Why develop a comparative politics of gender? As the critical perspectives in this section demonstrate, there are many answers to this question. I would like to focus here on two reasons: first, for gaining a deeper understanding of the operations of political institutions, and second, for explaining the relationship between these institutions and social actors, including those pursuing a gender equality agenda. To be specific, this essay argues not just for a comparative politics of gender but for a comparative politics of gender and institutions. The discussion focuses on the possibility of using neo-institutionalist theory, especially in relation to its normative and dynamic understanding of institutions, to gain a deeper understanding of the way that gender shapes political institutions and also, through interaction with social actors, including feminists, the way gender norms can be disrupted to open new spaces for these actors.
Despite the “normative turn” in institutional comparative theory, the mainstream literature has given very little attention to the way in which the norms and assumptions of political institutions are gendered. In this literature, little reference is made to the findings in foundational feminist research of the way that gender shapes political institutions (see, for instance, Acker 1992; Savage and Witz 1992; Stivers 1993). An objective of a comprehensive comparative research agenda on gender and institutions is to “gender” these mainstream debates: to develop a more nuanced understanding of the “logic of appropriateness” underpinning political institutions. Such an understanding will contribute not only to knowledge about the internal operation and effect of institutions but also about how institutional gender patterns shape external social relations.
A comparative politics of gender and institutions is important for understanding institutions qua institutions. However, it could also provide an additional tool for studying the engagement of gender equality activists, including women's movement actors, with political institutions. An understanding of the operation of gender within institutions across time and place can be employed as an additional independent variable to test the relationship between feminists and the state. Further, exploring the way gender is imprinted upon and embedded within institutions helps in the assessment of the political opportunities and constraints facing feminist actors: It can assist in determining when and which institutions will be more open (or closed) to gender equality demands. A comparative politics of gender and institutions does not seek to replace comparative studies of women's movements and politics. There exist many excellent examples of such work (for detailed summaries, see Beckwith 2000; RNGS 2005) that remind us that women remain an important political category—especially inasmuch as they continue to suffer discrimination and lower levels of representation because of their sex (see Vickers 2006). Rather, it aims to develop clearer explanations about institutional gender processes and outcomes, at the same time offering strategic pointers to feminist activists looking for the most advantageous settings in which to pursue their claims.
Those interested in working toward a comparative politics of gender and institutions need to be alert to the methodological issues confronting us. We would do well to learn from (and indeed draw on the data produced by) the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS). In devising its ambitious research project—the study of women's policy agencies in the democratization process in 16 postindustrialized countries—the network has been forced to think carefully about case selection and how to conceptualize and measure the concept of women's movements and feminism (see RNGS 2005).
To pick up on the issue of conceptualization, it is necessary for a comparative study of gender and institutions to commence with a clear definition of gender. Recent contributors to Politics & Gender (2005) have made important contributions in this regard. Karen Beckwith's division between gender as a category, on the one hand, and gender as a process, on the other, is particularly useful. For the purposes of the following discussion, the notion of gender as a process is especially appropriate. For Beckwith, “gender as a process is manifested as the differential effects of apparently gender-neutral structures and policies upon women and men, and upon masculine and/or feminine actors.” It also suggests “not only that institutions and politics are gendered but also that they can be gendered; that is, that activist feminists … can work to instate practices and rules that recast the gendered nature of the political” (2005, 132–33). The following discussion uses this two-pronged concept—of gender shaping and being shaped by institutions and actors—in considering the ways in which the study of the intersection between gender and political institutions might be advanced.
Comparative Institutions and Gender
Throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, institutionalism reemerged in response to dominant behaviorist approaches to politics with new and interesting concepts with which to compare political developments, policies, and interest formation across states (see Hall 1986; Peters 1999; Skocpol 1985; Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992). Neo-institutionalism differs from earlier institutional approaches in a number of respects but is most relevant to the discussion here, in terms of emphasizing the normative and dynamic characteristics of institutions (see Thelen and Steinmo 1992). Although the concept of gender is left unexamined in this literature, these two aspects of the theory are nevertheless useful in opening up new avenues for exploring its operation in ways that can contribute to a comparative gender analysis of institutions.
Gender and Institutional Norms
One of the key features of neo-institutionalism is the emphasis on the centrality of norms in influencing the nature of institutions (Thelen and Steinmo 1992; Peters 1999). This perspective is well described in the work of James March and Johan Olsen (1989, 161), who view political institutions as
collections of interrelated rules and routines that define appropriate actions in terms of relations between roles and situations…. When individuals enter an institution, they try to discover, and are taught, the rules. When they encounter a new situation, they try to associate it with a situation for which rules already exist. Through rules and a logic of appropriateness, political institutions realize both order, stability and predictability, on the one hand, and flexibility and adaptiveness, on the other.
A logic of appropriateness suggests that institutions constrain certain types of behavior while encouraging others. Although this logic is not impermeable, it is difficult to unsettle as it is perpetuated by institutional actors who “embody and reflect existing norms and beliefs” (McAdam and Scott 2005, 15) and who seek to maintain the rules.
There has been a plethora of comparative research into the role played by institutional norms in shaping political and policy outcomes in areas that include the economy, health, transport, and welfare, among others (for example, see Davis et al. 2005; Steinmo et al. 1992). However, the mainstream literature has given surprisingly little attention to the gendered underpinnings of many of these norms. What this literature has failed to recognize is that institutional norms prescribe (as well as proscribe) “acceptable” masculine and feminine forms of behavior, rules, and values for men and women within institutions. Moreover, political institutions also produce outcomes—polices, legislation, rulings—that are shaped by gender norms: outcomes which, in turn, help to re/produce broader social and political gender expectations. In other words, what the mainstream institutional literature has failed to do is develop an account of the operation of gender processes (Beckwith 2005, 132–33) within and through political institutions.
While mainstream studies of institutions have failed to take gender into account, feminist scholars have been alert to its importance (Acker 1992; Savage and Witz 1992; Stivers 1993). In a review of research on gender and institutions, Joni Lovenduski (1998, 348) points to four areas of knowledge essential to the study of gender and institutions. It is necessary to have an awareness that 1) everyone in an institution has a sex and performs gender; 2) the experience of individuals in institutions varies by both sex and gender; 3) sex and gender interact with other components of identity—for example, race, ethnicity—that also have implications for models of femininity and masculinity; and 4) institutions have distinctively gendered cultures and are involved in processes of producing and reproducing gender. This last point, in particular, links to the importance of uncovering the gendered nature of the logic of appropriateness within institutions across time and place. Space does not permit a thorough treatment of the operation of this logic across a range of political institutions. Nevertheless, a brief exploration of the operation of gender norms in the bureaucratic sphere will help to illustrate the point.
In many Western liberal states, but especially those with Westminster parliamentary systems such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the bureaucracy has developed, over time, a strong underlying commitment to the norm of bureaucratic neutrality. As it is applied in Westminster systems, neutrality creates a set of “rules” for public servants that stipulates what they may and may not do. Public servants understand that they may not engage in partisan political activities or express their personal views on government policies or administration. It is made equally clear that their principal duty is to execute policy decisions loyally and impartially, irrespective of the party in power and regardless of their personal opinions (Kernaghan 1985).
Though largely unrecognized by nonfeminist scholars, the norm of neutrality is profoundly gendered. It suggests that “administrators can rise above their own beliefs and the political fray to fix their sights on the public interest, broadly conceived” (Stivers 1993, 38) and that there is a set of universal norms that can be used as a reliable prism through which to view the world. The emphasis on the importance of individuals being able to detach themselves from situations and act with “dispassionate objectivity” reflects an emphasis on traditional masculine traits (Stivers 1993, 40). Meanwhile, values such as emotion, sensibility, or passion, in other words those that have been identified as “feminine” values, are regarded as excessive and laden with bias (Stivers 1993, 41).
Understanding the gender foundations of this norm is important for anyone interested in the operations of state bureaucracies. It demonstrates that despite their neutral appearance, embedded assumptions about appropriate forms of behavior in the public service are, in fact, masculine. Understanding the operation of gender through norms such as neutrality is also helpful for social movement actors, especially feminist activists who seek to use state institutions—including the bureaucracy—to advance their equality claims. The gender assumptions underlying bureaucratic neutrality would suggest that the stronger the enforcement of these norms, the less chance there is for feminists to work from within or without the bureaucracy to advance what could only be considered under these conditions as a “biased” policy position of gender equality. Comparative institutional research across three Westminster-style bureaucracies—in Australia, Canada, and the UK—bears out this assumption.
Historically, the norm of neutrality has always been in operation within the Australian public sector, but it has been weakened by a tolerance for advocates of sectional interests to work within the bureaucracy to advance their aims. Throughout the twentieth century, internal advocacy was especially prominent among producer and industry groups, including trade unions, manufacturers, and farmers, who encouraged government to establish public sector bodies—described as “organs of syndical satisfaction” (Miller 1964, 65)—and staff them with members of the “outsider” groups who could then push their policy agenda from within. Australian feminists were profoundly influenced by the tradition of sectional interests looking toward the administrative arm of the state, and the state responding by providing them with institutional structures through which they could advance their claims. Most importantly, it encouraged feminists to look to this arena to have their demands met. Feminists, especially in the period 1975–95, successfully agitated for state and federal governments to create women's policy agencies in which they could work as “femocrats”: senior women's policy officers whose feminism was a criterion for the job. Once “inside,” femocrats were able to develop policies to address women's inequality in areas that include the budget, child care, pensions, superannuation, and violence against women (see Chappell 2002a; Eisenstein 1996; Sawer 1990).
By contrast, in both Canada and the United Kingdom, feminists wanting to engage with the civil service have been confronted with the operation of stronger neutrality norms. Compared to Canberra, Ottawa and Whitehall have remained wedded to notions of anonymity and nonpartisan neutrality. The continuing potency of neutrality has represented a major obstacle to a “femocrat project” in both countries. The prejudice against internal “feminist agitators” in Ottawa has been noted by former Canadian feminist bureaucrats. They talk of initiatives being stonewalled and trivialized, treated with indifference and impatience by senior managers, or met with a “wilful misunderstanding” (Findlay 1987). According to Linda Geller-Schwartz, in Canada, “the idea that civil servants should adopt the role of internal lobbyists for women as a definable group was an anathema” (1995, 49). Similarly in the UK, the ongoing strength of neutrality has made it difficult for feminists to operate within the bureaucracy for fear that they were “biased.” For those who do, it is difficult to form networks with external feminist groups. According to staff in the UK Women's Unit, women committed to feminist principles working in the unit tend to keep their views to themselves. Moreover, any sign of advocacy on behalf of “women” has not been welcome (Chappell 2002b).
Bureaucratic neutrality is but one gendered institutional norm that shapes the logic of appropriateness for actors engaging with and through the bureaucracy. Other norms within Westminster-style bureaucracies, such as merit and career service, also operate along masculinist lines. The meritorious ideal public servant is a rational, detached, calculating individual, while the desired attributes for appointment to the career service include a full-time unbroken work record, as well as the assumption of full-time domestic support (Burton 1991, 3). The assumptions underpinning both concepts are highly gendered. While women are considered less deserving of promotion because of their purported irrational nature, their historic absence at senior levels of the bureaucracy has had a further gendering effect: Without women's input, policy decisions that are made at the highest level have tended to disregard (and thereby reinforce) the unequal political, economic, and social position of the two sexes, as well as make stereotypical assumptions about male and female behavior (on this point, also see Acker 1992, 567).
A gendered logic of appropriateness is not confined to the bureaucracy. In recent years, feminist scholars also working within a Western liberal comparative framework have pointed to the gendered normative basis of other political institutions, including legislatures (Childs 2001; Hawkesworth 2003; Phillips 1998), federal structures (Banaszak 1996; Chappell 2002a; Vickers 1994), and constitutional and legal systems (Dobrowolsky and Hart 2003). When combined, these analyses show that gender norms are an important variable to consider when analyzing the political opportunity structures facing social actors. At the same time, they also warn against making assumptions about the operation of gender norms, even within similar institutions. As Lovenduski (1998, 350) points out: “The successful application of the concept of gender to the investigation of political institutions must acknowledge not only the complexity of gender but also the nature of the particular institution and the kinds of masculinities and femininities that are performed.” This point is borne out in my own research (Chappell 2002a; 2002b) on feminist engagement with a range of institutions and political structures (the bureaucracy, the legal system, parliament, and federalism) in two comparable states (Australia and Canada). This research highlights the fact that assumptions about appropriate masculine and feminine behavior can vary both between different institutions within a single state (e.g., the parliament, the courts, and the bureaucracy of Australia) and between similar institutions across states (e.g., constitutional and legal structures in Canada and Australia).
These differences are important for shaping political opportunities and, as a consequence, the strategic choices of feminists in each country. Whereas Canadian feminists have found it fruitful to make use of constitutional arrangements and develop litigation strategies to pursue equality claims, their Australian counterparts have (at least until recently) found the bureaucracy more open and have used a strategy of bureaucratic “entrism.” The research undertaken to date on the gendered logic of appropriateness suggests that many questions remain about the way the process operates within institutions in similar and different polities, as well as the ways in which this gendering process shapes the available political opportunity structure. These are important questions to be addressed through future comparative politics of gender and institutions research.
Gender and Institutional Dynamism
If institutions are gendered, then what is the point of encouraging social actors, especially feminists who aim to challenge the gender status quo, to engage with them? The answer lies in another aspect of neo-institutionalism: institutional dynamism. This notion relates to the proposition that although institutions tend toward stability and “path dependency,” they are not fixed, permanent, or completely stable entities (see Thelen and Steinmo 1992, 16–17). This does not contradict the argument made above about the existence of a logic of appropriateness within political institutions, but qualifies it to suggest that what is considered appropriate can alter over time (Katzenstein 1998, 35). Crises or shocks, such as a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or an economic recession, can induce an acceptance of different or new norms. But more commonly, institutional change comes about through an incremental or evolutionary process (Campbell 2005, 58). As John Kingdon (2003), among others, has argued, such a process is often driven by “policy entrepreneurs” or innovators working from within or outside institutions to change the rules.
A comparative politics of gender and institutions can help in the understanding of normative institutional change through analyzing the engagement of “gender equity entrepreneurs” within institutions. Already, feminist scholars have begun to highlight examples of feminist agency in relation to institutions. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein's excellent comparison of feminists working through the Catholic Church and the military in the United States to bring about equality is a case in point. As she argues:
“Less lawbreaking than norm-breaking, these feminists have challenged, discomforted, and provoked, unleashing a wholesale disturbance of long-settled assumptions, norms and practices” (1998, 7).
Katzenstein's analysis is similar to the aforementioned work on Australian femocrats, which also highlights the ability of gender equality activists to disrupt existing norms once they avail themselves of the opportunity to work from within.
Equally, as Joyce Gelb's (2003) comparison between the United States and Japan demonstrates, and the chapters in the book by Lee Ann Banaszak, Karen Beckwith, and Dieter Rucht (2003) on women's movements in Western Europe and North America show, feminist actors working outside of institutions have, under certain conditions, also enjoyed a degree of agency, enabling them to unsettle expectations about the role of men and women within institutions and to bring about shifts in policy, as well as legislative and legal outcomes. A good example of this dynamic can be found in the case of feminists working within the Canadian legal and constitutional system. By means of lobbying tactics, feminists were able to influence the direction of debates over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and eventually ensured the entrenchment of sex-based equality clauses within it (see Dobrowolsky 2003). Having achieved this much, they were then able to engage in Charter litigation and introduce a gender perspective to Charter jurisprudence (see Chappell 2002a).
Accepting the dynamism of political institutions and the ability for activists to “reinscribe” their gender foundations is not to suggest that feminists will always be successful or are on an unswerving trajectory toward “progress” (however that may be interpreted). Positive advances can only come about at those times when there is an alignment of political opportunities—for instance, a responsive government, a “liberal” court, and a social reform–focused public service—but as activists know too well, such alignments are not only rare but rarely permanent. The election of a different government, the appointment of new members of the judiciary, or changes in personnel in the public sector can lead to a retreat to an earlier logic of appropriateness or the creation of a new but equally restrictive one from the point of view of relaxing gender codes. For instance, as Australian femocrats have discovered in recent years, the election of a conservative federal government opposed to special interest groups, and with little regard for women's rights, has led to the downgrading of their institutional status and position such that—for those willing to remain in the bureaucracy—their ability to shape policy is negligible (see Sawer 2004).
These studies of insider and outsider activism demonstrate that the interaction between activists and institutions not only operates in a top-down direction (although this can occur) but also as a two-way street: that the relationship can be constitutive. In engaging with institutions, feminists have had some success in being able to “regender” them and thereby create openings for further engagement. However, a note of caution should be sounded here as there is no guarantee that shifts within institutions are ever permanent. The task, then, for those undertaking a comparative politics of gender and institutions is to clarify the conditions under which gender norms can be disrupted and to enable equality seekers to target when and where there are institutions that are most likely to be open to their demands.
The usefulness of neo-institutionalist theory for understanding gender and institutions need not be confined only to the level of the nation-state. International institutions also have their own logic of appropriateness that is shaped by and shapes gender norms. Scholars have already begun to undertake research that reveals this logic. For example, studies of the United Nations demonstrate that despite a commitment to the principle of gender equality, most UN bodies, including human rights treaty bodies, have failed to make gender a policy priority (see Freeman 1999; Gallagher 1997). Efforts to introduce notions of gender equality and gender mainstreaming into the treaty bodies have been met with, at best, misunderstanding and a lack of support and, at worst, outright hostility (Charlesworth 2005). As a result, transnational women's rights activists have found it difficult to engage with or influence these bodies. On the other hand, these activists have found other UN arenas, especially the series of international world conferences on women, including the 1995 Beijing Conference, much more dynamic and open to their demands (Friedman 2003). It is no surprise then that the locus of transnational women's rights lobbying in the past 20 years has been these conferences, rather than the committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) or other such treaty bodies. The new International Criminal Court, with its commitment to principles of gender justice, has also proven to be a useful target for women's rights activism (Chappell 2006). Whether it represents a new shift toward greater sensitivity regarding gender concerns in international institutions will need to be carefully monitored.
Understanding the logic of appropriateness within institutions of global governance is important for explaining the choice of strategies used by transnational actors. It is also necessary for understanding the operation of domestic-level institutions. Diffused from the international level to the nation-state, new norms can challenge and replace existing ones within institutions. For these reasons, it is essential to look both across states and to the suprastate level in order to develop a comprehensive politics of gender and institutions.
Research that reveals the gendered logic of appropriateness within political institutions has already begun. Drawing on the neo-institutionalist approach to institutions, it can go further still. What we know already is that the process of gender is complex, playing out differently in similar institutions in different polities and different institutions within the same polity. A future comparative politics and gender research agenda can build on this knowledge both through further cross-national studies and by linking our knowledge of domestic institutions to those in the international arena. In doing so, we give back to the study of institutions a more comprehensive and complete understanding of their dynamic nature, as well as of their normative foundations.
