Gendering Territorial Politics

The dispersion of political power from national governments to sub-national and supra-national ones has become a defining feature of contemporary democracies. Yet, discussions over women’s voices and issues of gender equality and gender justice have been curiously and largely absent from the comparative study of multi-level governance, while gender and politics scholars have (until recently) largely assumed that women and women’s movements relate only (and ideally) to unitary states. This lecture suggests that we need to pay more attention to the relationship between gender, territory and state architecture, and to the multi-level and gendered dynamics of institutional power, continuity and change.

Drawing on examples from Scottish and UK politics, the lecture evaluates the extent to which the devolution of political power in the United Kingdom has destabilised – or ‘unsettled’ – gendered constitutional settlements, in terms of political representation, gender equality and women’s agency and citizenship. It concludes by reflecting on the ways in which the territorial politics of gender can help us (re) conceptualise and understand current turbulent times and the dynamics of democratic erosion, resilience and renewal.

Meryl Kenny is Professor of Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh, Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change.  and Co-Director of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network. Her research interests bridge the intersection of gender politics, party politics, territorial politics and institutional approaches to the study of politics