What’s in a Name? Mapping the Terrain of Gendered Institutions and Gender Politics

This paper supports efforts to incorporate institutional analysis into feminist political science by laying out some of the foundational concepts and approaches, and identifying the contours of key research developments in the area. We argue that in order to extend the range and analytical leverage of FI in particular, and feminist political science in general, the necessary next stage of our work is to develop a common vocabulary of gendered institutionalist analysis, and to more systematically specify and operationalize key concepts, including formal and informal institutions, sanctions and rewards, and gendered institutional logics. We accept that this is no easy task: the wider institutionalist literature is fraught with definitional disputes. In working towards greater clarity about gendered institutions and their relationship to gender politics, we set out to answer four core questions: What are informal institutions and how do they differ and interact with formal institutions? What is the relationship between gender and informal institutions? How do institutions, actors and networks differ? (or, in other words, what isn’t an institution?); and How do we research the ‘rules-in-use’ at play in institutional arenas to capture their gendered nature, effects and outcomes? Ultimately, in addressing these questions we hope to be able to contribute to strengthening FI ‘s ability to build and test theory, and to consolidate the empirical findings and theoretical insights emerging from a decade of scholarship on gendered institutions. We also seek to draw some boundaries around FI and be clear about what its distinguishing features are vis-à-vis other feminist approaches. This means making a distinction between the roles of gendered institutions, and of gendered actors and networks, in shaping political and policy outcomes, starting with the assumption that institutions are likely to matter as much if not more than anything else in explaining the determinants of political life.