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Whilst cross-national comparative analyses provide distinct opportunities for the study of gender-sensitive parliaments, the inherent challenge in conducting comparisons necessitates a continued search for innovative methods. This article responds to this need by proposing the "most significant change" (MSC) approach (Davies & Dart, 2005), which centres on collecting and analysing "stories of significant change." Drawing on our own application of MSC in an international study commissioned by INTER PARES, we show that MSC's bottom-up, inductive, and participatory approach proved valuable in uncovering hitherto unknown instances of gender-sensitive changes across countries, illuminating the broader impact of such changes beyond parliaments and incorporating practitioners' perspectives. The flexibility of MSC also enabled context-specific applications, which we illustrate through three examples from Cyprus, Germany, and Trinidad & Tobago. By offering a complementary approach to compare parliaments' gender sensitivity across countries, our study provides a novel perspective for future comparative analyses in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This framing paper introduces the symposium on gender and the radical right. Withthe exception of a few recent studies, gender issues have received little attention inresearch on the European radical right. The purpose of this symposium is to addressthat and examine (1) whether radical right parties are still ‘men's parties' – partiesled and supported primarily by men and (2) to what extent and how women andwomen's concerns have been included by these parties. It argues that radical rightparties have changed their appeal since their origins in the 1980s. There is nowevidence of the fact that radical right parties, at least in some countries, exhibitan active political involvement of women and engage in some representation ofwomen's concerns. This puts them in a more ‘standardised' political position vis-à-vis other parties. Given the current lack of focus on this topic, and given the recentgendered changes in radical right parties, this symposium stresses the academicand political importance of studying gender relations in radical right politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why have ethnic minority women--a group experiencing 'double barriers' in society and politics--gained inroads into formal politics in Belgium more quickly than ethnic minority men? Our qualitative analysis of candidate selection shows that political parties prefer ethnic minority women candidates because their 'intersectional identity mix' is maximally complementary to groups embodied by the incumbents. It enables party selectors to maximise the representativeness of the list by including a limited number of newcomers. The groups that are able to cash in on such a 'complementarity advantage' vary depending on the identity of the incumbents and the political salience of social groups' identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent finding that right-wing parties increasingly make efforts to integrate women’s concerns raises questions as to whether ideology still counts as a reliable indicator for women’s substantive representation and how different party contexts shape opportunities for the articulation of women’s interests. This article therefore critically reassesses how ideology defines the opportunities for women’s substantive representation, based on a comparative study of legislators’ acting on behalf of women in 14 European countries. We argue that ideology still offers an important explanation for women’s substantive representation, but that the link between the two should be conceptualized as complex rather than straightforward. The role of ideology is best understood if scholars (1) adopt an understanding of ‘ideology’ that allows for more variation and is conceptually different from ‘party’, (2) differentiate between gendered interests and feminist interests and (3) understand the impact of ideology as both direct and mediated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of gender in determining preferential votes for electoral candidates in the 2009 Belgian regional elections. Specifically, we examine how far votes for male or female candidates can be explained through explicit gender-based motives versus being based on other non-gendered grounds. Our findings show that while at least half of the voters express a gender preference and this is typically in favour of male candidates, the determinants of these preferences are not predominantly motivated by gender-based concerns. More important factors are voters’ access to political resources and party affiliation. Politically disengaged and right-wing voters display a clear preference for male candidates. The findings are important in showing that institutional factors only go part of the way to explaining gender imbalances in parliamentary representation. In particular, individuals’ political outlook, rather than explicit gender preference, plays a significant role in determining whether voters support a male or female candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gender equality is not fully realised when it is restricted to ethnic majority men and women. This article examines how gender quotas as a form of equality policy affect ethnic minority groups, in particular, the gender balance among ethnic minority candidates for political office. Our analysis focuses on the selection of ethnic minority candidates in Belgium, where legally binding quotas exist, and in the Netherlands, where they do not. Drawing on 23 interviews with central actors in four main parties in each country, we find that the process of ethnic minority candidate selection is highly gendered: in both countries, ethnic minority women are represented in larger numbers than ethnic minority men. But gender quotas play a lesser role in this than the more general concern for diversity on electoral lists, the institutionalisation of gender/ethnicity within political parties and the strategic choices of party leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]