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

今天，在巩固的民主国家中，妇女被排除在政治之外，这证明巩固民主并不能保证妇女享有平等的政治机会。大多数关于性别和民主的现有研究都通过关注性别配额和选举制度来解释这一问题。然而，他们往往掩盖历史背景和遗产可能对当今性别化民主实践的影响。路径依赖研究表明，随着时间的推移，模式化的政治规则和做法会塑造未来的政治现实。因此，对民主巩固过程中的性别政治进程进行审查，可能有助于解释民主巩固过程中妇女在政治上持续不平等的现象。不幸的是，民主巩固的性别方面没有得到充分的研究。该项目的任务是通过解构主流的巩固框架，并使用后结构主义和女权主义的话语制度主义方法重新制定一个替代性的性别框架，来分析民主巩固的性别方面。这项研究认为，民主的巩固与性别规范、做法和权力关系密不可分，尽管这些规范、做法和权力关系可能排斥妇女，但被认为是民主的。这些性别规范、惯例和权力关系的习惯化塑造了妇女长期的社会政治状况。更具体地说，本研究假设，男性化的概念和习惯的民主思想和做法限制了实现女权主义的变化在长期内，而更多的平等主义的概念和习惯更好地使这样的进步。这一理论将通过对爱尔兰和瑞典的性别民主轨迹的解释过程追踪（IPT）来证明。该项目不仅有可能提供对巩固民主的新的理解，而且还可以通过具体说明排斥性政治习惯如何阻碍妇女的政治机会以及我们如何消除这些习惯，促进正在进行的加强妇女政治代表性的努力。

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.