Abortion and Citizenship Rights in a Devolved Region of the UK

Horgan, Goretti; O’Connor, Julia S.

doi:10.1017/s1474746413000146

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Terminations are thus not immediately available in cases of rape, incest, or fatal foetal abnormality. The majority of women seeking terminations travel to England and pay for private procedures (Bloomer and Fegan, 2014;Horgan and O'Connor, 2014;Thomson, 2015Thomson, , 2016.…”

Section: Case Selection and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resisting gendered change: Feminist institutionalism and critical actors

Thomson

2017

International Political Science Review

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Feminist institutionalism is concerned with the ‘rules of the game’ in political institutions. It is interested to explore how institutions create gender-just conditions in terms of the policies and actions they undertake and the make-up of the elected representatives they contain. It also has a growing interest in how institutions can resist or obstruct positive gendered change. It is argued here that employing the concept of ‘critical actors’ alongside a feminist institutionalist framework can further our understanding of why some institutions resist change. Using the example of abortion legislation in Northern Ireland, this article illustrates how the literatures on feminist institutionalism and critical actors can, when combined, help to build a fuller narrative of why gendered policy change does not happen.

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Section: Case Selection and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Resisting gendered change: Feminist institutionalism and critical actors

Thomson

2017

International Political Science Review

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“…Not only does women's descriptive representation remain low (Galligan, 2013), but attempts to organise politically around women's substantive concerns are difficult. Domestic violence legislation remains less developed than the rest of the United Kingdom, and the 1967 Abortion Act has never been extended to the province, rendering abortion effectively illegal in the province (Bloomer and O'Dowd, 2014;Horgan and O'Connor, 2014). A Sexual Orientation Strategy, originally intended to be produced in 2012, is yet to be published or implemented.…”

Section: Gender and Consociational Government: The Northern Irish Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging identity hierarchies: Gender and consociational power-sharing

Kennedy

Pierson

Thomson

2016

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Consociational democracy has become the most influential paradigm in the field of powersharing institutional design and post-conflict peacebuilding. Consociation institutes representation for certain formerly excluded groups. However, it simultaneously inhibits effective political representation for groups that do not align with the societal divisions that consociation seeks to accommodate, specifically the 'additional' cleavage of gender. Given the extensive use of the consociational model as a peacebuilding tool in divided states and the growing awareness of the disproportionate negative effect of conflict on women, there is a surprising lack of consideration of the effect that consociational power-sharing has on women's representation. This article considers the specific impact that the consociational model has on women's representation. We argue that because gender is an integral factor in conflict, it should therefore be integral to postconflict governance. With empirical reference to contemporary Northern Ireland, it is illustrated that consociationalism is a 'gender-blind' theory.

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“…Successive Health Ministers have now upheld a ban on men who have sex with men donating blood (this policy was changed in the rest of the UK in 2011, where men who have not been sexually active for one year may donate blood), and the province has seen a series of widely-publicised racial attacks in recent years. Socially conservative attitudes around some of these issues, particularly with regards to abortion, cut across ethno-national and party political divisions (Horgan and O'Connor, 2014). Whilst issues around clear-cut topics of nationality, such as flags and language, are clearly divided along nationalist-unionist lines, socio-cultural issues such as those described here are not so easily categorised.…”

Section: Case Selection and Datamentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Whilst the descriptive representation of women in formal Northern Irish politics has been well documented (Cowell-Meyers, 2001, Fearon, 1999, Galligan et al, 1999, Matthews, 2014, Tonge et al, 2014, Ward, 2002, there has been less consideration of substantive political issues. The little literature produced on abortion specifically has focused more on sociological aspects (Smyth, 2006), and on the potential for liberalisation inherent in legal reform (Bloomer and Fegan, 2013, Fegan and Rebouche, 2003, Horgan and O'Connor, 2014. The political aspects of abortion, both in terms of party policies and the issue's salience in contemporary political structures, have been neglected.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%