New Ways of Researching Women’s Representations in Parliamentary Assemblies: Theoretical Assumptions and Empirical Applications of Feminist Institutionalism

Abstrakt

Feminist institutionalism is a variant of new institutionalism that focuses on the interplay between formal and informal institutions and the gendered nature of institutions and has been used to study gender dynamics in parliamentary assemblies. The contribution of the article is twofold. Theoretically, it sets out the building blocks, conceptual components and key assumptions of feminist institutionalism and examines the ways in which it differs from other strands of new institutionalism. It demonstrates the range of empirical applications of FI and its potential for future studies of parliamentary assemblies. Furthermore, it contributes to the methodological discussion by showing that while feminist institutionalist research has predominantly used qualitative methods, there is also potential for using quantitative methods to address the questions posed by feminist institutionalist scholars.