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Analysing Women's Substantive Representation: From Critical Mass to Critical Actors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Sarah Childs  and
Mona Lena Krook
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Abstract

This article makes a case for rethinking traditional approaches to the study of legislative behaviour on behalf of women by asking (1) not when women make a difference, but how the substantive representation of women occurs; and (2) not what ‘women’ do, but what specific actors do. The first shift aims to explore the contexts, identities and attitudes that motivate and inform substantive representation. The second seeks to move beyond a focus on female legislators to identify the ‘critical actors’, male and female, who may attempt to represent women as a group. In so doing, this framework calls attention to how structure and agency interact in the substantive representation of women.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , 2009 , pp. 125 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2009.

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