This article draws upon detailed empirical work, including observation, undertaken in a British government department in the 2000s( Bevir and Rhodes 2006, Rhodes forthcoming), in order to identify, map and understand the everyday rules-in-use, norms and practices of governance. In particular it examines the ways in which, and to what effect, gendered power relations are constructed, shaped, and maintained through institutional processes, practices, and rules. Using Connell’s concept of gender regimes, it maps the division of labour, gendered patterning of emotions and emotional work, structures of power, and gendered culture and symbolism in operation in daily practices of governance. We argue that gender operating at the symbolic level (as a signifier of power) and through the daily practicing of gender may serve as a mechanism through which institutional reform and innovation can be progressed or resisted.
