Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T09:31:08.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender and State Architectures: The Impact of Governance Structures on Women's Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2011

Jill Vickers
Jill Vickers
Affiliation:
Carleton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This essay explores gender scholarship about how state architectures affect women's politics. A rapidly growing literature addresses the effects of vertical and horizontal power divisions in federations. While just one in five states is a federation, federations govern 40% of the world's population (Watts 2008). Globalization and neoliberal ideology foster regionalization, devolution, and increased influence by international agencies, and so more people experience multilevel governance (MLG) in unitary states, too. Hence, feminist scholars now increasingly consider the impact of state architectures. The field's core idea is that while socioeconomic and ideological forces shape gender/power relations, governments and movements respond from within specific state architectures. Related debates involve how institutional designs shape opportunity structures, and how feminists respond to federal diversity.

Type
Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 254 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bashevkin, Sylvia. 1998. Women on the Defensive. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Burgess, Michael, and Gagnon, Alain-G., eds. 2010. Federal Democracies. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celis, Karen, Meier, Petra, and Wauters, Bram, eds. 2010. Seen, Heard, Represented? Diversity in Belgian Politics. Gent, Belgium: Academia.Google Scholar
Chappell, Louise. 2002. Gendering Government. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Erk, Jan. 2006. “Does Federalism Really Matter?” Comparative Politics 39 (1): 103–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetz, Anne Marie, ed. 2008. Governing Women. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grace, Joan. 2011. “Gender and Institutions of Multi-Level Governance: Child Care and Social Policy Debates in Canada.” In Gender, Politics and Institutions, ed. Krook, Mona Lena and Mackay, Fiona. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Gwen. 2010. “Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance.” In Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance, ed. Haussman, Melissa, Sawer, Marian, and Vickers, Jill. Surrey: Ashgate, 19–36.Google Scholar
Haussman, Melissa. 2005. Abortion Politics in North America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haussman, Melissa, Sawer, Marian, and Vickers, Jill, eds. 2010. Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance. Surrey: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Krook, Mona Lena, and Mackay, Fiona, eds. 2011. Gender, Politics and Institutions. Basingstoke: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, Laura, and Mills, Lisa. 2010. “Gender, Democracy and Federalism in Mexico.” In Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance, ed Haussman, Melissa, Sawer, Marian, and Vickers, Jill. Surrey: Ashgate, 187–98.Google Scholar
Mahon, Rianne and Collier, Cheryl. 2010. “Navigating the Shoals of Canadian Federalism.” In Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel Governance ed. Haussman, Melissa, Sawer, Marian, and Vickers, Jill. Surrey: Ashgate, 51–66.Google Scholar
Sawer, Marian, and Vickers, Jill. 2001. “Women's Constitutional Activism in Australia and Canada.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 13 (1): 1–36.Google Scholar
Simms, Marian. 2001. “Gender, Globalization and Democratization: Some Lessons from Oceania.” Gender, Globalization and Democratization, ed. Kelly, Rita Mae et al. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 15–25.Google Scholar
Smith, Miriam. 2008. Political Institutions and Lesbian and Gay Rights in the United States and Canada. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, Jill. 1994. “Why Should Women Care About Federalism?” In Canada: The State of the Federation, ed. Brown, Douglas and Hiebert, Janet. Kingston: Queen's University Press, 135–51.Google Scholar
Vickers, Jill. 2010. “A Two-Way Street: Federalism and Women's Politics in Canada and the United States.” Publius 40 (3): 412–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vickers, Jill. 2011. “Gendering Federalism: Institutions of Decentralization and Power-sharing.” In Gender, Politics and Institutions, ed. Krook, Mona Lena and Mackay, Fiona. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 129–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, . 2008. Comparing Federal Systems. 3d ed.Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press.Google Scholar