Applying a Feminist Institutionalist Lens

Abstract

Having told the ‘story’ of the City North and Greenside selection contest, the focus of this chapter is on interpretation and analysis of the micro-level case study. Drawing on the insights of feminist and new institutional theory, it suggests that the candidate selection process remains a tense battleground post-1999. Evidence from the case study highlights ongoing tensions and contradictions in the political recruitment process in the Scottish Labour Party, while also drawing attention to an increasing gap between the formal rules of candidate selection and the implementation, enactment and enforcement of these rules on the ground. The chapter interprets these areas of tension, conflict and contestation through a feminist institutionalist lens, identifying particular gendered mechanisms of institutional resistance and reproduction, while also highlighting some of the gendered dynamics and institutional interconnections that underpin the institutions of political recruitment. It concludes with some preliminary insights into the complex and gendered dynamics of innovation in the political recruitment process post-devolution, which the book expands upon in the subsequent chapter.