has no gender. In this project, vulnerability and vulnerability power are considered anthropological constants. However, the understanding and legitimacy of violence are socially, normatively, and thus historically-culturally constituted and therefore gendered by reference to cultural meanings and attributions of masculinity and femininity. Thus, vulnerability and power to violate are structurally unequally distributed along the hierarchical gender order.

The overarching goal of the project is to systematically investigate violence in political institutions using a quantitative and qualitative mix of methods and to reflect on the implications for democratic theory. This includes assessing the prevalence of violence against members of the German Bundestag as well as their staff, the parliamentary groups’ staff and the Bundestag’s administrative staff. This also comprises socio-structural and political content-related characteristics of those affected, identifying focal points and manifestations of the phenomenon, analyzing perceptions and reactions, and discussing consequences for political participation and democratic negotiation processes.

The project covers three partial analyses:

• An online survey in the 20th parliamentary term. The target groups were all MPs, their staff in Berlin and in the constituency, employees of the parliamentary groups and groups and employees of the Bundestag administration.
• Qualitative interviews with these target groups
• A cross-platform analysis of the extent of incivility and violence in comments on the social media accounts of a selected group of MPs.

Online Survey

Interview Study

Social Media Analysis

Finalization of the project

Project Duration: 2023 – 2027
Project Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Contact: nimp@staff.uni-marburg.de