What Can Historical Institutionalism Offer Feminist Institutionalists?

Abstract

In this essay I lay out how historical institutionalism (HI) could serve as an important tool for feminist political scientists, highlighting the potentially distinctive contribution and advantages of a feminist historical institutionalism (rather than a feminist institutionalism) for feminist political science and particularly for a feminist comparative politics. The potentially significant contribution of HI is to help us answer some “big questions,” in particular, how and why institutional change occurs. This, in turn, can help us understand how positive gender change, such as improvements in women's descriptive and substantive representation, can come about. This latter question is obviously not only of academic but also of political concern for feminists who wish to lessen gender inequality.