Consolidating Democracy or Male Rule: A Feminist Discursive Institutionalist Approach to Democratic Consolidation

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The exclusion of women from politics in consolidated democracies today proves that theconsolidation of democracy does not guarantee equal political opportunities for women. Mostexisting studies of gender and democracy have explained this problem by focusing on genderquotas and electoral systems. However, they have the tendency to gloss over the bearing thathistorical contexts and legacies may have on present-day gendered democratic practices. Pathdependence studies have showed that patterned political rules and practices over time shapefuture political realities. Therefore, an examination of the gendered political processes duringdemocratic consolidation may help to explain the persisting political inequalities for women inconsolidated democracies. Unfortunately, the gendered aspects of democratic consolidationhave been understudied. This project takes on the task to analyse the gendered aspects ofdemocratic consolidation by deconstructing the mainstream consolidation frameworks andreformulating an alternative gendered framework using a poststructuralist and feministdiscursive institutionalist approach. This study argues that the consolidation of democracy isembedded with gendered norms, practices and power relations that are perceived to bedemocratic despite the possibility of them being exclusionary towards women. The habituationof these gendered norms, practices and power relations shape long-term socio-politicalconditions for women. More specifically, this study posits that masculine conceptions andhabituation of democratic ideas and practices restricts the realisation of feminist changes inthe long-term, while more egalitarian conceptions and habituation better enable suchprogress. This theory will be demonstrated through an interpretive process tracing (IPT) of thegendered democratic trajectories in Ireland and Sweden. This project has the potential to notonly offer a new understanding of democratic consolidation, but also contribute to the ongoingefforts to strengthen women's political representation by specifying how exclusionary politicalhabits can hinder political opportunities for women and how we may undo them.