Race, gender and inclusiveness within political science: a content analysis of authors' impact on themes and methods within the journal European Political Science

Previous studies within the political science field have demonstrated that female authors are more likely than male authors to focus on themes like marginalization and to use qualitative methods. Building upon these studies, this thesis aims to map the inclusivity within the political science field further, using the central theme, the scientific method, and the selected respondents of articles as indicators of inclusive political science. Within this study, these indicators are connected to the race and gender of the authors. Authors of color and female authors were expected to focus in a greater extent on marginalization than their counterparts, as a result of their own experiences with marginalization and their choice of mentors. Furthermore, these authors were expected to use qualitative methods more often, based on the effects of socialization and stereotype threat. A quantitative content analysis, using 557 articles from the journal European Political Science, confirmed that authors of color and female authors were more likely to focus on themes like marginalization in their studies and that this relationship weakens over time. Additionally, female authors were more likely to use a qualitative method in their articles than male authors. This implicates that by increasing the share of authors of color and female authors, the inclusivity of political science as a whole will be strengthened, for the themes and methods of research will be more inclusive as well. Further implications of these findings for the inclusivity within the particular journal and the general political science field are discussed.