What's New? How New? Gender and Institutional Change

Abstract

The panel interrogates “newness” and gender. It addresses the opportunities presented and the strategies undertaken to “regender” the institutional architecture of politics and governance through gender specific reforms of existing institutions as well interventions in broader restructuring processes to influence the design of new institutions. It considers what relationship exists between ‘old’ and ‘new’ institutions (understood as formal and informal “rules of the game”), and what prospects there are for new institutional arrangements to achieve their intended outcomes, particularly when it comes to advancing women’s human rights and challenging (unequal) gender relations and practices. Drawing upon empirical cases including the creation of new institutions with new gender mandates such as the International Criminal Court and UN Women, and efforts to insert and institutionalise new ideas about gender into processes of peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction, the panel seeks to theorise the extent to which “newness” as institutional innovation is new and the extent to which it is a product of the past and nested within existing institutional environments which may blunt the potential for substantive change. Ongoing political contestation is a key driver of institutional change and the panel is also interested in new actors, ideas and approaches and the way in which these elements interact to reproduce or transform existing gender practices and structures. Provisional Papergivers: (1) Fiona Mackay (Edinburgh) - UN Women; (2) Louise Chappell - International Criminal Court; (3) Laura McLeod (Manchester) - post conflict constitutional arrangements; and (4) Rob Jenkins (CUNY) UN Peacebuilding Support Office

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