Parliaments, Governments and Parties as Gendered Organisations

This section offers a broad forum for contributions that study political organisations as workplaces. Political organisations like parliaments, governments, ministries or political parties are workplaces for a broad range of political actors, such as elected officials, civil servants, assistants or support staff. Worldwide, these political workplaces are still permeated by socially and culturally constructed scripts about gender, race, age, abledness and background, which reinforce existing inequalities with regards to access to opportunities, resources, promotion, influence and recognition for the duties carried out. This section invites for contributions employing a broad range of institutionalist and organisational perspectives for understanding how the ‘rules of the game’ – both formal and informal, shape the relations of privilege and exclusion in the political arena. The section aims to take stock of state-of-the-art research, further ongoing debates and open up avenues for future research pertaining to the broader organisational structure of political bodies and the impact thereof on accountability, representation, efficiency and fairness of democratic processes. We are particularly interested in contributions that study how the working conditions within different political organisations vary across sexes, gender- and sexual identities, ethnicities, races, age groups, social and professional backgrounds and various intersections thereof. The main themes include, but are not limited to, exposure to stereotyping and double standards; exclusion from informal networks and power circles in which political goods are exchanged; unequal promotion and dropout rates; discomfort with the organisational structure and/or physical working environment and the gendered consequences thereof; and workplace violence, including physical and psychological harassment, lack of recognition, undue credit claiming and culture of exclusion and belittling. We welcome paper-, panel- and roundtable submissions within a broad array of epistemologies, analytical perspectives and methodological approaches around the following themes: • Studies of political recruitment with a particular focus on how the interplay between the formal rules that underpin these processes and deeply rooted masculinised views about an ‘ideal’ candidate/minister/party leader produce gendered, racialized, aged, (…) outcomes. We particularly welcome comparative studies, studies that employ mixed methods or those that tackle previously unexplored cases. Contributions employing an intersectional lens are strongly encouraged. • Contributions examining how political bodies’ inner working culture influences on the distribution of political assignments and tasks that come with visibility, name recognition and influence. Existing research suggests that men face more privileged access to various politically-meriting opportunities, owing to deep-rooted masculine norms as well as asymmetrical access to the mostly homosocial, informal networks of power. We welcome contributions that examine the mechanisms that explain the asymmetrical distribution of valuable political goods, such as peer mentoring or access to assistant staff; as well as those exploring the ways in which existing dynamics of privilege can be sustained and reproduced. Large-scale, comparative and cross-cultural contributions are particularly encouraged. • Contributions that examine the conditions of access to political leadership and agenda-setting power. Contributions that examine the role of institutional conditions, such as stereotyping, unequal access to informal networks of power or lack of formal rules, in producing structural asymmetries in access to positions of power are encouraged. We also welcome contributions examining differences in leadership styles and the impact thereof on, for instance, political debate or how agenda-setting power is shared among political actors. • Studies that examine the effect of various types of affirmative action on formal organisation structure of the political workplace as well as the informal workplace culture. The presence of politically underrepresented social groups in political organisations might not trigger irreversible changes in how the institutions operate. We welcome contributions that critically assess the ways through which deeply-entrenched sources of privilege can adapt and survive despite affirmative action. • Studies into various forms of violence, both psychological and physical; and harassment in the workplace, including bullying, threats, belittling and undue credit claiming, affect the conditions under which political actors carry out their duties. • New theoretical approaches to studying the interplay between formal institutional arrangements in the political workplace and their interaction with workplace culture, including informal rules, norms, practices and rituals. Of particular interest are novel analytical frameworks for qualitative or quantitative studies that allow for cross-cultural inquiries. • Novel methodological contributions to develop the study of political organisations as workplaces. Of particular interests are the methods that can get to those informal norms and rules that are so deeply embedded within the fabric of the political workplace that they are rendered virtually invisible to political actors.