From our special issue: Women’s political exclusion often begins before election day. In Japan’s local politics, opaque party endorsement works as an “invisible barrier,” constraining women’s agency through discretionary gatekeeping long before voters reach the ballot.  tinyurl.com/3m7ztwj8

Pre-Electoral Party Gatekeeping as an Invisible Barrier to Women’s Local Representation in Japan

Candidate recruitment is vital to democratic gatekeeping, yet Japan’s party endorsement (kōnin) remains opaque and discretionary. This article argues that opaque and discretionary endorsement proce...

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How do feminists change parties from within? New article on Uruguay’s Frente Amplio shows how critical feminist actors used reflexive strategies, working behind the scenes and with key allies to achieve incremental change over a decade. #FeministPolitics #LatinAmerica --> tinyurl.com/2uaby38b

Feminist Agency and Institutional Change within Political Parties: The Case of Uruguay’s Left-Wing Frente Amplio

This article examines how feminist actors achieve institutional change within political parties, analyzing Uruguay’s left-wing Frente Amplio, which adopted a series of internal gender-equality refo...

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From our special issue: Autonomous women's organizations inside parties boost female leadership — but ideology matters. Analyzing 54 parties across Latin America (1990–2025), the authors find this effect holds only in centrist parties. Ideology shapes who gets to lead. tinyurl.com/372ud7ha

Who Gets to Lead? Organizational Structures and Women’s Leadership in Latin American Parties

Why do women lead some political parties and not others? This article examines the organizational and institutional factors shaping women’s access to party leadership in Latin America. Drawing on a...

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Check out the guest editors' intro to our new special issue! Through Latin American, African, and Asian cases, we see that women’s reduced agency w/in parties is structural. The special issue reveals how to resist these formal and informal restrictive institutions. tinyurl.com/5ff2pdf7

Political Parties and Women’s Agency: Old Challenges and New Trends: Editors’ Introduction

With cases in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the articles in this special issue expand our understanding of women’s representation. The contributions demonstrate that women’s reduced agency withi...

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Sneak peek at our SPECIAL ISSUE, "Political Parties and Women’s Agency: Old Challenges and New Trends" - guest editors Teresa Sacchet, Kristin Wylie, and Simone Bohn! @drsombomuzata.bsky.social explores factors that limit women's political participation in Zambia Read here: tinyurl.com/4tznbfv6

Tamed: How Resource Constraints, Psychological Disengagement, and Political Party Gatekeeping Stifle Women’s Participation in Politics in Zambia

Women’s political representation remains a problem in Zambia. Applying Verba, Lehman Schlozman, and Brady ’s Civic Voluntarism Model and a historical analysis of Zambia, this study finds that women...

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Gender-based discrimination experiences are linked not only to women’s rights activism, but also anti-racist, labor, & environmental activism--suggesting that feminist consciousness coming from lived injustice can translate into cross-issue political solidarity. Full article: tinyurl.com/ynss5nr7

From Injustice to Solidarity: Linking Gender-Based Discrimination Experiences to Cross-Issue Political Engagement

While prior research links discrimination experiences to higher levels of political engagement among women, it remains unclear whether such engagement extends beyond in-group advocacy and how the n...

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Through a 1979-2021 dataset and case studies of Ursula von der Leyen, Catherine Day, and Christine Lagarde, Müller and Tömmel explore women’s pathways to EU leadership: factors that must be in place for access to leadership positions, and gender inequalities that persist. tinyurl.com/5n8r9uzn

How did governments tackle the “shadow pandemic” of violence against women during COVID-19? Looking at Argentina, Brazil, Fiji and Uzbekistan, this study identifies four distinct pathways to action. Full article: tinyurl.com/dcnfbmnv #VAW #COVID #feminism #GBV @silkestaab.bsky.social

What Shapes Government Responsiveness to Violence Against Women During Crises? Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Drawing on a unique global dataset that monitored violence against women (VAW) measures during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article explores the political and institutional fa...

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Bauer et al. explore the connections between candidate gender, feminist identities & emotional engagement in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Results suggest women candidates may not increase emotional engagement of feminists in future elections. tinyurl.com/5n895unx #feminist #elections

Candidate Gender, Feminist Identities, and Emotional Engagement During Political Campaigns

We test how the presence of women candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary increased levels of emotional engagement among feminists. We use an original three-wave panel data collection. We find th...

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Survey data from 136 Spanish female politicians reveals that the personal, professional and social experiences of women in politics do not differ significantly depending on their ideological positions. Full article: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #womeninpolitics #spanishpolitics #spain

Female Politicians in Spain: Unfolding Political Career Experiences

Over the last two decades significant efforts have been made to increase the participation of women in politics and decision-making. As a result, the formal presence of women in politics has been i...

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EU official interviews re: Sweden's 2014 Feminist Foreign Policy & its 2022 repeal show a largely positive view of Swedish gender equality leadership. But post FFP, Sweden is not seen as *the* leader of EU gender equality, with less active/visible leadership. Full article: tinyurl.com/yz829a6e

Normative Leadership Lost? Gender Equality in the EU and the Rise and Demise of Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy

With the introduction of its Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) in 2014, Sweden cemented its position as a normative leader on gender equality. In 2022, however, the new government rescinded the FFP. Ba...

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Bridging the Gap shows how women reshape lawmaking in Mexico’s state congresses. 47k bills are used to uncover how gender & institutions drive substantive representation. #GenderPolitics #Representation #Mexico Full article: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Bridging the Gap: Gender Equality Legislation and Women’s Advocacy in Mexico’s Subnational Congresses

This study examines the drivers and dynamics of women’s rights advocacy within Mexico’s subnational legislatures. Drawing on an original dataset of nearly 47,000 legislative proposals and biographi...

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To what extent did policies in Germany, Canada & Finland mirror feminist calls for a care-led #COVID19 recovery? Even countries well-positioned to follow feminist recommendations did not uniformly do so. Only one took steps towards a #CaringEconomy. Full article: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How do IPOB women reshape what we think of as “political”? Akande reimagines secessionist politics in Nigeria through women’s participation, challenging colonial legacies and Eurocentric definitions #IPOB #AfricanPolitics #GenderStudies www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Happy New Year! Over the next week or so, we'll be highlighting some articles from Volume 47, Issue 1 of the Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy. Keep us on your radar! For the full issue: www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwap20/4...

Latest articles from Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

Browse the latest articles and research from Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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Cowburn & Conroy test their novel theory of asymmetric partisan opportunity for women in primary elections. They are less likely to win highly competitive Democratic primaries. In Republican primaries, women are least likely to win in more conservative districts. Full article: shorturl.at/lVJVD

Examining men and women donors v non-donors in the R Party, Baker and Schneider find that R women donors’ preferences converge with men’s. But, women non-donors are more moderate than women congressional donors (& all R men). Rs exhibit unexpected ideological heterogeneity. #GenderSky #PoliSky

Party Convergence and Divergence Among Republican Women

Recent work on party asymmetry in the United States characterizes the Democratic Party as a group-oriented party and the Republican Party as an ideologically oriented party. Gender studies of opini...

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Is the gender gap in political ambition smaller for non-elected (vs elected) positions? Based on an original survey among young population in Belgium, Wauters and coauthors find a gender gap for all political roles that disappears when controlling for structural factors. Read more now 👇 #GenderSky

Beyond Elections: Unpacking the Gender Gap in Political Ambition Across Political Roles

The gender gap in political ambition is often suggested as a key factor in women’s political underrepresentation. Recent work highlights that this gap is prominent for elected positions, but less f...

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Out now! "The Catch-22 of Conflict and Women’s Candidacies: Evidence from Afghanistan’s Legislative Elections in 2010 and 2018" by Victoria Stratton, Thorin Wright and Magda Hinojosa.

The Catch-22 of Conflict and Women’s Candidacies: Evidence from Afghanistan’s Legislative Elections in 2010 and 2018

Incorporating women into the political sphere promotes civil conflict resolution and reduces conflict recurrence. But will women throw their hats into the political ring amid ongoing conflict? Whil...

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In this new article, Lambert and Pineda Moquete explore municipal gender quotas and substantive representation in the Dominican Republic, where quotas apply to most—but not all—seats. They find that female politicians are champions of women's interests, raising awareness and driving policy change.

Gender Quotas and Women’s Substantive Representation: Evidence from Municipal Governments in the Dominican Republic

Do municipal gender quotas increase women’s substantive representation at the local level? The literature on gender quotas has shown that when quota laws are well-designed and enforced, they can in...

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New open access research from Vacaflores and Stephenson! DRW = SRW? A study of private member’s bills in Aus (1995-2022) shows gendered differences in policy proposals. Women MPs propose more bills, on more feminized issues, using more human-centered language. #GenderRepresentation #PolicyResearch

Understanding Female Legislators’ Substantive Representation in the Australian Parliament

Female legislators are typically assumed to act for other women when policymaking. Contemporary literature challenges this, and a need to “tow the party line” complicates the process of attributing...

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Interested in gender and political parties❓✅ Looking for an outlet for your research❓✅ Want to work with awesome guest editors❓✅ Check out this 🚨Call for Papers🚨 for JWPP's 2026 Special Issue with guest editors Teresa Sacchet, Simone Bohn, and Kristin Wylie!

JWPP Special Issue Call_2025.docx

Political Parties and Women’s Agency: Old Challenges and New Trends Co-edited by Teresa Sacchet (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Simone Bohn (York University, Canada), and Kristin Wy...

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Curious about the interaction of gender, campaign finance, and public opinion in US politics? Check out "Agents of Change? Women Candidates and Support for Campaign Finance Reform" - our latest article from Samantha Koprowski, Amy Benner, and Kira Sanbonmatsu!

Agents of Change? Women Candidates and Support for Campaign Finance Reform

Most Americans believe there is too much money in politics and are sympathetic to reform. Using nationally representative survey data, we study how the public views the likelihood that members of C...

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Today, we come back to "The Politics of Radical Self-Care: Practicing Liberation for Political Resistance", a 2021 special issue edited by Zahra Ahmed. Get the full list of important and incisive articles here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwap20/4.... #GenderSky

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

Volume 42, Issue 1 of Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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In this article, Nichole Bauer finds that strong partisans with high levels of sexism exhibit higher levels of ambivalence toward Democratic and Republican women candidates. These ambivalent attitudes were especially strong in 2016 where voters had more ambivalence about Clinton relative to Trump.

Gendered Ambivalence: The Structure of Attitudes About Female Candidates

I argue that the gender-role incongruity between being a woman and the masculine stereotypes of political leadership roles will lead to more ambivalence about women relative to men and that gendere...

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It's mid-September, and we bid you remember, check out our new issue full of great research on politics and gender! See the lineup at: www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwap20/4...

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

All journal articles featured in Journal of Women, Politics & Policy vol 45 issue 4

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In this recent article, Collin Coil, Natalie Williamson, Caroline Bruckner, Karen O’Connor, and Jeff Gill draw attention to the striking lack of women testifying before Congress and highlight factors that could drive diversity and inclusion on witness panels. Read more here 👇

Still Underrepresented? Gender Representation of Witnesses at House and Senate Committee Hearings

We know very little about the women who testify before congressional committees. Here we present data on the women who appeared as witnesses out of the 36,950 persons who gave testimony before 7,75...

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🚨NEW ARTICLE🚨 The term “women of color” (WOC) is widely used in US politics. But which women do white Americans perceive to be included in the group “women of color”? This study analyzes the boundary drawing effects of whites’ perception of which racial/ethnic groups are believed to be WOC.

The Boundaries of “Women of Color”: The Political Implications of Non-Hispanic Whites’ Perceptions of Women of Color

Women candidates are increasingly referred to as “women of color.” But who the public sees as women of color is unclear. We ask how non-Hispanic whites, who are still the largest voting group, perc...

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Thinking about Kamala Harris's candidacy for president? Check out this insightful work by Evelyn Simien, using an intersectional approach to analyze symbolic empowerment & Ayanna Pressley's 2018 midterm campaign. A useful, contextually relevant framework and example of how to study historic firsts!

The 2018 Congressional Midterms, Symbolic Empowerment, and Ayanna Pressley’s Mobilizing Effect: A Case Study for Future Analysis of Historic Firsts

Ayanna Pressley was elected in 2018, becoming the first Black woman from Massachusetts to serve in the US House of Representatives and the first person of color to represent its only majority-minor...

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Take a gander at this new research from Philip Chen, Melanee Thomas, Tania Gosselin, & Allison Harell! They contribute to the literature on gender and candidate emergence using a survey experiment set in the context of Canada's multiparty system. See the results and explanation at the link below!!

“What’s Her Job?” Agentic Women, Sexism, and the Consequences for Political Candidate Emergence

Agentic women are frequently stereotyped negatively in politics. While public opinion suggests higher levels of egalitarian gender attitudes toward women in politics, these analyses miss important ...

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