Towards an enhanced understanding of feminist institutional change: theorizing gendered institutional constraints and feminist institutional strategies

How to achieve institutional change that improves gender equality is a question that lies at heart of the feminist institutional perspective. On the basis of empirical snapshots from the past century’s struggle for women’s political inclusion, we seek to advance theory on the conditions conducive to feminist institutional change. Taking the concepts of “gendered institutional constraint” and “feminist institutional strategy” as our starting point, we delve deeper into the dynamic relation between the institutional context and actors: on the one hand, the institutional context constrains possibilities for women’s political inclusion, and, on the other, it shapes actors’ strategic choices. We argue that institutional constraints in different spheres of society need to be accounted for, to properly capture the complex nature of obstacles posed to women’s political inclusion in a given context. For example, in the social sphere obstacles such as the exclusion of women from public professions has historically been critical for women’s political inclusion, and the lack of social protection systems continues to be a hurdle. In the political sphere, gendered voting restrictions and preferential voting constitute severe obstacles, and, in addition to that, the parliamentary sphere constitutes further obstacles such as parliamentary privilege. Furthermore, we suggest that feminist institutional strategies are inherently related to specific institutional obstacles. Building on existing institutional literature and empirical findings from an edited volume on the legacy of women’s suffrage, we develop two typologies that aim to conceptualize (1) the institutional constraints—formal regulations as well as the prevalent gendered norms and ideas—which pose obstacles for women’s (but not men’s) political inclusion in different spheres of society, and (2) the repertoire of feminist institutional strategies used to counter these constraints. The usefulness of these typologies will be demonstrated with empirical illustrations from a variety of national contexts across time.