Previous winners of the EJPG Best Article Award

2022 winner

The 2022 Best Article Award for the European Journal of Politics and Gender has been awarded to Rossella Ciccia and Conny Roggeband for their article “Unpacking intersectional solidarity: dimensions of power in coalitions”, published in EJPG Volume 4, Number 2, June 2021. As a reward, the article has been made open access.

Read the winning article

2022 Award Committee

Dr Lucie Fremlova (Independent Researcher, Lucie Fremlova Consultancy, UK)
Dr Julieta Suarez Cao (Pontifical Catholic University, Chile)
Dr Zein Murib (Fordham University, USA) 

Why did the Committee select this article?

Ciccia and Roggeband present a framework for theorizing and assessing coalitional solidarity as intersectional, an approach that is currently lacking in the literature on coalitional solidarities.  According to the Committee, Ciccia and Roggeband’s article should be commended for their conceptual contribution that is key to the intersection of feminist activism and public policies. The typology they advance highlights the problem of asymmetries of power and provides a roadmap for researchers on how to analyze the extent to which coalitions deliver on their intersectional promise. It will also be useful in teaching intersectionality, as it answers questions students have regarding how to do intersectionality. Overall, this article opens avenues for future research and is especially useful for teaching purposes, presenting as it does a clear set of criteria and explanations for how to approach solidarity in both research and practice.

As editors we would like first to congratulate Dr Rossella Ciccia and Dr Conny Roggeband on receiving the EJPG Best Article Award for 2022. We would also like to thank our Committee Members for their efforts in judging the articles and in so doing, showing their support for gender and sexuality scholarship and of course for the EJPG.

Learn more about the prize winning authors 

Rossella Ciccia is Associate Professor of Social Policy in in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and a Fellow of Green Templeton College. Her research interests lie in field of comparative social policy with a particular focus on issues relating to social inequalities, gender, care and paid work in Europe and Latin America. She is Co-Chair of the ECPR standing group on Gender and Politics and a member of the scientific board of the International Observatory on Social Cohesion and Inclusion. In February 2020, she received the inaugural Emma Goldman award in recognition of the substantial contributions of her research to knowledge on feminist and inequality issues in Europe. 

Conny Roggeband is Associate Professor in public policy and governance. She has written extensively on the politicization of gender-based violence, gender mainstreaming and equality policies, social movements and transnational feminist networking based on research conducted in the Netherlands, Spain and Latin America. She uses gender as a theoretical lens to examine issues of power and authority and how these are embedded in organizational rules, policy routines and practices thus shaping policy outcomes. Conny is an editor of the Dutch Journal of Gender Studies, member of the Editorial Board of Politics and Governance and member of the Advisory Board of Contention: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest. 

2021 winner

2021 Best Article Award for the European Journal of Politics and Gender was awarded to: Lucie Fremlova for her article ‘LGBTIQ Roma and queer intersectionalities: the lived experiences of LGBTIQ Roma’, published in EJPG Volume 3, Number 3, 2020. 

2021 Award Committee
Saskia Glas (Radboud University, Netherlands)
Niels Spierings (Radboud University, Netherlands)
Elizabeth Evans (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

Why did the Committee select this article?

The judges congratulate Dr Lucie Fremlova on the well-deserved award. All judges felt that Dr Fremlova should be commended for gaining the trust of such a hard-to-reach group as the Roma community. The paper includes a plethora of engaging, convincing, and nuanced findings that show both the difficulties and the opportunities LGBTIQ people have in the Roma community. The judges particularly enjoyed the article’s findings on the role of status, and the opportunities being a role model in the community presents to LGBTIQ people. Finally, the judges compliment Dr Fremlova for her clarity and transparency in describing her methods and results, including her own positionality.As editors we would like to congratulate Dr Fremlova on receiving the EJPG Best Article Award for 2021. We would also like to thank our judges for their time and commitment in judging the shortlisted articles and showing their support for gender scholarship and EJPG.

2020 winner

The 2020 Best Article Award for the European Journal of Politics and Gender has been awarded to Saskia Glas and Niels Spierings for their article Support for feminism among highly religious Muslim citizens in the Arab region published in EJPG Volume 2, Number 2, June 2019. As a reward, the article is open access.

Read the winning article.

2020 Award Committee
Petra Ahrens (European Journal of Politics and Gender),Chair
Phillip Ayoub (Occidental College, USA)
Peace Medie (University of Bristol, UK)

Why did the Committee select this article?

Glas and Spierings argue that public opinion studies tend to ‘overlook the diversity in religion–feminism relations’ when studying Middle Eastern and North African countries. Their large-scale latent class analyses on 64,000 Muslims in 51 Middle Eastern and North African contexts examines support for Muslim feminism. The authors show ‘that a substantial one in five Arab Muslims combines high attachment to Islam with support for feminism’.

According to the Committee, Glas and Spiering's article is an important contribution to the feminist literature and has relevance for political and social debates on gender, feminism, and religion in the Arab world. The authors offer a rigorous analysis of support for gender equality among Muslim Arabs specifically. While focusing on variation in attitudes among Arab Muslims, they disaggregate an often-homogenized group and its relation to gender and feminism. The result is important both in terms of theory and for its political implications, in that the authors challenge popular conceptions to show that support for Muslim feminism is far from uncommon.

As editors we would like to first congratulate Saskia and Niels on receiving the EJPG Best Article Award for 2020. We would also like to thank our Committee Members for their efforts in judging the articles and in so doing, showing their support for gender scholarship and of course for the EJPG.

Learn more about the prize winning authors 

Saskia Glas is a political and gender sociologist at Radboud University. Currently, she is finishing up her PhD on support for gender equality and Muslim feminism in the Arab region. All chapters of her dissertation have been published, including in leading journals such as Gender & Society, European Sociological Review, and the European Journal of Politics and Gender. After her defence (on September 2nd 2020), she will continue as a postdoctoral researcher at Radboud University, focusing on support for gender equality among migrants.

Niels Spierings is an associate professor in political and gender sociology, Radboud University. His work focuses on topical issues, where he tries to provide a contextualised and generalised understanding. These topics include populism, Islam, social media, migration, political participation, employment, sexuality and public opinion. Geographically he covers the Netherlands and Europe as well as the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries more generally.

2019 Winner

The inaugural ‘best article’ award for the European Journal of Politics and Gender was awarded to Peace Medie and Alice Kang for their article Power, knowledge and the politics of gender in the Global South, published in EJPG Volume 1, Numbers 1-2, July 2018. As reward, the article is open access.

Read the winning article here. 

2019 Award Committee
Sarah Childs (European Journal of Politics and Gender), Chair
Christina Wolbrecht (University of Notre Dame)
Tony Haastrup (University of Kent)

Why did the Committee select this article?

Medie and Kang contend that ‘scholarship on women, gender and politics does not sufficiently consider the effects of the global order in the Global South’. Their analysis of South-based scholars’ publications in leading women, gender and politics journals finds severe under-representation. The authors call for a decolonization of the scholarship and ‘propose steps to address’ the under-representation.

According to the Committee, Medie and Kang’s article should be applauded for the very powerful statement it makes: it constitutes an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge questioning the dominance of certain voices within the discipline. The research was further commended for being rigorously conceived - merging pragmatism and precedent in determining the research design – and its production of original analysis. This provided an especially clear view of the range and the depth of the problem of under-representation by South-based scholars. Its significant message is importantly not limited to gender and politics scholarship but speaks more broadly to the disciplines of Politics and International Relations. In their prescriptions Medie and Kang were clear-eyed about the causes, and as a result, the possibilities for greater equity

As editors we would like to first congratulate Peace and Alice on receiving the EJPG ‘best article’ Award for 2019.  We would also like to thank our Committee Members for their efforts in judging the articles and in so doing, showing their support for gender scholarship and of course for the EJPG.

Learn more about the prize winning authors 

Peace A. Medie is Senior Lecturer in Gender and International Politics at the University of Bristol. She is writing a book on the domestic implementation of international women's rights norms. Her articles have been published in African Affairs, International Studies Review, and Politics & Gender.

Alice J. Kang is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is author of Bargaining for women’s rights: Activism in an aspiring Muslim democracy (University of Minnesota Press) and articles in Africa Today, Comparative Politics Studies, Politics & Gender, and Perspectives on Politics.