In person icon Diversity/Gender Sensitive Parliamentary Change in Practice: Critical Actors, Friendships and Resistance

Abstract

Recent scholarship has identified the role of critical actors in supporting/provoking diversity/gender sensitive parliamentary change (Childs and Chandler 2020; Childs and Palmieri 2022). Less considered is the everyday experience of those critical actors in navigating power struggles and resistance – at times, outright backlash - in the practice of encouraging that change. This panel aims to expand on a new dimension of feminist institutionalist change in parliament by considering the positionality and networks of those critical actors – including their critical friends (Chappell and Mackay 2015, 2020) – in pushing the boundaries of institutional appropriateness. Covering interventions in the parliaments of Canada (Ashe), the United Kingdom (Smith and Childs) and on a more global scale (Palmieri), each of the papers speaks to the challenges faced by the feminist critical actor ‘on the ground’, but also contribute to theoretical reflections on structure and agency by acknowledging the actors’ constrained choices and contexts.

Title	Details
Introducing the Feminist Academic Critical Actor: The Subject and Analyst of FI Research	View Paper Details
Power Struggles and the Pandemic Parliament: Institutional Resistance to Diversity Sensitive Reform in the UK	View Paper Details
Between norms and localised change: The role of critical friendships in supporting gender sensitive parliaments	View Paper Details
Canada’s Parliaments: Hybrid Places Lead to Gender Sensitive Spaces	View Paper Details