Identity Politics: Introduction to a New Series

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a series of essays on political identity and its relationship to the making of collectively binding decisions among people holding divergent opinions and interests, with a more restricted meaning of political identity.

Abstract: Commissioning A Series On ‘Identity Politics’ Inevitably involves making contentious, if hopefully defensible, editorial choices about what each of these terms involves. Issues relating to ‘identity’ and ‘difference’ have figured ever more prominently on both the political and academic agendas over the past thirty years. These terms are often employed to describe a wide range of somewhat heterogeneous phenomena. For example, a recent UK Economic and Social Research Council Programme on ‘Identity and Choice’ lists under this rubric everything from ethnicity, nationality, gender and religion, to class, disability, shopping and musical preferences. However, such usage risks broadening the concept of identity to the point of vacuity. Therefore, the scope of this series is somewhat narrower: namely, political identity. Of course, the concept of the ‘political’ is itself contested and likewise seemingly infinitely expandable to all issues and areas of life. Consequently, a more restricted meaning applies here too, with politics limited to the making of collectively binding decisions amongst people holding divergent opinions and interests.