Despite its popularity as a conceptual framework, institutionalism is characterized by a deep methodological uncertainty. Doctoral students struggle to pin down the actual institutions that they wish to study, and, in the work of many established scholars, the operationalization of institutionalist concepts is frustratingly vague or surprisingly flexible. It has been 30 years since “new institutionalists” March and Olsen (1984) argued that “the organisation of political life makes a difference.” They were reacting to “undersocialised” perspectives like behavioralism and early rational choice theory and asserting that informal conventions were as significant as formal structures and procedures. This broad conception of institutions has been both the strength and the weakness of the wave of research that followed. It has enabled new institutionalists to build a more fine-grained and realistic picture of what really constrains political behavior and decision making. But an expanded definition of “institution” runs the risk of “conceptual stretching” (Peters 1999, 216). March and Olsen (1989, 17) themselves make no clear distinction between institutions and social norms in general, while Douglas North (1990, 83) goes as far as to include tradition, custom, culture, and habit in his definition. Researchers also operate at radically different temporal and spatial scales—from microlevel studies of decision making to analyses of whole government systems (like legislatures, for instance) or historical accounts of policy change. Bo Rothstein (1996, 145) cautions that if the concept of institution “means everything, then it means nothing.” Guy Peters (1999, 145) argues that institutionalists need “more rigour in conceptualisation and then measurement of the phenomena that are assumed to make up institutions.”

As a strategy to promote gender equality, gender mainstreaming has received considerable attention worldwide. The language of gender mainstreaming has been quickly adopted (True and Mintrom 2001), which is why, in the beginning, many hopes were pinned on this strategy. Scholars have shown that gender mainstreaming has triggered organizational and procedural changes within state bureaucracies, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations. Gender equality units have been established, new policy tools have been introduced, and new procedures have been created. But feminist scholars also have shown that, all these changes notwithstanding, gender mainstreaming has not proven to be successful in achieving gender equality (cf. True and Parisi 2013). More than 15 years after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, there are serious problems in translating the commitment into action. This is, as many scholars argue, not only a result of institutional and political resistance to substantially changing gender relations, but also a matter of conceptual clarity (Daly 2005; Lombardo and Meier 2006; Meier and Celis 2011; Subrahmanian 2004).

The post-civil rights era has left an important dilemma in U.S. politics. Despite the fact that the United States has become more integrated across racial and gendered lines since the 1960s, inequality, particularly economic inequality, has grown. Although much of that inequality continues to fall along racial, gender, and class lines, the opportunities afforded by the “rights revolution” have also created an important heterogeneity of privilege within marginal groups. As social scientists, how best can we identify the sources and results of this inequality? More specifically, how can we better understand the crosscutting political effects of both marginalization and privilege within and among groups in U.S. society? I contend that intersections theory may be a useful place to begin, and that the idea of intersectionality could provide a fruitful framework with which to understand issues of inequality in the post-civil rights era. Such a framework would help address some of the theoretical problems that sometimes arise within empirical work on marginal groups in political science and, ideally, allow scholars to understand better how experiences of marginalization and privilege affect the shape and character of American political life.

A growing body of literature focuses on the attitudes produced by women's representation. One area of particular interest is the effect of women's representation on perceptions of corruption in government. Multiple scholars have found that citizens view women in government as more trustworthy and less corrupt. Others have suggested that the link between gender and corruption is spurious or dependent upon regime characteristics. Additionally, many studies of women's effect on corruption were published prior to the widespread adoption of gender quotas, when levels of women's representation were considerably lower. We argue that the relationship between women and perceptions of corruption can be better understood by applying an integrated model of representation, which explores the effects of formal, descriptive, and substantive representation on perceptions of corruption. Using a time-series analysis of 140 countries worldwide from 1998–2011, this study finds that women's descriptive and substantive representation are correlated with lower perceptions of corruption. However, gender quotas are correlated with higher perceptions of corruption among political elites.

The “personal vote” refers to “that portion of a candidate's electoral support which originates in his or her personal qualities, qualifications, activities, and record” (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987, 9). The presence of a personal vote in an electoral system means that the person up for election matters, not just the candidate's party. Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina go so far as to refer to it as “relationships between the represented and representatives,” claiming that these relationships are more “personal, particularistic, and idiosyncratic than in other kinds of systems” (8, emphasis mine).

The high percentage of women in Rwanda's parliament is well known. At 64%, it scores far above the world average of about 22% (IPU 2013). Rather than an anomaly, Rwanda is representative of many postconflict developing countries that feature women's political representation at above-average levels. A frequently identified correlate of this heightened representation has been the presence of electoral quotas for women (Bush 2011; Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter 2010). More generally, the role of societal rupture and transitions from conflict to peace or from authoritarianism to democracy have been a focus of gender and politics research in recent years (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Hughes 2007; 2009; Hughes and Paxton 2007; Viterna and Fallon 2008). Within such transitions, the role of women's participation has been identified as a key determinant of more beneficial posttransition outcomes for women (Viterna and Fallon 2008). Peace processes and the accords that they yield represent a mechanism through which transition and women's rights become linked and theoretically hold the potential to shape postconflict societies. However, the link between women's involvement in peace processes and the subsequent adoption of electoral quotas has not been explored. In this article, we seek to answer the question: What is the relationship between postconflict transition, peace processes, and quota adoption? To this end, we examine the role played by peace accords and, more specifically, accords with a focus on women's rights in leading countries to adopt electoral quotas for women.

Social scientists are increasingly taking a more complex theoretical approach to the role of stereotyping in the electorate's evaluation of political candidates. Within this literature, most studies investigate the impact of one stereotype on the public's evaluation of candidates from an underrepresented group. We build on and extend this literature by exploring what we term “intersectional stereotyping”: The role of stereotypes in shaping the electorate's evaluation of political candidates who share dual membership in stigmatized groups—women and sexual minorities. We empirically examine the impact of intersectional stereotyping in a unique 2003 survey of national adults. Our results indicate that gender, both of the respondent and the candidate, plays a key role in shaping attitudes toward gay and lesbian political candidates. These findings suggest that intersectional stereotyping plays a nuanced role in evaluations of candidates; in certain contexts gender stereotypes are more significant, and at other times stereotypes about sexual minorities appear to be driving evaluations of candidates.

The “institutional turn” in political science reflects a wider consensus among both feminist and mainstream scholars that institutions—broadly defined as the formal and informal “rules of the game”—deeply shape political life. Political institutions are also profoundly gendered. Yet, despite significant advancements in institutional analysis over the past few decades, gender politics scholars continue to grapple with how to “capture” the gendered character and gendering effects of institutions. This contribution explores how insights from feminist institutionalism (see, for example, Kenny 2007; 2013; Krook and Mackay 2011) can help us address these methodological challenges. It argues that a feminist institutionalist approach provides useful insights into the gendered foundations of political institutions, the operation and importance of informal institutions, and the general and gendered mechanisms of continuity and change.

Three issues are central to, but underdeveloped in, theoretical debates about the welfare state. First, the array of welfare services is of equal, or greater, importance than welfare transfers; second, spending varies across substantively different domains; and third, the welfare state is profoundly shaped by gender. While a comprehensive body of research has provided many claims and critiques on these points, their potential for empirical examination has not been fully realized. This article addresses these points by analyzing development according to substantively disaggregated measures of welfare spending, as well as theorizing and testing explicit gender-relevant influences alongside established indicators. Results from cross-sectional and fixed-effect models indicate that established factors are particularly relevant for transfer spending, and much less so for services. Notably, gender measures emerge as strong determinants of services spending generally, but the specific impact of gender varies according to both the substantive spending domain and the aspect of gender being measured. The findings, overall, show strong support for the broader inclusion of gender, and the utility of moving beyond programmatic generalist approaches.

The recent push for more women parliamentarians around the world via positive action measures such as gender quotas naturally begs the question of whether the increased descriptive representation of women in parliament is making a substantive difference, in terms of the types of policies passed, behavioral norms, and procedures. How does the substantive representation of women take place? One way of measuring gendered impacts in politics is to look at the participation of Members of Parliament (MPs) in formal, parliamentary debate on key policy issues. It is reasonable to assume that one (though certainly not the only) measure of a good MP is his or her ability to contribute his or her voice and thoughts to public policy debates in parliament. Furthermore, if we consider women MPs representative of women in particular as a marginalized group, making their voices heard in parliamentary debates is perhaps one of the best ways of acting for women. As Melissa Williams (1998, 138) argues, the unique voice of women is a necessary component for women's political equality:

In this article, I explore the political consequences of being a parent for men and women seeking political office. Although a long-standing body of research has concluded that family obligations constrain the political careers of women but not of men, almost no research examines how family status can affect voter evaluations of political candidates. Using an experiment in which I varied the candidate's gender and parental status, I find that on a number of indicators, voters rate childless female candidates substantially lower than childless male candidates, mother candidates, and father candidates. Childless women also lose the traditional “female advantage” on child-care and children's issues. Additionally, while mothers of young children are not significantly disadvantaged compared to mothers of older children and women with no children, they are disadvantaged in comparison to male candidates with young children. Furthermore, this study finds evidence that male candidates may receive a “fatherhood penalty” compared to men with no children. Thus, there are political consequences of being a parent, but the consequences are dependent on the candidate's gender. These findings have important implications for candidate campaign strategy and how female candidates should think about presenting their family lives to voters.

Previous research has documented that the public often views women candidates through the lens of gender stereotypes. However, as much of this work draws on experimental designs and hypothetical candidates, we have less information about whether and how voters employ stereotypes in the face of real candidates for office. This project examines one important aspect of the impact of stereotypes on the fate of actual women candidates: whether gender stereotypes have a different influence on elections for different levels and types of offices. Previous research suggests that voters are more likely to apply male stereotypes and evaluate candidates differently as the level of office increases and as we consider executive versus legislative office. The research reported here draws on new data that capture voter attitudes and behaviors in real-world elections to test a series of hypotheses related to when and how gender stereotypes affect candidates for the U.S. Congress and governorships. In general, we find little evidence to support claims that voters stereotype women candidates differently when they seek different kinds of offices.

Parties are the key actors shaping women's representation in advanced parliamentary democracies. Based on traditional patterns of feminist organizing, conventional wisdom suggests that parties of the left are the strongest advocates for women. Despite the prevalence of this claim, a burgeoning body of work indicates that parties on the right can—and often do—seek to represent women. To address these competing narratives, this article offers the first large-N, party-level study of women's descriptive and substantive representation over place and time. The results suggest that party ideology continues to affect women's representation: right parties lag behind their left counterparts with respect to women's presence in elected office, and right and left parties address women differently on their platforms. At the same time, there is significant heterogeneity among right parties. Christian democrats, for example, are more likely than conservatives to adopt voluntary gender quotas and make policy claims on behalf of women. The traditional left-right distinction is thus too coarse to fully explain party behavior in these states.

Under certain conditions, women are more likely than men to vote for women candidates, a phenomenon referred to as a “gender affinity effect.” Causal mechanisms connecting women voters to women candidates are gender consciousness, desire for descriptive representation, support for liberal social policy, the use of gender as a shortcut to vote choice among low-information voters, and a “party-sex overlap.” Existing work is focused on American elections, which tend to be candidate centered, so little is known about gender affinity effects between voters and candidates in other contexts. This article focuses on Westminster-style parliamentary systems, using the Canadian federal elections of 2000 and 2004 as test cases. Women in these systems have the same motivations to gravitate toward women candidates, for they are gender conscious and desire descriptive representation. But they do not have the same incentives to cast ballots for women because political institutions and practices tend to discourage candidate-based voting. The article pays particular attention to a segment of the electorate we call “flexible” voters, which is comprised of independents, leaners, and defectors. In Westminster systems, it is this group of voters who should be most sensitive to candidate-based considerations.

The diffusion of gender quotas reflects the legitimation of the normative principle of women's equality in public life. Legislative gender quotas, whether adopted through top-down elite decision making or through bottom-up feminist activism, are frequently justified via appeals to norms of inclusion and fairness. These democratic ideals of women's full representation and participation have indeed gained traction: Over the past two decades, quotas have extended beyond legislatures to public institutions, such as cabinets and executive agencies, and to state advisory councils, subnational governments, labor union directorates, and corporate boards. Such diffusion signals a profound gendering of public space and leadership, a transformation initiated by states assuming active roles as the guarantors—rather than mere promoters—of equality.

In this essay I lay out how historical institutionalism (HI) could serve as an important tool for feminist political scientists, highlighting the potentially distinctive contribution and advantages of a feminist historical institutionalism (rather than a feminist institutionalism) for feminist political science and particularly for a feminist comparative politics. The potentially significant contribution of HI is to help us answer some “big questions,” in particular, how and why institutional change occurs. This, in turn, can help us understand how positive gender change, such as improvements in women's descriptive and substantive representation, can come about. This latter question is obviously not only of academic but also of political concern for feminists who wish to lessen gender inequality.

Despite the gains women have made since the advent of second-wave feminism, womenremain less confident than men of their ability to understand politics. Thisgender gap has remained unchanged for decades, yet it has attracted surprisinglylittle scholarly attention in recent years. This article uses data from the 2000American and 2004 Canadian election studies to assess whether differences inwomen's and men's socioeconomic resources help to explainthe gender gap. We also examine whether there are differences in the ways thatsocioeconomic resources affect women's and men'sself-perceived ability to understand politics. We focus particular attention onthe effects of parenthood on women's confidence in theirunderstanding of politics. Finally, we consider the role of feminism and genderrole conceptions.

It is a well-established finding that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are associated with greater legislative representation for women than single member systems. However, the degree to which different types of PR rules affect voting for female candidates has not been fully explored. The existing literature is also hampered by a reliance on cross-national data in which individual vote preferences and electoral system features are endogenous. In this study, we draw upon an experiment conducted during the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections to isolate the effects of different PR electoral systems. Participants in the experiment were given the opportunity to vote for real EP candidates in three different electoral systems: closed list, open list, and open list with panachage and cumulation. Because voter preferences can be held constant across the three different votes, we can evaluate the extent to which female candidates were more or less advantaged by the electoral system itself. We find that voters, regardless of their gender, support female candidates, and that this support is stronger under open electoral rules.

Women are underrepresented in most of the world's legislatures. While the scarcity of female representation is problematic for multiple reasons, one of the central concerns of advocates and scholars rests on the assumption that women have different legislative preferences than their male counterparts. If this is the case, then it implies that where women do not occupy an equitable proportion of the legislature, their interests are not well represented.

This contribution to the Special Issue on Gender and Conservatism uses expert and election surveys to explore the extent to which the feminist or traditional gender ideology of parties of the right relates to their economic and liberal/authoritarian ideology. We show that although parties of the left generally espouse more feminist ideologies than parties of the right, there are a significant number of rightist parties in Western Europe that combine laissez-faire economic values with liberal feminist ideals. That said, there is more homogeneity among parties of the populist radical right than rightist parties more generally. We find that despite some variation in their gender ideology, parties of the populist radical right overwhelmingly—with the exception of one party in the Netherlands—continue to adopt traditional or antifeminist gender ideologies. In terms of attracting women voters, we find that rightist parties who adopt a feminist gender ideology are able to attract more women voters than other parties of the right. We detect several examples of center-right parties that include feminist elements in their gender ideologies and are able to win over larger proportions of women voters than rightist parties that fail to adopt feminist positions.