Interregnum Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Literally “between reigns,” interregnum refers to the time when England was kingless after the regicide of Charles I in 1649 and before the restoration of Charles II in 1660. This period is known as the commonwealth period after the English Civil War (1642–1651), when the Puritans sought to establish a godly republic under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell and the force of the New Model Army. Parliament declared the monarchy abolished—there was no king and no House of Lords. The first republican government—the Rump Parliament, a unicameral body—lasted only four years (1649– 1653) when Oliver Cromwell established a protectorate (1654–1658) to be succeeded by his son, Richard Cromwell (1658–1659). In 1660, Charles II took the throne and ended the interregnum by restoring the monarchy, House of Lords, and episcopacy to England.

The political theory of the interregnum was English republicanism, a combination of classical republicanism, natural law theory, and ancient constitutionalism. Several political works of English republicanism were published, such as Marchamont Nedham’s The Case of the Commonwealth of England Stated (1650), Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651), John Milton’s A Defence of the People of England (1651), and James Harrington’s Oceana (1656). Freedom of worship was granted to Presbyterians, Independents, Quakers, and Baptists. The Church of England lost ecclesiastical control as the principles of liberty of conscience, universal toleration, and egalitarianism, which had been advocated by the Levellers during civil war radicalism, were implemented by the Puritans, both Presbyterians and Independents. Parliamentary sovereignty as representative constitutionalism, civic and moral virtue among the people, and individual natural rights were core principles of English republicanism.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is an approach to research that emphasizes the significance of intersecting social categories. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class are categories of difference that can serve as identities but are also social structures associated with status hierarchies. Intersectional research focuses on ways that these categories of difference, and their related social structures such as racism or sexism, interact to reproduce social inequalities. Intersectionality also refers to a normative theory, claiming that meaningful understandings of social phenomenon require a consideration of the ways that multiple social categories and structures interact with each other.

While gender studies research commonly focuses on sexism to explain social inequality and race studies research typically concentrates on racism, intersectional research is explicitly interdisciplinary, focusing on the ways that social institutions such as racism and sexism interact. Intersectional theory can be used to combat the tendency for researchers to explain social inequality by looking at one factor only, such as race, gender, or class. Explaining what goes on at the interstices of social categories and social institutions such as racism and sexism is a central goal of intersectional research. The concept of intersectionality is central to the work of many interdisciplinary researchers.

Intersectionality is often characterized as a code word for research on women of color, but intersectionality theorists point out that class, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, age, sexual orientation, marital status, and disability—in addition to gender and race—are all categories of difference that interact with each other in varying and multiple ways. The intersections of these categories of difference have been described as axes of disadvantage or axes of structural inequality.

Philomena Essed’s concept of gendered racism is an example of intersectional work. Essed uses the phrase “gendered racism” to explain how women in racial minority groups often experience the interaction of racism and sexism as more than just racism plus sexism. Gendered racism describes the gender-specific ways that racism often manifests itself, creating and reinforcing race and gender-specific stereotypes. In the United States, the welfare queen stereotype, for example, applies not to African American people in general nor to all women but specifically to African American single mothers. More traditional research that focuses on only race and racism, or sex and sexism, would miss this important interaction.

Intersectionality has been developed primarily by race and gender scholars since the 1980s and early 1990s. Intersectional approaches are more commonly found in gender studies, race studies, and sociological research, but political science researchers are increasingly utilizing intersectionality. Political theorists such as Ange-Marie Hancock and Wendy Smooth have considered the value of, and implications of, an intersectional approach in political science research.

Bibliography:

Bedolla, Lisa Garcia, and Becki Scola. “Finding Intersection: Race, Class and Gender in the 2003 California Recall Vote.” Politics and Gender 2, no. 1 (2006): 5–27.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–1299.
Essed, Philomena. Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Theory. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1991.
Hancock, Ange-Marie. “When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm.” Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 1 (2007): 63–79.
Hooks, Bell. Talking Back:Thinking Feminist,Thinking Black. Boston: South End, 1989.
Smooth,Wendy. “Intersectionality in Electoral Politics: A Mess Worth Making.” Politics and Gender 2, no. 3 (2006): 400–414.
Weldon, S. Laurel. “The Structure of Intersectionality: A Comparative Politics of Gender.” Politics and Gender 2, no. 2 (2006): 235–248.

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