Diane Sainsbury's research interests are parties and elections; participation and political recruitment; welfare states and social policies, and immigration; women and politics.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Policy constructions, immigrants’ social rights and gender

  2019. Diane Sainsbury. Journal of European Social Policy 29 (2), 213-227

  Article

  This article explores how policy constructions shape policy outcomes for immigrant women and men, focusing on two Swedish childcare policies: (1) parental leave and (2) childcare services. It sheds light on the dynamics between policy constructions and (1) the gender differentiation in immigrants social entitlements, (2) the gender differentiation in the Swedish-born population and (3) differences and similarities between the two. Among the major findings is that the universal construction of childcare services and parental insurance promotes parity in immigrant and Swedish-born parents' utilization. Second, a gender differentiation characterizes the claiming of parental benefits, and the differentiation is sharper for immigrant parents. Third, the ethnicity benefit differential is much wider for mothers' parental leave benefits than for fathers' benefits. Fourth, despite universal policy constructions, immigrants' weaker attachment to the labour market affects their social rights, and the effect is greater for immigrant women.

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• Gender differentiation and citizenship acquisition

  2018. Diane Sainsbury. Women's Studies 68, 28-35

  Article

  Feminist scholars have made an impressive contribution to the rethinking of citizenship, but they have largely neglected the gender differentiation of citizenship acquisition. This neglect has resulted in a lack of knowledge concerning the processes of change underpinning nationality reforms that have weakened the patriarchal nature of citizenship. This article seeks to fill the current void through a comparative analysis of nationality reforms that have granted married women an independent right to nationality and mothers the right to transmit their nationality to their children. It examines the politics of these reforms in the United States, France and Germany as well as the international dimension of these nationality reforms. The analysis reveals the long-term significance of the early internationalization of women's nationality rights and the interplay between domestic and trans national feminist activism.

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• Gendering welfare state analysis

  2018. Rossella Ciccia, Diane Sainsbury. European Journal of Politics and Gender 1 (1-2), 93-109

  Article

  This article revisits comparative research on gender relations and the welfare state through the lens of the tensions between paid work and care. It discusses how these tensions shaped the intellectual enterprise of gendering welfare state analysis and women's political activity in the welfare state, as well as the emergence of normative perspectives to overcome divisions between care and paid work. It concludes by identifying three challenges for future research posed by intersectionality, immigration and the gender implications of long-term welfare state change. Nonetheless, the greatest cross-cutting challenge remains the need to balance care and paid work in feminist analysis of welfare states.

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• Genre et politiques sociales

  2018. Diane Sainsbury. Dictionnaire des inégalités et de la justice sociale, 621-630

  Chapter

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• Women's Early Suffrage in the American West and Its Impact on the National Campaign

  2018. Diane Sainsbury.

  Conference

  Women gained suffrage in many states west of the Mississippi prior to the passage of the Federal suffrage amendment. This paper has a dual focus on explanations and the impact of women’s early suffrage. To explore explanations the first part of the paper examines the case of Washington State, which deserves attention for several reasons. More specifically, as early as 1854 the territorial legislature nearly enfranchised women; the proposal was defeated by one vote. In 1883 the territorial legislature granted women suffrage but a few years later they were disenfranchised by a court decision. In effect, the decision precluded the possibility of the admission of an equal suffrage state to the Union in 1889 when Washington gained statehood. In 1910 women gained the vote, and Washington became the fifth equal suffrage state, setting in motion a series of state victories. More generally, an examination of the Washington case reveals several unusual facets of the politics of suffrage extension in the US, such as opponents’ use of disenfranchisement.

  The second part analyses how early suffrage contributed to the success of the national campaign for women’s suffrage. It focuses on three phenomena. First the growing number of equal suffrage states shifted the balance between the forces for and against suffrage in Congress whose support was necessary in passing the constitutional suffrage amendment. The second phenomenon was the increasing importance of women voters in presidential elections. Presidential candidates began to court women voters in the West, and Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party exploited the situation in the 1916 election. Third, women’s activism in the political parties in the equal suffrage states was a factor in shaping the development of a pan-partisan strategy of the women’s suffrage movement.

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