An Intersectional Theory of Gendered Political Violence Under Sectarian Systems

Abstract

Abstract Political violence against women is often analyzed primarily through gender, leaving underexplored how other systems of domination shape its production and enforcement. This article develops an intersectional feminist institutionalist framework to explain how patriarchal and sectarian formal and informal rules co-produce political violence against women in deeply divided societies. Drawing on Lebanon as a theory-building case study and applying an abductive approach to our empirical data, we argue that such violence is not simply a backlash against women’s political presence, but is core to preserving the sectarian order. We identify three overlapping mechanisms through which political violence against women candidates is enforced by multiple actors, namely family coercion, party- and militia-linked enforcement, and sectarian boundary policing, with all of them mobilizing scripts of honor, purity, loyalty, and communal stability to constrain women’s political agency. Our framework offers broader insights into intersectional political violence across ethnically and religiously divided societies.