The Core Executive: Gender, Power and Change

Abstract

The core executive is a central focus for the study of policy change especially in Westminster‐style parliamentary democracies such as the UK. This venue is recognised as the locus of power and where attention should be given for identifying and assessing the process of policy change. It is surprising, then, that studies on women's substantive representation – showing whether and how women can make a difference to politics and policy – have not examined this institution, focusing instead on parliament or women's policy agencies. We plug this gap in scholarship in suggesting that the core executive should be the key venue for examining substantive representation of women. At the same time we present the case that the core executive is a gendered institution in terms of recruitment, resource allocation, relationships and rules. We argue that this gendered disposition shapes the opportunities and constraints available to feminist actors intent on altering the gender emphasis of public policy and illustrate this empirically through a case study of the actions and successes of two feminist ministers – Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt. As such this article makes a contribution to mainstream core executive research, gender and politics scholarship as well as the new and feminist institutionalist literatures.

Corruption and women in cabinets: Informal barriers to recruitment in the executive

“…A growing literature (e.g., Barnes & O'Brien, ; Davis, ; Escobar‐Lemmon & Taylor‐Robinson, ; Jacob, Scherpereel, & Adams, ; Krook & O'Brien, ; Mavisakalyan, ; Reynolds, ; Siaroff, ; Whitford, Wilkins, & Ball, ) has started to look at the macro‐level factors, such as the type of governmental system; the meso‐level indicators, such as type of party in power (e.g., left‐wing or right‐wing party); and the micro‐level determinants, such as the ambition of men and women to run for office, to explain women's recruitment to ministerial portfolios. Though several works mention the role of informal procedures in “engendering” recruitment to the executive (e.g., Annesley & Gains, ; Arriola & Johnson, ; Bauer & Okpotor, ; Bauer & Tremblay, ; Bego, ; Claveria, ; Escobar‐Lemmon & Taylor‐Robinson, ; Franceschet & Thomas, ), no study has so far examined the influence of corruption on women's representation in cabinets across time and space; our study is the first to conduct such an analysis.…”

Gender and Political Recruitment

“…Feminist institutionalists argue that by incorporating a gendered lens, we can gain a better and more fully developed understanding of the 'practices, ideas, goals and outcomes of politics' (Mackay, 2004a, p. 112; see also Lovenduski, 1998;Beckwith, 2005). The 'rules of the game' -both formal and informal -are structured by gendered assumptions or 'dispositions' that shape the opportunities and constraints available to institutional actors (Annesley and Gains, 2010). They also produce outcomes including legislation and policies that are shaped by gender norms and, in turn, 'help to re/produce broader social and political gender expectations' (Chappell, 2006, p. 226; see also Beckwith, 2005).…”

Gender, actors, and institutions at the local level: Explaining variation in policies to address violence against women and girls

“…Research on the determinants of policy change to achieve gender equality has focused on a number of key issues: the transmission of ideas for reform through international norms and agreements (Friedman, ; Raymond et al, ), the link between improved female political representation and substantive policy action (Annesley & Gains, ; Atchison & Down, ; Celis, Childs, Kantola, & Krook, ), and the role of “femocrats” (working in women's policy agencies and other bureaucratic settings) in supporting reform inside government (Andrews & Miller, ; Banaszak, ; Sawyer, ; Stetson & Mazur, ). Scholarship has foregrounded the role, in particular policy venues, of civil society actors, political representatives, and bureaucratic actors—what Ortbals, Rincker, and Montoya () call the “triangle of empowerment.”…”