Gender and Political Recruitment Theorizing Institutional change [Paperback]

This book explores the gendered dynamics of institutional innovation, continuity and change in candidate selection and recruitment. Drawing on the insights of feminist institutionalism, it extends the 'supply and demand model' of political recruitment via a micro-level case study of the candidate selection process in post-devolution Scotland.List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations and Acronyms 1. Introduction 2. Gender, Institutions and Political Recruitment 3. A Feminist Institutionalist Approach 4. Political Recruitment in Post-Devolution Scotland 5. Breaking With the Past? The Case of the Labour Party 6. The Story of a Selection 7. Applying a Feminist Institutionalist Lens 8. Rethinking Political Recruitment References Notes

'Rethinking the conventional supply-and-demand model of political recruitment, Gender and Political Recruitment represents a seminal contribution to the emerging literature on feminist institutionalism. Combining macro- and micro-level data on candidate selection dynamics in Scotland, Kenny provides a nuanced and critical appraisal of the prospects for reforming institutions in the face of powerful gendered legacies. The book thus offers important new insights to institutionalist scholars, feminist research, and most importantly those interested in forging new syntheses across these approaches.'

Mona Lena Krook, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University, USA

'Meryl Kenny's book demonstrates the extent to and ways in which processes of political recruitment are gendered. She provides both evidence and argument of such gendering to be a continuing process that interacts with the formal and informal political institutions through which processes of political recruitment operate. Her analysis demonstrates the crucial importance of feminist institutionalist approaches to the understanding of how political representation is gendered.'

Joni Llî