Gendering institutions: the political recruitment of women in post-devolution Scotland
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Date
2009Author
Kenny, Meryl
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Abstract
Both feminist and mainstream political science has taken an institutional ‘turn’, opening up
possibilities for dialogue between the two fields. Yet, despite sharing a number of common
interests and preoccupations, there has been little interplay between mainstream new
institutionalist scholars and feminist political scientists working on institutions. This thesis
attempts to fill this gap and evaluates the potential for theoretical synthesis between feminist
gender analysis and new institutional theory. It argues that there is potential for mutual
benefit from a synthesis of these two approaches, and that a ‘feminist institutionalism’ offers
a promising theoretical approach for the study of gender and institutions.
The thesis evaluates the potential of a feminist institutionalist approach in the context of the
comparative literature on gender and political recruitment. It critically evaluates the supply
and demand model (Norris and Lovenduski, 1995), one of the only models that attempts to
systematically integrate gender into the dynamics of the recruitment process. The thesis
contends that a feminist institutionalist approach offers a way to take the supply and demand
forward, developing the theoretical interconnections that are present implicitly in Pippa
Norris and Joni Lovenduski’s work on political recruitment and reintegrating and
reformulating the key features of the model into a feminist and institutionalist framework.
The thesis develops this theory-building project through an illustrative case study – the
institutions of political recruitment in post-devolution Scotland. Using a multi-method
approach – including discourse analysis, process tracing, and political interviewing – the
thesis combines a macro-level analysis of gendered patterns of selection and recruitment in
Scottish political parties over time with a micro-level case study of a Scottish Labour Party
constituency seat selection contest in the run-up to the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections.
The case study finds some evidence of institutional innovation and reform in the candidate
selection process, but also highlights underlying continuities in the institutions of political
recruitment. The case study illustrates the specific and gendered difficulties of
institutionalizing a ‘new’ more gender-balanced politics within a pre-existing institutional
context. Findings from the case study suggest that the ‘success’ of institutional innovation in
candidate selection is a complex and contingent question, and that elements of the ‘old’
continue to co-exist with elements of the ‘new’, constraining and shaping each other. The Scottish case, then, underscores the need to rethink conventional models of political
recruitment, illustrating the difficulties of reforming and redesigning the institutions of
political recruitment in the face of powerful institutional and gendered legacies. As such, the
thesis generates new theoretical and empirical insights into the gendered dynamics of
institutional power, continuity and change that contribute to the growing body of research on
gender and institutions and inform the wider literature on both new institutional theory and
feminist political science.