Identity Politics
Author(s): Mary Bernstein
Source: Annual Review of Sociology , 2005, Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 47-74
Published by: Annual Reviews
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Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2005. 31:47-74
doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100054
Copyright (c) 2005 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
First published online as a Review in Advance on February 11, 2005
Identity Politics
Mary Bernstein
Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2068;
email: Mary.Bernstein@uconn.edu
Key Words social movements, collective identity, protest, culture and politics,
activism
? Abstract This review presents an overview of research on identity politics. First,
I distinguish between various approaches to defining identity politics and the chal?
lenges presented by each approach. In the process, I show that these approaches reflect
competing theoretical understandings of the relationship between experience, culture,
identity, politics, and power. These debates raise theoretical issues that I address in the
second section, including (a) how to understand the relationship between personal ex?
perience and political stance, (b) why status identities are understood and/or portrayed
as essentialist or socially constructed, (c) the strategic dilemmas activists face when
the identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppression,
(d) when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and (e) how to link
collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultural and political
goals at which identity politics is aimed. I conclude by recommending some promising
avenues for future research.
INTRODUCTION
The term identity politics is widely used throughout the social sciences and the hu?
manities to describe phenomena as diverse as multiculturalism, the women's move?
ment, civil rights, lesbian and gay movements, separatist movements in Canada
and Spain, and violent ethnic and nationalist conflict in postcolonial Africa and
Asia, as well as in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe. The seeds
of these partially overlapping conversations are apparent from the very first uses
of the term identity politics in the scholarly journals. In 1979, Anspach first used
the term identity politics to refer to activism by people with disabilities to trans?
form both self- and societal conceptions of people with disabilities. Over the next
decade, only three scholarly journal articles employed the term identity politics in
their abstracts, to describe (a) ethnicity as a contemporary form of politics (Ross
1982); (b) a form of critical pedagogy that links social structure with the insights
of poststructuralism regarding the nature of subjectivity, while incorporating a
Marxist commitment to politics (Bromley 1989); and (c) general efforts by status
based movements to foster and explore the cultural identity of members (Connolly
0360-0572/05/0811 -0047$20.00 47
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48 BERNSTEIN
1990). By the mid-1990s, references to identity politics as violent ethnic conflict
(Meznaric 1993), and nationalism more generally (Alund 1995), emerged.
In addition to using the term identity politics to describe any mobilization related
to politics, culture, and identity, scholarly analyses have often elided normativ
political evaluations of identity politics as a political practice with sociological
analyses of the relationship between identity and politics. Brubaker & Cooper
(2000) argue that the literature on identity politics has too many protagonists an
not enough analysts. Lichterman (1999) calls identity politics "a slippery term"
(p. 136), while Bickford (1997) claims that the concept has developed more as a
critique of certain political practices than as a coherent area of study. Fraser (1997
p. 113) concludes that "the expression 'identity polities' is increasingly used as a
derogatory synonym for feminism, anti-racism, and anti-heterosexism."
This review shows that beneath the normative political claims about identity
politics lie competing theoretical ways to understand the relationship between
experience, culture, identity, politics, and power. Although I occasionally referenc
multiculturalism and ethnic/nationalist movements and suggest some benefits t
research that crosses these divides, I focus this review on research that views
identity politics as the activism engaged in by status-based social movements and
do not address those movements based on ethnic/nationalist status.1
In the first section, I examine approaches to defining identity politics as a
distinct political practice, including neo-Marxist and more general works that dis
tinguish identity politics from class politics; new social movement approaches
that differentiate class-based movements from other movements; and postmod
ern/poststructuralist analyses that view identity politics as political activism rathe
than cultural activism. This discussion illustrates that substantial disagreement
exists over what constitutes identity politics, but it also raises a focused set of
research questions that are addressed in the second section. While acknowledgin
the role identity plays in all social movements, I emphasize research that examines
the specific processes that arise when a movement's identity is, to some extent
externally imposed and forms part of the basis for grievances. These studies exam
ine how to understand the relationship between personal experience and political
stance, why status identities are understood and/or portrayed as essentialist or
socially constructed, the strategic dilemmas movement organizers face when th
identities around which a movement is organized are also the basis for oppres?
sion, when to attribute certain movement outcomes to status identities, and ho
to link collective action to specific notions of power to help explain the cultura
and political goals at which identity politics is aimed. Similar processes may oper?
ate when other movement identities become the basis for external categorizatio
1 Owing to space limitations, I cannot do justice to the wealth of literature on ethnic/
nationalist movements, although in the conclusion, I suggest the benefits of comparing
ethnic/nationalist movements with movements organized around other social statuses. For
recent reviews of nationalism and nationalist movements, see Calhoun (1993a), Brubaker
& Laitin (1998), and Olzak (2004).
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IDENTITY POLITICS 49
and are thus relevant for anyone concerned with explaining efforts to alleviate
inequality or with understanding the relationships between identity and politics.
Although the term identity politics itself may not be salvageable as an analytic
concept, the questions raised in this literature deserve more concerted sociolog?
ical attention. I conclude by recommending some promising avenues for future
research.
APPROACHES TO DEFINING IDENTITY POLITICS
Neo-Marxist Approaches to Identity Politics
The approaches to identity politics that I group together in this section are con?
cerned with the macro-level issues regarding what constitutes power and what
are the forces of oppression. Although many of the works discussed here are not
explicitly Marxist or neo-Marxist, and many of the authors themselves would es?
chew this label, these works evoke at least one of two key theoretical assumptions
associated with Marxist and neo-Marxist theory. First, these views rest on a (some?
times implicit) theory of power that views class inequality as the only real source
of exploitation and oppression. Second, many of these works view activists who
want to alleviate economic inequality and to challenge the class structure as the
primary agents of social change. Because of these theoretical assumptions, iden?
tity politics is not seen as a political practice that challenges important relations of
power, but is understood in symbolic, cultural, or psychological terms. As a result,
this literature sometimes makes normative political claims that dismiss the value of
identity politics. Theoretically, these analyses separate culture from institutions,
politics, and the economy, rather than view culture as constitutive, structuring,
and constraining of institutions (Polletta 2002, Swidler 1995, Williams 2004). As
Sewell (1992, p. 3) more generally observes, structure is "thought of as 'hard' or
'material' and therefore as primary and determining, whereas culture is regarded
as 'soft' or 'mental' and therefore as secondary or derived." As a result, these
accounts do not see class as an identity that has a dynamic cultural or psycho?
logical aspect; hence, identity politics is viewed as a distinct political practice in
contradistinction to class politics. Similarly, identities based on social rather than
economic status are not seen as having institutional or economic aspects, and the
intersections between class and status identities are ignored.
identity politics as cultural politics In contrast to the logic of Marxist and
neo-Marxist theory, social movements that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, such
as the civil rights and women's movements, seemed to be more concerned with cul?
ture and identity than with challenging the class structure. With these movements in
mind, Kauffman (1990, p. 67) defined identity politics in cultural terms as express?
ing "the belief that identity itself?its elaboration, expression, or affirmation?is
and should be a fundamental focus of political work;" identity politics politicized
areas of life not previously defined as political, including "sexuality, interpersonal
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50 BERNSTEIN
relations, lifestyle and culture." Kauffman is one of the few in this group who dis
tinguishes between cultural claims related to institutions and structures and effort
geared toward personal expression and self-transformation. While seeing some
merit to the former, Kauffman (1990) dismisses the latter as irrelevant and self
indulgent cultural activism. Most others who view class inequality as the primary
source of exploitation and oppression do not distinguish among different types o
cultural activism. Instead, all claims related to social identities are considered to b
"cultural politics" and are equated with and dismissed as identity politics (Gitlin
1994, 1995).
Identity politics is assumed to be cultural not only because identity is putatively
unrelated to institutional structures and the political economy, but also because
these scholars see identity groups as advocating for recognition of and respect fo
their cultural differences, which derive from their distinct group identities. They
assume that activists organized around status identities understand these identi?
ties with their associated cultures in essentialist rather than socially constructe
terms. Therefore, these scholars are critical of what they view as activists' equating
identity groups with a culture, and they question what forms the basis for that cul?
ture. For example, Brown (1995) argues that marginalization forms the basis for
the culture of identity groups. She contends that advocating for rights based on
marginalized cultural identities will only lead to the increased social regulation o
those groups by dominant groups that control the state. Employing language that
suggests a normative evaluation, Gitlin (1995) claims that "identity politics" on col?
lege campuses is "the recognition of a collective hurt, followed by the mistaking of
group position for a 'culture,' followed by the mistaking of a 'culture' for a politics
(pp. 147-48). Feher (1996) suggests that drawing from identity politics, the politi?
cal right has also adopted a language of victimhood. Macedo (1995) and Spragens
(1999) contend that equating identity groups with a culture is patently false and
potentially dangerous because it could lead to the recognition and validation of, for
example, white racist groups who portray themselves as defending a denigrated
culture.
However, such views rest on untested assumptions about how activists un?
derstand their identities, ignoring relationships among identity, institutions, and
the political economy. Bickford (1997) argues that this danger of a "subjectiv?
ity" rooted in ressentiment does not characterize most of the political uses of
identity, and it ignores feminist theory on identity politics. Philosophers Taylor
(1989), Young (1990), and Kymlicka (1995) illustrate that admitting the socially
constructed nature of group differences does not preclude organizing around the
identities that mark those groups. They acknowledge that cultural differences
among groups are socially constructed, resulting from shared histories of op?
pression. Nonetheless, they contend that these differences create distinct social
groups, which justifies demands for group-differentiated citizenship rights and
challenges to negative representations. Because these identity groups share a his?
tory of oppression, granting them official recognition does not entail also giving
such recognition to antidemocratic groups.
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IDENTITY POLITICS 51
Epstein (1995) argues that identity politics' concern with language and repre?
sentation as well as its challenge to the notion that any one social actor will spark
a historical transformation accounts for its association with postmodernism in the
academy (e.g., Wrong 2003, Bell 2001, Gitlin 1995). Scholarly and nonscholarly
journals as well as the popular press equate identity politics with multiculturalism
and "political correctness" on college campuses (e.g., Hollander 1996, Spragens
1999). Epstein suggests that the term political correctness is used primarily as a
way to attack racial inclusion efforts and curricular reform on campuses, while at
the same time promote a specific set of conservative values. Nonetheless, she con?
tends that identity politics' concern with language and representation tends toward
moralizing, which opens it to derision by critics. Smelser & Alexander (1999) see
this as a debate between "radical multiculturalists," who identify diversity rather
than common values as the highest moral good, and their "traditional values" op?
ponents, who view society as fragmented into multiple identity groups that have
undermined the common cultural fabric of American society. Smelser & Alexander
(1999) argue that this "discourse of discontent," which indicates widespread crisis
and polarization, obscures the integrative processes of institutionalizing diversity
that take place in a variety of institutions and are reflected through daily social
practices. The essays in their collection (Smelser & Alexander 1999) document
how diversity is institutionalized and practiced.
consequences OF identity politics Analysts associate a number of problems
with identity politics. They contend that the essentialism of identity politics pre?
cludes the articulation of a universal vision for social change, such as the New
Left had done, instead making particularistic claims for group-based benefits and
leading to the decline of the left. They claim that because identity groups tend to
splinter into ever more narrow categories, they cannot agree on or sustain anything
but opposition to a common enemy. For example, by targeting white heterosexual
men, identity politics leaves them no space to participate politically, which results
in an unproductive defensiveness. Such politics leads to an inability to form coali?
tions that can agitate for progressive or revolutionary social change (Kauffman
1990; Gitlin 1994, 1995; Harvey 1996; Hobsbawm 1996; Piore 1995).
However, these studies generally do not consider other possible explanations
for these outcomes. Thus, many of the deleterious outcomes associated with iden?
tity politics come from studies that ignore cases in which claiming essentialist
differences is a strategic maneuver made by activists rather than an ontological
position. These studies also ignore cases in which groups may adopt essentialist
perspectives but may nonetheless create a universal vision for social change, form
coalitions, and work with white heterosexual men. Furthermore, these studies often
generalize from a specific case to make claims about all cases of identity politics.
Bickford (1997) argues that achieving commonality does not depend on a trade?
off between commitment to one's group and a commitment to the broader so?
cial good, "but rather on acting together in ways that could create a democratic
commons?one that is plural, egalitarian, and communicative" (p. 124). Ryan
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52 BERNSTEIN
(1997) argues that the crisis over identity politics in the women's movement is
overstated because multicultural organizing efforts often recognize the value of
separate organizing by groups that face racism, sexism, homophobia, classism,
and heterosexism. In short, research on identity politics must consider alternativ
causal explanations for a variety of outcomes and must not take the public claims
of activists at face value.
class politics versus identity politics Although he agrees that identity pol?
itics is psychological in nature, Wrong (2003) sees the contemporary rise of identit
politics as a product of economic well-being and the lack of viable alternatives t
capitalism, whereas Langman (1994) sees it as a misplaced response to rapid social
change resulting from economic dislocation. Both Wrong (2003) and Bell (2001)
suggest that an economic downturn could provoke renewed attention to class-based
politics, which implies that identity politics would decline in the face of "real" is?
sues related to the political economy. For Wrong (2003), the emphasis on diversity
and cultural identities is a new incarnation of a pervasive American search for
community, particularly in the face of popular culture and consumerism. Piore
(1995), by contrast, views identity politics as responding to stigmatization, but,
more importantly, "these new groups have also been fostered by governmental an
business policies designed [to] escape the constraints of existing social structures,
particularly unions" (p. 19). Thus, the claims of identity politics have replaced
collective bargaining and have undermined the trade union movement. Because,
according to Piore (1995), these identity groups are unrelated to economic struc?
tures, they fail to see how the economy constrains the country's ability to meet
the group's demands, such as day care. Once again, claims about the relationship
between identity politics and organizing around social class are simply asserted,
rather than tested empirically. Furthermore, Piore's (1995) examples of issues tar?
geted by identity groups [daycare and health care (p. 27), for example] imply that
some relationship exists between identity groups and the political economy, in
contrast to his own assertions.
Some critics argue that the cultural left (a term often used interchangeably
with identity politics) has decreased the "sadism" (Rorty 1998, p. 83) of sexism,
racism, and homophobia in America. But this view also holds that identity politics
has forsaken issues related to exploitation, class, poverty, and globalization that
exacerbate economic inequality (Bourne 1987, Gitlin 1995, Rorty 1998, Walze
1996). For example, Wolfe & Klausen (1997) argue that identity politics' symbolic
concerns regarding language and representation lead activists to advocate more
open immigration policies to increase the population of a particular ethnic/racia
identity group, which undermines the capacity of the welfare state to provide for its
members. Furthermore, they claim that affirmative action and racial redistricting
inhibit the development of national citizenship by fostering a commitment to the
solidarity of subgroups and are thus antithetical to the health of the welfare state.
Neo-Marxist analyses of identity politics have also been challenged on both
historical and theoretical grounds. These critics reverse the causal arrow and
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IDENTITY POLITICS 53
attribute the emergence of identity politics to failures of the New Left, arguing that
the language of and appeals to commonality by the left are in practice exclusionary.
The left has been unable (or unwilling) to adequately address the inequality asso?
ciated with gender, race, and sexual orientation (Bickford 1997, Lott 1999, Roper
1994, Ryan 2001). For example, Rossinow (1998) examines how conceptions of
whiteness and masculinity animated the New Left, and precluded an analysis of
inequality that included race and gender. He also argues that state policies led to the
New Left's decline. In this view, identity politics is not responsible for fragmenting
and hardening the boundaries between groups. Rather, as Rossinow (1998) argues,
there are continuities between the quest for authenticity by the New Left and the
search for self in identity politics (see also Boggs 1995).
Neo-Marxist approaches to identity politics can also be criticized for challeng?
ing the separation of culture from class and the political economy. For example,
signifiers of class have an interactional reality that may be just as constructed as
status identities and that class manifests in cultural expression (Bourdieu 1984,
Calhoun 1993b, Aronowitz 1992). Similarly, sex, race, and other status identities
not only have cultural dimensions and meanings but also are linked to concrete
material and structural locations (Fraser 1997, Naples 2003). Feminist philosopher
Fraser (1997) maintains that the division between a cultural politics of recogni?
tion and a social politics of justice and equality, on which discussions of identity
politics rest, ignores the interrelatedness of socioeconomic injustice rooted in so?
ciety's political-economic structure and cultural or symbolic injustice rooted in so?
cial patterns of representation, interpretation, and communication. She argues that
both race and gender constitute "bivalent" collectivities?that is, groups affected
by both the political economy and the cultural-valuational structure of society.
For example, race structures the division of labor between low-paid menial labor
and domestic work on the one hand and professional-managerial jobs dispropor?
tionately held by whites on the other. Thus, capitalist exploitation takes place in
gender- and race-specific ways. Yet, Eurocentrism also devalues people of color,
and racist stereotypes persist independently of the political economy, although the
two types of injustice reinforce each other dialectically. She suggests that redis
tributive remedies generally necessitate some sort of recognition of groups whom
the redistribution will affect and that maintaining nonexclusionary identities would
require shifts in the political economy.
These debates raise a number of important theoretical issues, including: How
should oppression that is not related to social class be conceptualized? What is the
causal role of identity in determining a variety of movement outcomes, such as the
ability to form coalitions or the decline of the New Left? In what ways is identity
a part of all social movements?
The New Social Movement Approach to Identity Politics
New social movement (NSM) theory moves beyond the parameters of Marxist
frameworks to understand the variety of social movements that emerged in the
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54 BERNSTEIN
1960s and 1970s that were not ostensibly organized around social class. Althoug
NSM theory does not employ the language of identity politics [even if some NSM
theorists refer to it as an "identity-oriented" paradigm (e.g., Touraine 1981)], it
represents the first concerted theoretical effort to understand the role of identity i
social movements, and it ultimately provoked the more rationalist strands of socia
movement theory, resource mobilization, and political process theory, to attend t
issues of identity and culture. Like social movement theory more generally, NS
theory attempted to explain mobilization?that is, why and when people act. By
taking this approach, NSM theory displaced the assumption that activism based o
anything other than class was epiphenomena or psychologically rooted, raising th
possibility of alternative causal explanations for identity politics. NSM theory both
challenges and affirms the idea that identity politics is a distinct political practice
Whereas Marxist and neo-Marxist frameworks distinguish class politics an
oppression from other possible sources of politics and oppression, NSM theory
distinguishes class-based movements, especially past labor and socialist move
ments, from contemporary movements organized on the basis of ideology and
values, such as the peace, environmental, youth, and antinuclear movements, as
well as movements organized around status (Melucci 1985, 1989; see review i
Johnston et al. 1994). NSM theory views these movements as historically ne
forms of collective action resulting from the macrostructural changes of modern?
ization (Melucci 1989) and a shift to a postindustrial society (Touraine 1981 ). Thes
macrostructural changes produced postmaterial values concerned with achieving
democracy rather than with economic survival (Inglehart 1981, 1990). Thus, new
social movements were viewed as efforts to regain control over decisions and ar?
eas of life increasingly subject to state control, to resist the colonization of the
lifeworld, and to transform civil society (Habermas 1985, Cohen 1985, Melucci
1989). NSM theory views these movements as efforts to "fight to expand free?
dom, not to achieve it; they mobilize for choice rather than emancipation," and
focus primarily on expressing identity (Cerulo 1997, p. 393) to seek "recogni?
tion for new identities and lifestyles" (Polletta & Jasper 2001, p. 286). NSM
are said to advocate direct democracy, employ disruptive tactics, and enact the
democratic organizational forms they seek to achieve (Pichardo 1997). Accord?
ing to Melucci (1996), NSMs challenge dominant normative and cultural codes,
and identity politics in particular evokes the question of how difference is dealt
with in a given society. Thus, NSM theory identifies a broader purpose for iden
tity politics and does not dismiss it for being "merely" cultural, symbolic, or
psychological.
However, NSM theory continues to separate identity and culture from the polit?
ical economy. For example, Duyvendak & Giugni (1995) and Duyvendak (1995
argue that movements such as the lesbian and gay movement are internally oriente
and follow an "identity" logic of action, so that their goals are realized in their
expressive actions, which are aimed simply at reproducing the identity on whic
the movement is based.
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IDENTITY POLITICS 55
NSM theory has been criticized for ignoring conservative social movements that
could also be considered NSMs (Pichardo 1997) because of these movements' con?
cern with identity, culture, and values. Thus, NSM theory edges into normative
political evaluations of identity politics. For example, Touraine (1998) makes an
ontological distinction between identity politics and NSMs. He does not regard
movements such as the women's and lesbian movements as identity politics be?
cause they have radical and inclusive tendencies and have themselves criticized
identity politics. In contrast, he does consider conservative social movements as
identity politics because they respond to economic globalization and the decline
of a national culture (Touraine 1998, p. 131) by forming movements based in eth?
nicity, religion, or nationalism, such as political Islamism or Serbian nationalism.
In these cases, the new movement is divorced from both social and economic prac?
tices, so cultural values become resources that strengthen communities and "harden
communalist policies" (Touraine 1998, p. 136). Thus, for Touraine, identity pol?
itics involves movements that have exclusive tendencies, rather than movements
that are organized around a variety of status identities that may alternate between
exclusivity and inclusivity. In this way, Touraine does not account for why some
status-based movements are exclusive and others inclusive and how these orien?
tations may change over time, but rather defines identity politics once again in a
normative political fashion.
The validity of the two primary historical and comparative claims on which
NSM theory rests?that such movements are a product of postindustrial society
and that they differ in fundamental ways from past labor and socialist movements?
has been called into question (Calhoun 1993b, Pichardo 1997, Polletta & Jasper
2001, Young 2002). NSM theorists are left the task of finding alternative causal
explanations for the emergence of these movements and of reconsidering the
distinction between political and cultural movements (Polletta & Jasper 2001).
Despite these limits, by underscoring the similarity between movements orga?
nized on the basis of status identities and those organized around values and
ideology, NSM theory challenges the view that identity politics is a dis?
tinct political practice and provides a broader conceptualization of identity
politics.
Darnovsky et al. (1995b, p. xiv-xv) argue that the most important questions
regarding identity politics are not addressed by NSM theory: "Why has culture
become a major focus of movement concern since the 1960s? What is the rela?
tionship between culture and politics in the new movements?" Furthermore, NSM
theory does not adequately address other key questions raised in the literature on
identity politics regarding the relationship between identity, culture, and the polit?
ical economy; whether and why status identities are understood and deployed in
essentialist or constructionist ways; and what is the causal relationship between
organizing based on status identities and a variety of movement consequences.
To answer these questions, sociologists have drawn on social constructionism,
postmodernism, and queer theory.
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56 BERNSTEIN
Social Constructionism Postmodernist, and Poststructuralist
Approaches to Identity Politics
Postmodernist analyses of identity politics conceptualize power in terms that ar
starkly different from neo-Marxist and NSM perspectives. In these views, the exis
tence of status categories constitutes a form of regulation. Therefore, any activism
in the name of those categories will not alleviate inequality but will reify those
categories, which will increase the use of those categories to regulate and domi?
nate subordinate status groups. Thus, identity politics hardens rather than redefine
differences in status identities that are the basis for inequality. These approaches
view organizing on the basis of those identities as ultimately essentialist. Instead
of viewing power in terms of economic inequality, which renders organizing on
the basis of status identities as primarily symbolic and cultural activism, under?
stood through postmodern views of power, identity politics appears to be narrow,
political, state-centered activism that fails to adequately address the cultural bases
of power. Rather than being too cultural, identity politics is not cultural enoug
(Vaid 1995).
This view of identity politics is both a response to the emergence of "queer
politics" in the late 1980s and a function of postmodernist and poststructural?
ist theories. Embodied in the short-lived group Queer Nation, queer politics was
identified by scholars as the antithesis of identity politics: a theory and a politics
with which to transcend group categories and to bring diverse groups of marginal?
ized people together under one umbrella (Gamson 1995, Epstein 1998, Valocchi
1999, Warner 2000). Queer politics emerged in response to the lesbian and gay
movement's dominance by middle-class gay white men and single-issue, gay-only
politics. These new organizations reframed the discourse around sexual orienta?
tion as they employed novel tactics and set out to challenge the very categories of
identity that had previously motivated activism. Reappropriating the word "queer"
and redefining it to mean anything that contradicts dominant cultural norms, queer
activists attempted to form a multiracial, multigendered movement of people with
diverse sexualities (Seidman 1993, Epstein 1998).
Observers of queer politics looked to postmodernism, poststructuralism, and
Foucauldian understandings of sexuality and identity (e.g., Foucault 1978) to ex?
plain these new forms of organizing. Seidman (1993, 1997) suggests that queer
politics was an attempt to deconstruct the "hetero/homo" binary. Concerned with
the politics of gender, Butler's (1990, 1993) theory of identity argues that gender
identity is realized through the performative acts that constitute gender but do not
actually reflect an inner core, in contrast to identity politics, which makes claims in
the name of a subject and thus assumes that identity itself has a core. Thus, politi?
cal activism in the name of a subject obscures and reifies the processes that create
woman as subject and sets the conditions of subordination. If the category woman
is externally imposed, then the goal of politics should be to challenge, not affirm,
such identities with their associated notions of difference. Therefore, Butler (1990)
theorizes a politics of performativity as a way to resist the quotidian enactment
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IDENTITY POLITICS 57
of gender. Queer politics is often understood in performative terms as challenging
power and deconstructing categories and is a privileged strategy within poststruc
turalism (Adam 1998, Collins 1998). Within these theoretical frameworks, what
seems to be purely expressive action from the purview of neo-Marxist and NSM
theories is understood as a fundamental challenge to power.
In contrast to queer politics, advocating in the name of a lesbian/gay subject
appears always to result in a hierarchical ordering that marks the homosexual
subject as different from and less than the heterosexual subject and will not chal?
lenge heteronormativity or systemic prejudices (Dennis 1997, Bower 1997, Halley
1994). Some analysts argue that the movement for same-sex marriage constitutes
a move toward normalizing monogamous lesbian and gay couples at the expense
of other constellations of intimate relationships (Warner 2000, Walters 2001). In
this way, the threat of diverse sexualities can be contained within conventional
forms of monogamous commitment. Chasin (2000) contends that in its efforts to
normalize homosexuality, lesbian and gay identity politics mistakes niche market?
ing to white middle-class gays as a sign of social tolerance and acceptance. By
redrawing the lines of normalcy, the market exercises power (Alexander 1999) that
renders lesbians and gay men of color invisible within the market and substitutes
for "transformative" cultural change (Chasin 2000).
Rimmerman (2002, p. 3) assesses whether the lesbian and gay movement "will
merely pursue a reformist strategy embracing a narrow form of identity politics"
and divides the lesbian and gay movement into two mutually exclusive groups:
the assimilationists, who "typically embrace a rights-based perspective and work
within the broader framework of liberal, pluralist democracy, fighting for a seat at
the table," and the liberationists, who favor "more radical, cultural change, change
that is transformational in nature and that often arises from outside the political
mainstream" (Rimmerman 2002, p. 2). Viewed through postmodern understand?
ings of power, identity politics constitutes narrow legal/political activism that fails
to address cultural sources of oppression.
In addition to failing to challenge "real" relations of power, observers argue
that identity politics does not challenge the social construction of status cate?
gories, ignores the intersection of identities, forces those with multiple identities
to privilege some aspects of identity over others, fails to recognize diversity within
groups, imposes a uniform identity on groups that are diverse, and essentializes
a group's identity (Ryan 1997, Humphrey 1999, Phelan 1989, Alexander 1999).
Others suggest that identity politics' essentialist claims can backfire. For example,
Solomos (1998) argues that although appeals to authenticity and difference can be
used to justify challenging dominant representations, such claims lead "to a strange
convergence in the language of the racist right and of the black or ethnic nation?
alists, as both infuse categories such as 'race' or 'ethnicity' with essentialist, and
supposedly naturally inherited, characteristics" (Solomos 1998, p. 52). Kimmel
(1993) suggests that essentialist arguments support conservative claims by an
tifeminists who root their activism in an understanding of gender differences as
biologically based and ignore the ways that gender organizes homosexuality.
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58 BERNSTEIN
These studies evaluate the consequences of identity politics on the basis o
the studies' own theoretical assumptions about how power functions. They tend
toward making normative political evaluations about identity politics because the
do not explicitly identify the causal mechanisms that link identity politics to thes
purported outcomes, they ignore the possibility that claims to essentialism may
be strategic, and they overlook the difficulties in eliminating social categories as
political strategy. For example, Anzaldua (1987) challenges the idea that identity a
an organizing tool is antithetical to fostering a politics of commonality. Her concep
of "borderlands" acknowledges the multiplicity of individual identities and shows
their connection to fostering broad-based political organizing, thus pointing towar
the need to find alternative explanations for movement fragmentation. Garza ( 1995)
challenges the assumption that activists and theorists understand their identities
as ontologically prior to their activism and suggests that a performative politic
or a politics of deconstruction and decentering will not work for groups whose
difference is marked on the body (Garza 1995, Collins 1998).
INTEGRATIVE APPROACHES: CONTESTING
THE TERMS OF THE DEBATE
At minimum, the challenges to neo-Marxist, NSM, and postmodern approaches
to identity politics suggest what has become commonplace in social movement
theory: that identity plays a role in all social movements (Friedman & McAdam
1992, Hunt et al. 1994, Robnett 1997, Rupp & Taylor 1990, Whittier 1995). In thei
recent review article, Polletta & Jasper (2001) explore the relationship between
variety of dynamics operative in all social movements and collective identity, de?
fined as "an individual's cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broade
community, category, practice or institution" (p. 285). In contrast, I emphasize re?
search that examines movements organized on the basis of status identities that
are, to varying extents, externally defined, where the identity itself forms a part
of the basis for grievances. For example, although environmentalists may share
a collective identity as environmentalists, that identity is not generally externall
imposed or used as an official basis for categorization. Jasper (1997) differentiate
"citizenship" movements that seek inclusion in societal institutions from "post
citizenship" movements whose members are already integrated into society. He
also distinguishes collective identity, including status identities, from movement
identities such as environmentalist, that can be more easily adopted or discarded.
Thus, citizenship movements are linked to collectivities that are defined indepen?
dently of the movements, although when their goals are more cultural, they ca
take the form of postcitizenship movements.
I am not arguing that scholars return to the task of distinguishing between
movements organized on the basis of status and movements organized on some
other basis. However, in attempting to define identity politics as a distinct polit?
ical practice, scholars have raised important theoretical questions that are only
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IDENTITY POLITICS 59
beginning to be addressed systematically by the social movement literature as it
develops analytic strategies for understanding collective struggle over longstand?
ing cultural and discursive assessments regarding who deserves honor (Alexander
2003). These questions include the following: How do we understand the relation?
ship between personal experience and political stance? Why are status identities
understood and/or portrayed as essentialist or socially constructed? What are the
strategic dilemmas faced when the identities around which a movement is orga?
nized are also the basis for oppression? When do we attribute certain movement
outcomes to status identities? How do we link collective action to specific notions
of power that help to explain the types of cultural and political goals at which
identity politics is aimed? Social movements will differ depending on how and to
what extent identities are externally imposed. The consequences ofthat imposition
will vary across movements, identities, time, and place.
Experience, Identity, and Strategy
Bernstein (1997) argues that the concept of "identity" as it relates to social move?
ments has at least three distinct analytic levels: First, a shared collective identity is
necessary for mobilization of any social movement (Morris 1992), including the
classic labor movement (Calhoun 1993b). Second, expressions of identity can be
deployed at the collective level as a political strategy, which can be aimed at what
are traditionally thought of as cultural and/or political goals. Third, identity can
be a goal of social movement activism, either gaining acceptance for a hitherto
stigmatized identity (Calhoun 1994a) or deconstructing categories of identities
such as "man," "woman," "gay," "straight" (Gamson 1995), "black," or "white." I
discuss these dimensions in turn.
Many studies show that to act politically, all social movements need identity
for empowerment (Bernstein 1997) or an oppositional consciousness (Mansbridge
& Morris 2001) to create and mobilize a constituency (Calhoun 1994a). Snow &
Benford (1988) argue that when movements diagnose problems that need to be
addressed, they attribute identities to the social movement, to those responsible for
the problems, and to those who should be charged with alleviating them (see Hunt
et al. 1994). Klandermans (1992) adds that movements that fail to create an identity
from which to mobilize will not be able to produce political claims at all. Taylor &
Whittier (1992) argue that social movements develop and maintain a collective
identity that is characterized by maintaining boundaries between group members
and nonmembers, developing a political consciousness that defines and analyzes
interests, and negotiating everyday symbols and actions as strategies of person?
alized resistance (see Hunt & Benford 2004 for a recent review of this research).
Whether the movement in question is organized on the basis of a lesbian/gay iden?
tity, a concern for animal rights, or a class identity, the collective identity approach
suggests that the processes of maintaining those identities are similar (Polletta &
Jasper 2001).
Polletta & Jasper (2001) also argue that activists choose strategies that relate to
who they are as activists and that movement identities can become associated with
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60 BERNSTEIN
particular tactical styles (Polletta 2002, Ferber 2004, Taylor & Van Dyke 2004). For
example, peace organizations would generally eschew violent strategies. Althoug
this research clearly identifies an important link between collective identity an
strategic choices, it does not address how status groups negotiate their designatio
as a minority based on a particular social status.
Why, given the insights of social constructionism and postmodernism, are iden?
tities invoked and/or felt as if they were essentialist (Epstein 1987, Calhoun 1994a
Benhabib 1999)? Calhoun argues that mobilizing essentialized identities is related
to the political context and how particular identity categories have been "repressed
delegitimated or devalued in dominant discourse" (1994, p. 18). Valocchi (1999)
shows that in addition to being internally defined, lesbian and gay identities hav
been externally imposed by the normative and coercive institutions of psychiatry
and law enforcement. Ray's (1999) concept "political field" explains how the dis?
tribution of power and prevailing interaction routines influence whether women's
movements pursue pragmatic economistic or explicitly feminist goals. Political
opportunities (Meyer et al. 2002) and recourse to the law (Katzenstein 1998) also
influence the development of collective identity and how much movements em
phasize political and cultural goals.
Although often ignored in the social movement literature, the feminist liter?
ature on standpoint theory, intersectionality, and materialist feminism draws on
Marxist historical materialism (Naples 2003) to conceptualize identity politic
as a way to produce knowledge that derives from the material conditions, lived
experience, and social location of participants. Activists thus formulate political
strategies (Hartsock 1983; Collins 1990, 1998; Mohanty 1992a, 1992b; Harawa
1988) that depend on how power or "the relations of ruling" (Smith 1987) are
expressed in everyday life. Although standpoint theory is sometimes portrayed as
essentialist (e.g., Benhabib 1999), Naples (2003) argues that people do not trans?
late personal experience into political action in an unreflective, essentialist way.
Instead, political analyses are arrived at through collective interpretation and anal?
ysis (see Nicholson 1990 and Naples 2003 for the evolution of these debates). In
this view, self-definition and the creation of knowledge through the development
of a standpoint (Collins 1998) is part and parcel of political activism and does not
rely on falsely universal understandings of categories such as race, gender, or class
Through standpoint analysis, the intersection of class and status identity is made
clear. Feminist standpoint theory parallels the literature on multiculturalism and
critical pedagogy that is premised on the idea that personal subjectivity derived
from experiences of oppression can be empowering and provide the impetus for
social change (Bromley 1989).
According to Anspach (1979), personal experience with stigma led physically
disabled people and former mental patients to engage in identity politics with the
goal of altering the self-conceptions of the participants and the negative social
representations of the group. Anspach suggests that identity politics challenges
deviance theory, which views the labeling process as unidirectional, imposed on
the stigmatized, rather than negotiated or contested. Britt & Heise (2000) define
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IDENTITY POLITICS 61
identity politics as a form of emotion work needed to translate isolation, fear, and
shame into anger, solidarity, pride, and action, in order to mobilize stigmatized
groups. Epstein (1987) views gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities and movements
as "reverse affirmations" (Foucault 1978) of social labels that have been used
to categorize, control, and stigmatize. Epstein (1987) suggests that, despite the
insights of social constructionism, lesbian and gay identities are experienced in
ways similar to contemporary ethnicity, and he argues that claiming a minority
status is a strategic way to gain access to the American polity.
P?rez (1993) and Sandoval (1991) also see organizing around identity as strate?
gic rather than unchanging and essentialist. Sandoval (1991) argues that U.S.
Third World feminists operate under a "differential" consciousness, alternating be?
tween viewing their differences "for which they have been assigned inferior status"
(p. 12) as invented and false or as real and valid. Phelan (1993) argues that lesbians
and gay men know that engaging in the essentialist/social constructionist debate is
strategic, but acknowledging the strategic nature of essentialism would undermine
any claims based on essentialist arguments.
Accounts of bitter division over group membership are common in feminist and
gay/lesbian movements (Echols 1989, Ryan 1992, Taylor & Rupp 1993, Phelan
1989, Bernstein 1997). Scholars of Third World women's movements and post
colonial movements argue that by organizing on the basis of the category "women,"
these movements have ignored differences among women that are based on class,
race, and sexual orientation. Thus, these movements have been dominated by the
concerns of Western women (Alexander & Mohanty 1997, Narayan 1997, Grewal
& Kaplan 1994, Ryan 1997). Similar charges have been leveled at black essen?
tialism for ignoring differences within the category black, which is politically and
culturally constructed (Solomos 1998).
Gamson (1997) argues that debates over inclusion and exclusion to decide
"who we are" and "who we are not" are fundamentally gendered and shaped by
the communicative environment and the audience to be addressed. Movements
must not only identify antagonists but also struggle over contested membership.
Blee (2002) shows that the concept of "race traitor" helps racist activists set a
symbolic boundary to distinguish themselves from whites not in the movement.
Examining black gay identities and AIDS, Cohen (1999) argues that the outcomes
of these struggles have concrete material effects on how resources, legitimacy,
and services are allocated within communities and, according to Gamson (1997),
depend on who raises the issue of boundaries and for what political purposes.
Such processes may be prevalent in all social movements as activists publicly
refute opponents' claims about their identities and motivations (Einwohner 2002,
Bernstein & Jasper 1996), even when they privately affirm opponents' assessments
(Einwohner 2002).
Bernstein (1997) developed the concept of identity deployment to capture the
strategic processes that explain how activists deploy their identities for political
change. Her formal model argues that activists alternately emphasize similarities to
or differences from the norm because of the interactions among social movement
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62 BERNSTEIN
organizations, state actors, and opposing movements, and the model suggests that
all social movements go through similar processes. She argues that identities are
deployed strategically as a form of collective action to change institutions; to
transform mainstream culture, its categories, and values, and perhaps by exten?
sion its policies and structures; to transform participants; or simply to educate
legislators or the public. As a political strategy, identity deployment means ex?
pressing identity such that the terrain of conflict becomes the individual person so
that the values, categories, and practices of individuals become subject to debate.
For example, in contrast to viewing political action as the result of community
identity, Gotham (1999) argues that, in the case of a challenge to the building
of a major highway, community identity was a cultural resource strategically de?
ployed. Movements may engage in both identity and nonidentity strategies. The
lesbian and gay movement, for example, often couches its claims in terms of uni?
versal appeals to social justice and avoids making the content of gay and lesbian
identities subject to debate. The political implications of essentialist and construc
tionist arguments shift over time, altering their strategic value (Bernstein 2002a,b).
Armstrong (2002) similarly argues that identity politics, which she defines as a
"political logic" whose purpose is to overcome alienation through creating, ex?
pressing, and affirming collective identities, is simply one type of politics in which
movements may engage. She contrasts an identity political logic with both an in?
terest group political logic that seeks changes in laws and policies and with a redis
tributive political logic that attempts to transform society's economic and political
structures.
Another strategic dilemma occurs when the identity around which the move?
ment is organized is also the basis for grievances. Gamson (1995) contends that
deconstructive strategies that loosen categories of identity are better suited to con?
testing cultural sources of oppression than institutional sources of oppression,
whose logic requires the tightening of categories. Whichever way activists decide
to go, they face a paradox: Seeking to erase boundaries requires recognizing them,
which ultimately confirms them or, in the process of confirming boundaries, un?
derscores that they are, in fact, socially constructed (Lorber 1999). Furthermore,
Gamson (1995) questions whether movements aimed at deconstructing social cate?
gories will ultimately undermine their own existence. Gamson identifies this as the
"queer dilemma," although Lorber (1999) suggests that, with the increased num?
ber of people who identify as multiracial, racially based social movements face
similar conundrums. Turner's (1999) study of the intersex movement illustrates
empirically the difficulties in organizing politically around a social identity while
simultaneously acknowledging the social forces that construct the self. By pre?
senting themselves as "hermaphrodites with attitude," intersexed activists adopt
a medicalized identity and risk reinforcing the hetero/homo binary. According
to Turner (1999), intersexuals organize for recognition of an essential intersexed
body, prior to medical intervention, and, by invoking a unique history of oppres?
sion, they create themselves as an identity group. However, by choosing a body
that is neither male nor female, they refuse the hetero/homo binary and challenge
the immutability of heterosexuality itself.
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IDENTITY POLITICS 63
Over time, the content and meaning of identities and the goals associated with
movements organized around identities change. Hall (1989) suggests that politics
based on ethnicity undergoes two distinct phases. First, groups rediscover their
histories and are thus preoccupied with identity. Second, this preoccupation with
identity gives way to more complex analyses that make connections across types of
discrimination. Stein's (1992, 1997) analysis of lesbian feminism supports Hall's
notion of a two-step model, whereas Broad (2002) finds that transgender organizing
does not follow the step model, as activists simultaneously build identity and work
to deconstruct it.
Attributing Causality to Identity
Several works find and test alternative mechanisms to account for the relationship
between organizing around certain identities and particular movement outcomes.
For example, Turner (1999) assumes that essentialist identities inhibit the for?
mation of coalitions, and she claims that focusing on choice of identity enables
the intersexed movement (in this case the choice to forego surgery and hormonal
treatment for ambiguous genitals) to form coalitions with transsexual activists and
with groups opposed to male circumcision and female genital mutilation. How?
ever, Bernstein's (2002a) historical analysis of the lesbian and gay movement finds
that structural and contextual factors as well as strategic decisions, rather than
an essentialist view of identity, account for a movement's emphasis on cultural
and political change and the ability to form coalitions (see also Bernstein 2003).
Armstrong (2002) argues that it is not the identities of gay white men that produced
exclusions of race, gender, and class in the lesbian and gay movement, but rather the
reduced viability of multi-issue politics owing to a shifting political environment.
Lichterman (1999) suggests that fostering solidarity across identities depends on
the ability to freely discuss the identities that activists claim. This "identity talk" in
the public sphere is culturally constructed through interactional routines and can
exacerbate or mitigate tensions between identity claims. Van Dyke (2003) sug?
gests that external threats provide the impetus for cross-movement alliances and
that organizational ideology may have a greater impact than movement identities
in forming coalitions.
Bytstydzienski & Schacht's (2001) and Anner's (1996) collections of essays
on identity politics show that organizations based on status identities sometimes
socialize individuals into activism and make them available to mobilize for a variety
of political purposes not directly related to status identities, including class-based
organizing. Yet the essays also show that status identities can inhibit the creation
of radical coalitions. One approach to understanding the relationship between
movement identities and the formation of coalitions across identities and issues is
to examine how activists use their identity to legitimate participation in a social
movement in which they are not directly implicated. So, for example, women
involved in coal mining strikes who are not miners can justify participation on the
basis of their relationship to miners, such as mother or wife. The choice of identity
affects future activism (Beckwith 1996).
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64 BERNSTEIN
Several studies assume that organizing around status identities leads to th
commodification of protest (Kauffman 1990, Lehr 1999) so that consumption it?
self "becomes a form of political participation, perhaps supplanting other more
direct models of participation" (Chasin 2000, p. 24). Rather than attributing the
commodification of protest to identity politics, Collins (1998) argues that the state
transforms identity politics so that "the person is distilled to his or her image and
becomes a commodity exchanged in the marketplace of ideas" (p. 54) and thus "au?
thentic, essential difference" associated with status characteristics is commodified
without any substantive structural change. In this way, books by African American
authors such as Maya Angelou or Zora Neale Hurston can be included in college
curricula without African Americans having equal access to those college cam?
puses as either faculty or students. The distribution of images is altered, while the
structural factors that make race a major determinant of individual life chances ar
ignored (see also Young 1990). In short, identity politics has been coopted by th
state through the commodification of diversity itself. Furthermore, Collins (1998)
argues that despite its critiques of commodification, postmodernism's strategies
of deconstruction and decentering also assume that individuals can choose and
construct "the different facets of one's subjectivity," ignoring structural power
(p. 149).
Identity Politics and Institutionalized Power
Examining how groups are represented in language and images may help explain
how beliefs about those groups are constructed (Howard 2000, Monroe et al. 2000,
Stryker et al. 2000). In a media-driven culture, such analyses become especially
important. In a review article, political scientists Monroe et al. (2000) raise many
of the same questions asked by sociologists, such as which categories coalesce
into groups and what contexts determine the identifications that will become most
salient. They argue that social identity theory can help explain the cognitive and
cultural processes involved in fostering group identities and how those translate
into prejudice, conflict, and even violence. They suggest that all explanations for
group behavior and conflict reflect some underlying psychological assumptions
about how much social identity is passively or actively constructed, which in turn
influences accounts of intergroup behavior and social change.
Other scholars challenge assumptions that identity politics represents a retreat
into culture that does not engage with institutionalized structures of power, and
they theorize that inequality based on status is relational rather than categorical
(Connell 1987). Young (1990) suggests that identity movements of the left, such
as feminism and black liberation, do not organize to obtain recognition of their
group's suffering, but rather seek the ability to participate in social life. She con?
ceptualizes these movements as engaged in collective action, whose goal is not to
remedy how material goods are distributed, but to alter how decisions are made,
how worth is evaluated, and how labor is divided. For example, Polletta (1994) as?
serts that "[sjtudent-organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
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IDENTITY POLITICS 65
(SNCC) saw their task as to mobilize and secure recognition for a new collective
identity?poor, 'unqualified' southern blacks?in a way that would transform na?
tional and local politics by refashioning criteria of political leadership" (p. 85).
Identity deployment (Bernstein 1997) in the workplace by lesbian and gay em?
ployees is aimed both at cultural goals?challenging and reducing stigma?and
at changing concrete organizational workplace policies and practices (Taylor &
Raeburn 1995, Creed & Scully 2000). Armstrong (2002) and Staggenborg et al.
(1993/1994) find that a movement's cultural expressions and events provide the
backbone for more conventionally political activities and, as in the case of drag
performances (Rupp & Taylor 2003), constitute strategic collective action. Thus,
demands for recognition are intertwined with material concerns and alter social
relations that are institutionally based.
Several studies contest the separation of the political economy from the realms
of culture and identity that bifurcate movements into expressive, cultural, and
identity-oriented movements on the one hand, and political, instrumental, and
strategic movements on the other. For example, Elbaz's (1997) and Stockdill's
(2001) studies of AIDS activism illustrate that because of the economic position
of communities of people of color, many AIDS activists of color prioritized gain?
ing access to the health care system, whereas white AIDS activists were more
interested in issues related to treatment. Divisions between women and men cen?
tered around what to do about the exclusion of women from clinical drug trials.
Women advocated noncooperation with medical authorities, while men opposed
such a strategy. Elbaz (1997) claims that such "differences can be traced back
both to people's positioning relative to the economic, cultural and research power
structures as well as their individual choices" (p. 149).
Castells (1997) links the identities of social movements to structural changes
related to globalization and the development of a network society. In the net?
work society, Castells argues, "the new power lies in the codes of information
and in the images of representation around which societies organize their insti?
tutions, and people build their lives, and decide their behavior. The sites of this
power are people's minds" (p. 359). Stychin's (2003) examination of liberal law
reform efforts regarding same-sex sexualities in the context of European inte?
gration and globalization provides important links between economic inequality
and policies regarding sexualities. For example, he illustrates that the economic
disparity between Europe's east and west provides the context for Romania's de?
sire for European Union accession. But to gain entry into the European Union,
Romania first had to decriminalize homosexuality. Globalization also facilitates
the emergence of movements organized around status identities as global commu?
nication and networks (Keck & Sikkink 1998) enable movements in some countries
to emulate the identities deployed and tactics used in other countries. In the case of
the lesbian and gay movement, this often means adopting "western" gay identities
at the expense of local ways of organizing same-sex erotic behavior (Adam et al.
1998). Identity politics also emerges on the global political stage with demands by
indigenous groups for political sovereignty (e.g., Wilmer 1993). The relationship
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66 BERNSTEIN
between globalization, identity, and social movements will become an increasingly
important area for future research.
Cultural interpretations of structural political changes are constructed through
emotions and discourse on race, gender, sexuality, and nation, and they provide a
basis for mobilization (Dobratz & Shanks-Meile 1997, Ferber 2004, Stein 2001
Gallagher 1997). Gallaher (2003) notes that in the case of the patriot movement, th
discourse on patriotism deflects class analysis, supports notions of racial superior
ity, and produces policies that are economically counterproductive to movemen
members. Blee (2002) suggests that, at least for female racists, the link between
the political economy and racist activism is less clear cut. Instead, she shows that
cultural expressions of white racists, such as shaved heads, invite social responses
that in turn reinforce a racist identity. Thus, the relationship between identity an
the political economy varies across movements and possibly across groups withi
the same movement.
CONCLUSION: CAUTIONS AND FUTURE
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Identity politics is not a theory of social movements analogous to resource mo?
bilization or political process theories because it does not set out to explain the
emergence of social movements (in this case, movements organized on the basis
of status identities) or other aspects of their development. The first part of this
review shows that designating movements organized on the basis of status iden
tities as identity politics emerged primarily through scholars' efforts to identify
particular political practice that is cultural, symbolic, or psychological in nature,
distinct from class politics and class movements. Working from different theo?
retical assumptions, postmodernism reached the opposite conclusion and defined
identity politics as reformist political activism rather than transformative cultura
activism. Thus, the purpose of the term identity politics is primarily descriptive
rather than explanatory. Because of the divergent notions of power derived from
competing theoretical traditions, analyses of identity politics are often mixed with
normative political evaluations about what constitutes worthwhile collective effort
geared toward social change, rather than toward explaining mobilization, activis
strategies, and movement outcomes. Analysts of identity politics make axiomatic
predictions about the types of outcomes that will ensue as a result of organizing
around status identities (such as movement fragmentation). However, the interpre?
tive understandings and assumptions about causality are taken for granted rather
than realized through rigorous empirical analysis. As a result, the term identity
politics obscures more than clarifies and, if the term is used at all, its meaning
should be clearly defined.
Nonetheless, these efforts to identify a particular political practice called iden?
tity politics raise a series of important theoretical questions that I addressed in th
second part of this review. This literature moves beyond efforts to decide what
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IDENTITY POLITICS 67
identity politics "really is" to look at the collective identity approach to social
movements that examines the role of identity in all social movements in terms
of mobilization, strategies, and goals. I then looked more specifically at research
that underscores how movements strategically deploy identities that are, to some
extent, externally imposed. This section examined how experiences of identity are
translated into political action, the strategic dilemmas that movements face when
the identity that serves as the source of political organizing is also the basis for
oppression, and whether status identities can account for a variety of movement
outcomes. This section also looked at the relationship between status identities
and institutionalized relations of power, and how identities are deployed to chal?
lenge those institutional relations. Yet researchers must avoid several pitfalls when
studying the relationship between identity and politics.
First, analysts of identity politics must not take the public claims made by
movements organized around status identities at face value. When movements
appear to rest on essentialist assumptions, theorists must determine whether that
essentialism is strategic, influenced by social, political, and cultural factors, and
how activists themselves understand the sources of their identities. The master
narratives of both status- and non-status-based movements can be explored through
in-depth case study approaches.
Second, careful attention must be paid to developing and testing alternative
causal models to explain the relationship between organizing based on status iden?
tities and particular movement outcomes. Simply because a certain outcome is
correlated with organizing based on status identities is not sufficient evidence of
a causal relationship. Careful cross-sectional and historical comparisons of orga?
nizing based on the same status identity as well as comparisons across movements
based on different status identities will help to clarify causal relationships.
Research on nationalism invokes the language of identity politics and raises
similar questions regarding how culture is related to the political economy, how
identities are strategically deployed as essentialist, and how outcomes are related
to organizing based on status identities. Therefore, I recommend research that
compares movements based on nationalist identities with movements based on
other status identities (see also Calhoun 1993b). Such systematic and comparative
studies of how identities become political might distinguish between identities
based on how much such identities are a part of routine social interaction. Tilly
(2002) refers to identities not experienced on a daily basis as "detached" identities
and calls those identities that are invoked in everyday practices as "embedded"
identities. These studies might compare the implications of organizing based on
identities that are experienced in daily life, often based on gender, shared language,
ethnicity, religion, and culture, from "corporate identity forms," which are officially
recognized by the state and its institutions and confer special rights and privileges.
Comparative examinations of the political and social reasons why essentialist
identities are invoked and/or felt will also yield more complex analyses.
To facilitate such comparisons, researchers must pay more attention to what can
be called the rules of engagement (Bernstein & Armstrong 2003), which build on
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68 BERNSTEIN
Tilly's (2002) argument that the historical, political, and cultural contexts provide
the basis for recognizing certain classes of identities as valid political actors
Countries may differ in how much they recognize ethnic minorities as specific
groups, for example, through the granting of social welfare benefits, which will
influence the categories around which groups mobilize (Soysal 1994). Becoming
an environmentalist or a member of a labor movement entails adopting a differen
kind of identity, depending on whether such movement organizations are banned i
a given regime. Over time, as new actors are admitted and old classes of identitie
lose their salience, the rules of engagement shift. These variations over time suggest
the need for social movement theorists to "think bigger." That is, they must tak
seriously concerns related to fragmentation and to the shifting sets of movemen
actors that are mobilized, but without falling into normative analyses of these
changes or returning to the overgeneralizations of new social movement theory.
Finally, the relationship between identity and social movements in the context
of globalization is an increasingly important area of research. For example, how
do transnational social movements develop an empowering identity from which t
mobilize? How are identities deployed politically to challenge global governance
institutions? How does globalization alter efforts to deconstruct status categories
or efforts to gain rights based on those status categories? How do status iden?
tities spread across nation states? If, in the context of globalization, the nation
state declines in political importance, as some argue, will status identities become
even more important bases for political organizing? How are changing social poli?
cies related to status identities linked to the development of global governance
structures?
Research on identity politics raises many important questions that sociologists
are only beginning to explore. Sociologists can contribute a great deal to the anal?
ysis of the relationship between experience, culture, identity, politics, and power.
By taking seriously how conceptions of power inform collective action, sociolo?
gists are well positioned to show how activist concerns with representation and
recognition are related to both institutional structures and the political economy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Elizabeth Armstrong, Kathleen Blee, Myra Marx Ferr?e, David Greenberg,
Judith Howard, James Jasper, Nancy Naples, Charles Tilly, and Steve Valocchi for
their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this review.
The Annual Review of Sociology is online at http://soc.annuaIreviews.org
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