Political institutions profoundly shape political life and are also gendered. This groundbreaking collection synthesises new institutionalism and gendered analysis using a new approach - feminist institutionalism - in order to answer crucial questions about power inequalities, mechanisms of continuity, and the gendered limits of change.

Informal norms and political practices can act to facilitate or block changes to formal rules, with important consequences for efforts to promote gender equality. In this book, leading scholars develop sophisticated analytical frameworks and provide detailed empirical knowledge to further our understanding of the gendering of informal institutions. The book begins by assessing our current theoretical and empirical knowledge and outlining the remaining gaps in our understanding around the way gender interacts with informal institutions. It takes up the challenges of gender equality in informal institutions though a feminist institutionalist lens. The empirically based chapters explore the role of informal institutions in three areas of concern for feminist scholars: political recruitment; the executive; and policy and practice; and examine the practical and methodological challenges of researching informal institutions. Using the insights generated in the volume, the final chapter develops a research agenda for future work on gendering informal institutions, considering the potential to design or alter informal institutions, and of different approaches and methodologies.

This book traces the struggles over the institutions of political representation in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on the factors that have held women back over the post-communist period, as well as on the growing evidence for change throughout the region. Post-communist Europe has long raised two puzzles for scholars of women’s representation in politics. First, why have women been under-represented in politics in every country in the region since communism’s collapse? Secondly, why are there relatively few cases where women’s advocates have been successful in pressing for change? This comparative study of Europe’s new democracies argues that these puzzles are best understood as questions about male dominance – that is, about the mechanisms that sustain, or, alternatively, change long-established patterns of male over-representation in politics over time. The author covers six EU member states – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – during the period 1990-2016. The book will be of use to students and scholars in the fields of Comparative Politics, Democracy and Democratization, European Studies, Gender Studies, Post-Communist Studies, and Central and Eastern European Studies.

As a field of scholarship, gender and politics has exploded over the last fifty years and is now global, institutionalized, and ever expanding. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics brings to political science an accessible and comprehensive overview of the key contributions of gender scholars to the study of politics and shows how these contributions produce a richer understanding of polities and societies. Like the field it represents, the handbook has a broad understanding of what counts as political and is based on a notion of gender that highlights masculinities as well as femininities, thereby moving feminist debates in politics beyond the focus on women. It engages with some of the key aspects of political science as well as important themes in gender and feminist research (such as sexuality and body politics), thereby forging a dialogue between gender studies in politics and mainstream political science. The handbook is organized in sections that look at sexuality and body politics; political economy; civil society; participation, representation and policymaking; institutions, states and governance as well as nation, citizenship and identity. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics contains and reflects the best scholarship in its field.

This book explores the gendered dynamics of institutional innovation, continuity and change in candidate selection and recruitment. Drawing on the insights of feminist institutionalism, it extends the 'supply and demand model' of political recruitment via a micro-level case study of the candidate selection process in post-devolution Scotland.

This book is an actor-centred sociological study of the EU-level processes that produce gender equality policy. Based on interviews and documentary analysis, the study unpacks the process of the “Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men 2006-2010” to explain the different roles of actors in the making of EU gender equality policies. By analysing policy processes inside institutions and among institutions, the study focuses on the internal working logics in and between EU-level institutions. It highlights the shifting spaces, openings, and constraints for the development of gender equality policies. Concentrating on EU policy programmes helps shed light on the invisible aspects of EU gender equality policy-making and how this process changed regarding actors, structure and content in the late 2000s. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of EU politics, gender politics, and public policy, as well as to institutional and non-governmental actors in the area of gender politics in Europe and the working of EU politics.

This book is a unique exploration into the gendered politics of the economic crisis in Europe. It focuses, firstly, on the changes in the political and economic decision-making institutions and processes of the EU and their consequences for gender equality policy. Secondly, the book analyses the gendered impacts of austerity politics on member states’ gender equality policies, institutions, regimes, and debates. Finally, it addresses feminist and intersectional struggles and resistances against neoliberal, conservative and racist politics across Europe. The authors consider the gendered politics of the economic crisis from a variety of feminist approaches, shedding new light on the concept of the crisis and on questions of politics, institutions and intersectionality. The case studies included refer to different parts of Europe, from North to South and from East to West, capturing the multifaceted gendered impacts of the crisis. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, international relations, gender studies, economics, law, sociology, social policy, and European studies.