Gendering Party Politics: Feminist Institutionalist Perspectives

What can gender tell us about political parties? Historically, and often still, political parties have been dominated by men from majority groups, and shaped by traditional gender relations and norms that generally disadvantage women. Gender is crucial in understanding the persistence of men’s political overrepresentation and the corresponding marginalization of women in politics, as well as in exploring questions of why and how parties adapt and change, and what their role is in representative democracy.

Gendering Party Politics explores the relationship between gender, institutions, and political parties through a feminist institutionalist lens, advancing new theoretical, methodological, and empirical directions for party politics scholarship. The contributors synthesize two decades of research, introduce foundational concepts and frameworks, and present innovative methods and empirical cases from around the world. They also make the case as to why this research matters, evaluating the practical opportunities for and obstacles to transforming parties in more gender equitable ways. Each chapter demonstrates the wide-ranging applications of feminist institutionalism for understanding the complexities of gender dynamics within parties. Together, these contributions constitute a significant intervention into wider debates over the relationship between political parties, power, democracy, and representation.

Featuring insights from an international cast of leading scholars, Gendering Party Politics is essential for anyone interested in the evolving landscape of gender and politics, political parties and institutions, and political representation.

Chapter 8 of this work is available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International open access license. This part of the work is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Meryl Kenny is Professor of Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests bridge the intersection of gender politics, party politics, territorial politics, and institutional approaches to the study of politics. She is the author of Gender and Political Recruitment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and articles published in the European Journal of Political Research, Politics & Gender, Political Studies, European Journal of Politics & Gender, and Government & Opposition amongst others. She is a Director of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN) and an editor of the Oxford University Press book series, Studies in Feminist Institutionalism.

Elin Bjarnegård is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Government at Uppsala University. Her research interests are at the intersection of comparative politics and gender studies, and include masculinities, political parties, violence, corruption, and institutions. Her publications have appeared in journals such as American Political Science Review, Journal of Democracy, and Journal of Peace Research. She is the author of Gender, Informal Institutions and Political Recruitment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and editor of Gender and Violence against Political Actors (Temple University Press, 2023). She is a Director of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN) and an editor of the Oxford University Press book series, Studies in Feminist Institutionalism.