An intersectional exploration of the UK’s policy framework to address gendered violence, harassment and abuse experienced by politicians

In the UK and around the world, there has been growing attention to violence – including harassment, intimidation and abuse – experienced by politicians, with growing attention to the gender-differentiated impacts, the specific experiences of women, and intersectional group differences. There is a growing body of academic literature that established that a gendered phenomenon of political violence exists across contexts (e.g. Krook and Restrepo Sanín, 2016; IPU 2016; Herrick and Thomas, 2019; Bardall et al 2020; Håkansson, 2020; Krook, 2020). In the UK, the government has commissioned research, which reveal gendered implications of abuse and harassment in politics (Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2017; Collignon, Campbell and Rüdig, 2022) and there has been specific research that reveals intersectional differences among gender groups (e.g. Kuperberg 2021, Amnesty International 2018). There has been less academic attention to how the phenomenon is and can be addressed by policy. Krook (2020) includes policy, including on the part of governments and political parties, as part of the multi-faceted solutions to address violence against women in politics (VAWP). Restrepo Sanín (2021, 2022) examines legal frameworks in Latin America. Others (Collier and Raney, 2018; Raney and Collier, 2021; Julios, 2022) focus on specific policy mechanisms, such as parliamentary code of conducts. Policy is both an effect of the growing recognition of experiences of violence and, ideally, a coping strategy – a way for political actors to prevent and address violence. This paper will offer a systematic exploration of the UK’s policy architecture to address violence against politicians, with a focus on if and how gender and intersectionality is incorporated. Adopting a feminist approach to policy analysis, which interrogates how normative ideas are reflected in policy (Bacchi 2012), the paper analyses if and how gender and intersectionality are understood in relation to violence (including abuse and harassment). The paper develops a novel dataset and analysis of policy, including shedding light on how and why specific policy frameworks emerged over time. While long-standing criminal policies, do form an important part of the policy framework, this paper focuses on those policies that were developed primarily to address violence against MPs or other political actors. The paper focuses on institutional policy developed by Parliament, for example the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS); Political Parties, primarily codes of conduct, and the Police, for example recent guidance on intimidation for candidates in elections and the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC). The preliminary findings indicate that the policy framework to address violence in politics has evolved over time. It used to be primarily gender-neutral security policy with a focus on individual victims and perpetrators. Now, there is a more multi-faceted policy framework, including more of a focus on collective security measures, behavioural codes of conduct and sanctions, with some attention to structural intersectional gendered dynamics. The paper will be an important contribution to the literatures of gender and political violence, and feminist approaches to policy analysis by advancing understandings of how gendered violence in politics is reflected in policy.