LIST OF PANELS

This panel is co-sponsored by IPSA RC 19 (Gender, Politics and Policy), in conjunction with FIIN (Feminism and Institutionalism International Network).   Feminist scholars have long since given considerable attention to the gendered nature and interconnectedness of social and political institutions, and how such institutions induce gendered outcomes in public policy (Gatens and Mackinnon 1998; Lovenduski, 1998).   Although there is no single variant or definition of feminist institutionalism this does not preclude feminist institutionalist analyses of policy change.  Rather, a feminist institutionalist project is one that seeks to map the gendered dimensions of visible formal rules and the often hidden informal institutional practices (Mackay, 2011).  To date, much of the new scholarship that has drawn on this conceptual framework has focused on political institutional change.  However, increasingly variants of FI are being utilised to explain policy stasis and change (Beyeler and Annesley 2011; Grace, 2011;  Hašková and Saxonberg, 2011).   This panel calls for papers that offer new insights on the intersection of institutional design, the formal and informal rules associated with policy making, and feminist policy thought and practice.  Papers for this panel should address how feminist engagement with institutionalism (and its varieties, including feminist institutionalism) have facilitated new theoretical and empirical understandings of policy processes and outcomes, and the extent to which these are gendered in their effects. Papers that offer theoretically-informed case studies from new and established democracies, canvassing the policy work of government, non-government agencies as well as feminist policy entrepreneurs, and employing methodologically eclectic approaches are welcomed.