The Intersectional Multilevel Approach: Linking Subject, Discourse, and Social Structure in Welfare State Research

The intersectional multilevel approach is a versatile instrument for subject-centered empirical social research within the framework of an intersectional, feminist, and materialist analysis of society. This contribution provides an introduction to the theory of the intersectional multilevel approach and its application in empirical research projects, with a special focus on welfare state research. We consider it fruitful to theorize the welfare state as an integral part of capitalist societies, as it is a framework in which social inequalities are articulated. Here, we draw on Winker and Degele’s notion that capitalism can be reduced neither to the level of social structures nor to class as one relation of power among others. Instead, the intersectional multilevel approach theorizes capitalism as political-economic logic that reshapes and reproduces various interconnected relations of power, namely classism, heterosexism, racism, and ableism, and through all levels of social inquiry, namely social structure, symbolic representation, and identity. Starting from this theoretical framework, the intersectional multilevel analysis can be applied to empirical welfare state research that is interested in an intersectional exploration of how inequalities are reproduced or challenged through individual and collective agency.