Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism: an overview

This chapter discusses the ways that feminist institutional approaches provide a theoretical framework to understand feminist governance. We focus on describing the use of feminist institutionalism within the literature and how it increases understanding of the sources of development and change. Women’s movements, formal and informal institutions, specific historical precedents, and international pressures may all play a role in determining how and whether feminist governance develops and changes. We explore these topics in further detail, providing brief overviews of how feminist institutionalism explains three specific institutional sources of feminist governance – sex/gender quotas, gender policy machineries, and gender mainstreaming. We also examine how intersectional feminist theorising relates to the current methods of feminist institutionalism, given that feminist practises historically have prioritised the experiences of privileged women.