Introduction: Gender, Politics, and Institutions

Abstract

Gender, Politics, and Institutions – and the international network of scholars involved in this collaborative enterprise1 – is animated by the desire to find new tools and analytical frameworks to help us to answer some of the big questions and real-world puzzles about gendered power inequalities in public and political life. For example, how are formal structures and informal ‘rules of the game’ gendered? How do political institutions affect the daily lives of women and men, respectively? By what processes and mechanisms are such institutions produced, both reflecting and reproducing social systems, including gendered power relations? How do institutions constrain actors, ideas, and interests? Finally, what is the gendered potential for institutional innovation, reform, and change in pursuit of gender justice, and what are its limits?