LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader

A definitive collection of original essays on queer politics

From Harvey Milk to ACT UP to Proposition 8, no political change in the last two decades has been as rapid as the advancement of civil rights for LGBTQ people. As we face a critical juncture in progressive activism, political science, which has been slower than most disciplines to study the complexity of queer politics, must grapple with the shifting landscape of LGBTQ rights and inclusion.

LGBTQ Politics analyzes both the successes and obstacles to building the LGBTQ movement over the past twenty years, offering analyses that point to possibilities for the movement's future. Essays cover a range of topics, including activism, law, and coalition-building, and draw on subfields such as American politics, comparative politics, political theory, and international relations.

LGBTQ Politics presents the full range of methodological, ideological, and substantive approaches to LGBTQ politics that exist in political science. Analyses focused on mainstream institutional and elite politics appear alongside contributions grounded in grassroots movements and critical theory. While some essays celebrate the movement's successes and prospects, others express concerns that its democratic basis has become undermined by a focus on funding power over people power, attempts to fragment the LGBTQ movement from racial, gender and class justice, and a persistent attachment to single-issue politics.

A comprehensive, thought-provoking collection, LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader will give rise to continued critical discussion of the parameters of LGBTQ politics.


About the Author
Marla Brettschneider (Editor)
Marla Brettschneider is Professor of Political Philosophy with a joint position in Women's Studies and Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. She is the author of numerous award-winning books and many articles on queer theory and diversity politics such as The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives and Jewish Feminism and Intersectionality.

Susan Burgess (Editor)
Susan Burgess is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science at Ohio University and a Senior Professional Lecturer at DePaul University. She is the author and co-editor of many books including LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader and Radical Politics in the United States.

Christine Keating (Editor)
Christine (Cricket) Keating is Associate Professor of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Decolonizing Democracy: The Social Contract in Transition in India. Her articles have been published in Signs, Political Theory, International Journal of Feminist Politics, Hypatia, Women's Studies Quarterly, and New Political Science as well as in several edited volumes. She is also a co-director of la Escuela Popular Norteña, a popular education collective.