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‘THICK’ CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE

REPRESENTATION: WOMEN, GENDER
AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
Fiona Mackay
Version of record first published: 17 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Fiona Mackay (2008): ‘THICK’ CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION:
WOMEN, GENDER AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, Representation, 44:2, 125-139

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 ‘THICK’ CONCEPTIONS OF
SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION:
WOMEN, GENDER AND POLITICAL
INSTITUTIONS

Fiona Mackay
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Understanding and analysing the complexity and contingency of what is ‘going on’ with the
substantive representation of women (SRW) requires a ‘thick’ contextual framework comprising a
whole-system approach rather than a narrow focus on whether or not female political
representatives ‘act for’ women. A new schema is presented which enables us to locate and
analyse the critical actors, sites and dynamics of SRW, over time, and in concrete gendered
institutions and situations. The framework also addresses the question of what counts as the SRW.

Introduction: So What is Going on?1

Whatever is going on with political representation there is widespread acknowl-
edgement amongst feminist women and politics scholars that the links between the
descriptive representation of women (DRW) and the substantive representation of women
(SRW) are theoretically bothersome and empirically contingent. The presence of women in
parliaments and legislatures—at whatever proportion, tipping point or critical mass—does
not simply or automatically translate into substantive action on behalf of the unstable
category ‘women’ and their contestable ‘interests’.
There is a discernible shift in the women and politics literature towards the view that
an emphasis upon female representatives as the sole or primary vehicle of SRW has been
limiting. As well as attending to the theoretical problems of DRW/SRW, researchers need
to be realistic and attentive to policy environments that further shape scope and capacity
of political actors and institutions. I argue that understanding and analysing the
complexity and contingency of ‘what is going on in political representation’ requires a
‘thick’ conception of substantive representation. In short, a contextualised, inter-relational,
whole-system approach is needed, rather than a narrow focus on whether or not women
representatives ‘act for’ women. I sketch out a framework that might be used to trace the
actors, relationships, interactions, institutions and norms involved in the representative
process. My aim is to develop a workable schema to apply to concrete situations in order
to locate and analyse the ‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of SRW.
This broader and more inclusive framework borrows from, and builds upon, work by
feminist scholars of comparative policy and politics, and work on gender and state
feminism. However, it takes the work forward in several ways. First, it is ‘thick’ in the sense
of an approach that does not ‘fix’ the who, where, when and how of SRW in advance but
which traces over time the critical actors, sites and dynamics in context; including

Representation, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2008

ISSN 0034-4893 print/1749-4001 online/08/020125-15
ß 2008 McDougall Trust, London DOI: 10.1080/00344890802079607
 126 FIONA MACKAY

institutional and gendered dimensions. As such it does not privilege—or overload—any

one category of actors, such as women’s movement actors or female parliamentarians, in
processes of SRW. Second, it suggests that attention needs to be paid to the internal
dynamics of institutions in terms of the daily enactment of institutions and the ‘doing’ of
gender and the impact of these processes on continuity and change, innovation and
resistance. Third, it addresses the question of what counts as SRW: how do we know when
change (as SRW) has been achieved? I argue that judgements need to be made about the
‘quality’ of SRW, in order to assess the outcomes of SRW. In so doing, I draw upon Fraser’s
twin axes of recognition and redistribution and her insights about the need for just
institutions and parity of participation for marginalised groups. Finally, the framework
builds upon work that is attentive to issues of timing and sequence, recognising the ‘two
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steps forward one step back nature’ of policy and institutional innovation. It does so by
highlighting the importance of accountability dimensions.

What is the Problem?

The problems with the relationship between DRW and SRW are legion and have
been well rehearsed: the first group relates to questions that interrogate the grounds on
which women in office can be said to ‘stand for’ and ‘act for’ women; are there any that do
not collapse into an untenable essentialism and crude universalism? The second set is
concerned with the conceptual problems of defining substantive representation in the
face of scepticism about the (im)possibility of a unitary category ‘women’ with a
recognisable set of political interests that can be ‘acted’ upon; the third, more empirically-
focussed, cluster of issues relates to the factors that may incline women to act for women
and the mediating institutional contexts and norms that may constrain or inhibit them.
Given the problems, should we discount any connection between what Phillips
(1995) has called the politics of presence and the politics of ideas? For Pitkin (1967), who
first made the distinction between ‘passive’ forms of representation such as descriptive
representation, and ‘active’ modes of substantive representation, the answer was clear: the
primary interest of scholars should be on substantive representation. Representation
happens when political representatives act for their constituents, in a responsive manner,
and within the framework of periodic authorisation and accountability.
And yet … and yet … feminist scholars have not given up on the claim, weak and
probabilistic though it is, that something is going on between presence and action; or the
assertion that gender is relevant to the study of political representation; or that the SRW is
‘politically articulable and salient’ (Trimble 2006, 122). Rather than expecting simple answers,
there is a growing realisation that issues of women, gender and political representation are
examples of contested concepts: slippery, conditional and contestable but necessary ‘if we
want to study and relate to the realities of political life’ (Jonasdottir 1988, 33).

Holding Models
Theorists such as Phillips (1995), Young (1994, 2000) and Mansbridge (1999) have
constructed what might be described as ‘holding’ models. These capture the conceptual
dilemmas and messy empirical realities of women’s representation. The presence of
 CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION 127

women is important: it is important on the grounds of justice done and seen to be done
and to reinforce the legitimacy of political institutions, especially in the eyes of women.
However, the link between the presence of women and the SRW and their concerns is
theorised as weak, complicated and contingent. Whilst it is plausible that women
representatives may act for women, there are no guarantees: shifting identities, differences
amongst women, partisan loyalties and institutional factors are all seen to play a part in
shaping and constraining their inclination and capacity to ‘act for women’.
The basis upon which women may be seen to stand for women relates to
arguments about affinities shared amongst women on the basis of their gendered
experiences and their social location in gendered hierarchies (and, indeed, symbolic and
linguistic orders). However this is not to claim that this gives rise to a unified common
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identity or fixed common political agenda. Individual experiences are cross-cut with
other social divisions and identities, particularly race/ethnicity, class and sexuality.
Nonetheless, there is at least a weak case to be made that shared gendered concerns
arise from these gendered positions and experiences (Young 2000). Political concerns are
gendered but not unified, and women’s interests and opinions are likely to be
inconsistent, conflicting and varied. However there is a shared gender interest in access
in and parity of participation and agenda setting in the public sphere to articulate and
contest the meaning and content of interests and issues. It is crucial that women—in
their diversity—are present in politics in order to contest, deliberate and inform the
‘politics of ideas’, particularly issues that are inchoate and have not yet become part of
established political agendas (Jonasdottir 1988; Phillips 1995). Whilst the stronger claim
of shared interests or opinions is discounted, Young (1994, 2002) proposes that there are
shared social perspectives based on gender. These provide starting points for dialogue
and communication. There is a latent potential for shared social perspectives to develop
into common understandings and analysis of gendered experiences. In turn, these may
provide the basis for collective organisation and action, enabling the negotiation and
articulation of shared political agendas. There is no assumption that all women will think
the same way, or that women will necessarily be feminist. At the least, gendered
experiences (mediated though they are by other divisions) provide women representa-
tives with informational and communicative advantages (Mansbridge 1999). On this
basis, it is claimed that a substantial presence is needed in order that a diversity of
women’s perspectives can be inserted into political debate, improving deliberation and
enhancing vertical and horizontal representation.
Even adopting these contingent conceptual models, at least two sets of problems
remain, which provoke the question as to whether our primary focus should be on female
political representatives. This is particularly the case if we are interested in tracing and
assessing substantive policy outcomes for women.
First, empirical research demonstrates that the capacity and inclination of female
representatives to ‘represent’ and ‘act for’ women are modified and constrained by
numerous personal, institutional and party political factors. There is growing consensus
amongst empirical scholars that substantive representation is, in Dodson’s words,
‘probablistic’ rather than ‘deterministic’ and that presence—at whatever numerical
strength—is mediated by political party and other institutional factors and environments
(Dodson 2001, 2006; Childs and Krook 2005). This is particularly the case in strong party
parliamentary systems such as the UK where party discipline presents an additional
 128 FIONA MACKAY

constraint (Beckwith 2002; Lovenduski and Norris 2003; Childs 2004, 2006; Mackay 2004,
2006; Lovenduski 2005).
One response has been research that carefully situates women political representa-
tives in context and charts the interconnections between presence, identities, ideas and
institutional environments. By theorising the impact of institutional context and norms on
capacity to act, scholars have focused upon areas of parliamentary activity where
individual parliamentarians or groups of parliamentarians exercise more autonomy. An
excellent example of this is Childs and Withey’s (2004) work on Early Day Motions in the UK
House of Commons.2 However, whilst this work has produced nuanced and compelling
evidence of a relationship between DRW and SRW on the margins of legislative activity, it
does not address larger questions of substantive outcomes for women in core areas of
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concern; issues that have been central to organised women’s agendas; issues that are
crucial to enhanced citizenship, gender equality and social justice.
These concerns lead to the second problem: the capacity of parliaments and
parliamentarians substantively to progress distinctive policy agendas vis-à-vis political
executives is constrained. This is particularly the case with the Westminster model, where
the executive and its policy networks dominate the policy-making process and where
government initiates almost all legislation. Elsewhere, corporatist and social partners may
share or dominate policy initiation—and the representation of interests—with legislatures.
In most western democracies, state reconfiguration has rendered the policymaking
process more complex with the involvement of many different actors at different levels of
governance (Banaszak et al. 2003). This complexity is not captured by an exclusive focus
on parliaments and assemblies. This suggests that focusing on women parliamentarians,
as individuals or groups, or even on parliament as a whole, does not enable a full appraisal
of the complex policy process and multiple actors involved in contesting, negotiating and
delivering substantive gains for women.

Are We Looking in the Right Place?

Weldon (2002a), amongst others, argues that we are looking in the wrong place
when we seek to find SRW enacted by descriptive representatives in parliaments and
legislatures. The link between DRW and SRW is too weak theoretically and empirically to
be tenable. Instead we would do well to consider alternative institutionalised channels and
forms of representation, in particular women’s policy machinery and women’s movement
organisations and lobbies. Of course, Weldon is not alone—nor the first—to make the
point that these interactions should be viewed explicitly as examples of SRW and a
substantial body of work has grown up,3 particularly associated with the Research Network
on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS) methodology for studying the interaction of
women’s movements and the state through women’s policy machineries and the
consequences for the policymaking process (Mazur 2001, 2002; Stetson 2001; Outshoorn
2004; Lovenduski 2005).
Weldon’s (2002b) 36-country study of government policy response to address
violence against women found no linear relationship between proportions of women in
legislature or cabinet and government performance. In contrast, a strong relationship
existed between strong, autonomous women’s movements and high scores in terms of
policies. This effect was multiplied when strong women’s movements worked in concert
with well-positioned and resourced women’s policy machinery within government. On the
 CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION 129

basis of these empirical findings she argues that DRW is ‘severely limited as an avenue of
providing substantive representation’ (2002a, 1171).
Following Young, Weldon argues that the basis for substantive representation is the
articulation or reflection of group perspective. The perspective is the product of social
collectives, forged through interaction amongst members of marginalised social groups. It
therefore cannot be assumed that women representatives, by their mere experience of
being a member of the category ‘women’, have access to, or full knowledge of, a substantive
group perspective; that ‘group perspective resides complete in any individual’ (2002a, 1155).
The quality of the representative claim is improved if those concerned have been involved in
collective dialogue and interaction. On these grounds, women’s movements as sources of
political representation ‘come closer’ than women representatives, whom she describes as ‘a
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disparate, unorganised group of women in the legislature’ (2002a, 1161).

These are important insights and resonate with my concerns for ‘thicker’, more
contextualised and institutionally-focussed conceptions of SRW. However, unlike Weldon, I
do not think we can ‘give up’ on parliamentary spaces as sites for substantive
representation. To my mind, Weldon underestimates the potential significance of
representatives and representative practices within parliaments and legislatures. In part,
this is because her multi-case comparative method, using quantitative measures, is unable
to tease out the specific context, process and agency involved in each case, which might
provide alternative explanations for policy developments. Indeed she concedes that the
measure used for testing the influence of descriptive representation (raw proportions of
women present) may have failed to capture the significance of actions by individual
legislators (2002a, 1169). This stands in contrast to the weight of empirical work that
demonstrates the importance of women and feminist legislators as ‘critical actors’,
‘feminist champions’, and individual or collective policy or norm ‘entrepreneurs’ in
effecting change.4 Furthermore, she does not place female representatives in their
institutional environment, nor does she consider the interactive and responsive aspects of
representation, including the connections that women representatives may have with
constituents and women’s organisations.
I am unconvinced by Weldon’s claim that these alternative institutional sources of
representation solve the theoretical problem of substantive representation. She merely
displaces the problem of contested representative claims to a different set of actors and
structures and relationships. A more compelling argument can be built around her
observation that institutionalised voice and place, through these alternative channels,
provides a supplementary means of SRW because these avenues explicitly recognise and
seek to counteract the institutionalised gender bias present in policy-making. The policy
process involves representative claims and activities, although not all are recognised as
such or visible. This is especially the case with perspectives that reflect the status quo.
Therefore the institutional arrangements of politics and policy ‘as usual’ provide an
‘unrecognized form of substantive representation for historically dominant groups’
(Weldon 2002a, 1159) as well as constraining the expression and articulation of
marginalised perspectives.

Gender and Institutions

This insight alerts us to more institutional and symbolic concepts of gender and
representation. It is not only the case that political and policy making institutions constrain
 130 FIONA MACKAY

the expression and articulation of SRW and other historically marginalised groups whilst
presenting the interests of the status quo as commonsense; it can also be argued that
such institutions play a central role in the construction of gender and vice versa.
Institutions, understood within a neo-institutional framework, comprise not only formal
rules and structures but also informal norms and practices. Differential patterns of power,
authority and resource distribution are embedded within the design of institutions and are
reinforced or challenged by the informal practices that evolve over time (Steinmo et al.
1992; Streek and Thelen 2005). Feminist scholars have argued that gender provides a
central structuring dynamic of institutions and that gender relations and existing gender
norms are key legacies with which to contend. Institutions are gendered in the sense that
‘gender is present in the processes, practices, images and ideologies, and distributions of
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power in the various sectors of social life … institutions [are] historically developed by
men, currently dominated by men, and symbolically interpreted from the standpoint of
men in leading positions’ (Acker 1992, 567). As Lovenduski points out, masculinist
ideologies are ‘central to the workings of public institutions and therefore to political life,
conventionally defined’ (1998, 340) and dominant masculinities are presented as
commonsense, ostensibly gender-neutral norms, conventions and practices (Duerst-Lahti
and Kelly 1995; Chappell 2002, 2006). This suggests that that the dynamics of resistance,
renegotiation, reform or inertia need to be filtered through a gender lens (Chappell 2002,
2006; Mackay and Meier 2003; Kenny 2007).5
Innovation is difficult in existing institutions, yet periods of institutional restructuring
can open up spaces for the contestation of rules and underlying norms, values and ideas,
typically through the intervention of critical actors described as ‘policy entrepreneurs’
(Kingdon 1984), ‘norm entrepreneurs’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Elgström 2000) or,
more specifically, ‘gender equity entrepreneurs’ (Chappell 2002).
The sources of change can be external or internal and can take the form of
dramatic upheavals, or banal everyday skirmishes and processes of contestation that
take place ‘under the radar’. This suggests that the inner life of institutions, and their
micro processes, are as important as exogenous pressures in understanding continuity
and change and that ‘change [can be] generated through normal everyday enactment of
an institution’ (Streeck and Thelen 2005, 11) For example, whilst the long-standing
institutionalisation of traditional or patriarchal gender norms in political institutions
presents powerful obstacles to SRW, the entry of ‘non-standard’ actors into these
gendered (and racialised) domains can cause disruption: the challenge may extend
beyond the discomfort caused by the sex-gendered presence of traditionally margin-
alised women to a dynamic process in which gender logics may be unsettled and the
gendered coding of political norms as paradigmatically masculine may be rewritten.6
Whilst change is by no means a certain outcome from such disruptions and challenges
alone to the status quo, the everyday acting out of gender relations in institutions,
coupled with institutional innovation and strategic action by actors such as feminist
norm entrepreneurs may lead to the regendering of politics to one degree or another
and enhance the scope for SRW. In this sense the DRW may actively contribute to the
enhancement of SRW: the ‘normalizing’ of women politicians and other actors in the
policy and political process can generate new codes and norms, which facilitate further
participation and contribute to a new—more balanced—political culture and the
broadening of the mainstream political agenda (Mackay et al. 2003; Mackay 2006). As
Beckwith notes:
 CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION 131

Gender as process suggests not only that institutions and politics are gendered but also
that they can be gendered … [through] strategic behaviour by political actors to
masculinize and/or to feminize political structures, rules and forms, for example, literally
to regender state power, policymaking, and state legal constructions and their
interpretations (Beckwith 2005, 133).

Therefore, SRW may be achieved through the change achieved through the
regendering of political and policymaking institutions and through the everyday practices
of those regendered institutions as a whole, rather than a one-to-one correspondence
with individuals. Conversely, institutions may be remasculinised, closing down spaces for
SRW.
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Towards a ‘Thick’ Conception of Substantive Representation

To summarise so far, I contend that a broadened version of representation is needed
which takes into account multiple sites of representative activities and policy-making. In
other words, there is a need to thicken the conception of substantive representation and
to develop a framework that incorporates institutional aspects and alternative actors,
whilst also keeping parliamentary spaces and political representatives in focus. This
inclusive framework borrows from, and builds upon, work by scholars of feminist
comparative policy (FCP) such as the RNGS collaborative network and work on gender and
state institutions. The recognition of broader sites and agents of representation by FCP
scholars and others has led to novel insights that expand and enhance SRW through
institutionalised channels and structures, such as Women’s Policy Machinery, state
feminists and statutory gender equality advocates or through the adoption of gender
mainstreaming policy. For example, gender policy machinery can provide an important
avenue for the representation and institutionalisation of women’s movement frames
inside a bureaucracy; and the enhanced voice and institutionalised access of organised
women’s organisations, particularly feminist-oriented groups and perspective can provide
an important avenue for dialogue.
However, the proposed framework is distinctively ‘thick’ in the sense of an
approach that does not ‘fix’ the who, where, when and how of SRW in advance but
incorporates the theoretical uncertainty and contested nature of substantive representa-
tion. As such it does not privilege—or overload—particular categories or configurations
in processes of SRW, in contrast to the methodology and the corpus of work by RNGS.7
Thick substantive representation might be enacted through multiple actors, sources and
sites. ‘Critical actors’ might include feminist champions (female and male) in parliaments,
government, bureaucracy and civil society working as norm or policy ‘entrepreneurs’ in
the sense of promoting particular frames and values that enhance SRW. Other ‘critical
actors’ might include allies, fellow travellers, ‘desert flowers’8 or gatekeepers, who may
support feminist champions at particular junctures, or indeed initiate and enact SRW
themselves, intentionally and unintentionally, whether or not they have internalised
gender equality norms. Furthermore, we need to include as critical actors those
individuals and groups who may resist and stymie change; in other words those who act
as ‘norm reactionaries’.
The claims-making, frames and contests which construct the meaning and content
of SRW take place within, and are shaped by, particular gendered institutional contexts
 132 FIONA MACKAY

and ways of doing things. This suggests that attention needs to be paid to the internal
dynamics of institutions in terms of the daily enactment of institutions and the ‘doing’ of
gender and the impact of these processes on continuity and change, innovation and
resistance. The presence of women (DRW) may have complex effects, whether or not they
bring different ideas and advocate different interests.

Judging SRW: Recognition and Redistribution

Inclusiveness and attentiveness to institutional context takes us so far. However, the
thick framework needs to be further enhanced with evaluative dimensions, in order to
address the question of what counts as SRW: how do we know when change (as SRW) has
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been achieved? How do we assess the extent to which SRW has been achieved in terms of
effective and substantive outcomes rather than (merely) policy responsiveness on the
parts of government and others. Conceptions of SRW have been under developed to date,
with researchers frequently using process change or responsiveness to women’s
movement demands as proxy measures. This does not allow for change generated within
institutions or for SRW which has not originated from women’s movement demands.
Judgements need to be made about the ‘quality’ of SRW, in order to assess the
outcomes of SRW. In so doing, I draw upon Fraser’s twin axes of recognition and
redistribution and her insights about the need for just institutions and parity of
participation for marginalised groups (1995, 2003). Fraser identifies recognition and
redistribution as twin requirements for social justice. She proposes a status model of
subordination whereby oppression operates through institutionalised misrecognition of
and maldistribution to marginalised social groups.
Recognition is integral to the understanding and evaluation of representation and
citizenship. Although Fraser’s (1995, 2003) discussions of the requirements of social justice
do not explicitly address issues of representation or citizenship, the general principles
serve us well by emphasising the links between (in)equality and women’s agency. Social
justice—which when applied to our concerns can be alternatively understood as SRW and
consequently substantive citizenship—has two core requirements. It requires the
combination of recognition (including cultural rights) and redistribution (social and
economic rights) in order to be able to meet conditions for the norm ‘of participatory
parity’ (Fraser 2003, 29–31).
Women’s citizenship, defined as agency to participate as peers in social and political
spheres, is constrained by ‘gender-specific forms of distributive injustice including gender-
based exploitation, economic marginalisation and deprivation’ and gender-specific forms
of misrecognition and status subordination, particularly ‘institutionalized patterns of
cultural value that privilege traits associated with masculinity, while devaluing everything
coded as ‘‘feminine’’, paradigmatically—but not only—women’ (Fraser 2003, 20).
The criterion of ‘recognition’ therefore relates to questions of the extent to which
institutions and politics recognise—at a symbolic level—the full political and social
citizenship of women: to what extent have the gendered implications of policy or gender-
based barriers to full citizenship been recognised? Are women seen as legitimate political
actors with legitimate interests and differentiated interests and concerns? Or are they
‘misrecognised’ or subject to ‘non-recognition’ by which is meant ‘being rendered invisible
via authoritative representational, communicative and interpretative practices of one’s
 CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION 133

own culture’; and disrespected ‘being routinely maligned or disparaged in stereotypical

public cultural representative and/or everyday life interactions [?]’ (Fraser 1995, 71).
Fraser argues that formal and informal institutions play a crucial role in the
misrecognition of women (see section on gender and institutions). Furthermore, she
points out that pervasive gender codes are central to the construction of the status order
as a whole, ‘As a result, not just women but all low-status groups risk feminization and
thus depreciation’ (2003, 20). Therefore, it is the case that in order for institutions to be
‘just’ (and, for our purposes, democratic) there is a need to replace patterns of cultural
norms that impede women’s ability to participate with norms that foster parity of
participation, (Fraser 2003, 30). These reformed institutions should also promote the
recognition of multiple and intersecting identities and tackle consequent inequalities.
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Fraser uses domestic violence and sexual assault as an example of ‘gender-specific

harms’ brought about as a result of status subordination resulting in ‘injustices of
recognition’ (2003, 21). If we take this example forward, what, then, might count as
evidence of recognition with respect to claims and policy developments around domestic
violence? First, political claims-making, policy formulations and official definitions would
need to incorporate recognition of the ‘gender specific’ harms of domestic violence and
violence against women more generally, and the links between different forms of violence,
and the social hierarchies that underpin gender-based violence. Understandings of the
heterogeneity of women and the ways in which gender intersects with other social
divisions and identities such as race/ethnicity, class and sexuality, would also be needed to
counter harms of misrecognition. The extent to which domestic violence is recognised as
an issue of status subordination could be gauged by looking at the spread and scope of
policy action. One would expect to see the inclusion of prevention strategies and work
programmes that challenge structural gender inequalities and underlying androcentric
norms (the causes) alongside provision and protection measures (that address the
consequences). The presence of women would also be required across the multiple
institutional sites of SRW in order to promote parity of participation, including the voices
of women survivors of domestic abuse.
However SRW outcomes as gains in recognition are half of the story: the other
dimension of the evaluative framework considers SRW in terms of redistributive changes.
The question needs to be addressed as to whether policy outcomes result in SRW, in terms
of concrete gains that address material maldistribution. This goes further than many
approaches, which tend to emphasise process change through the creation of state
institutions as a form of recognition of social groups and the importance of inclusion of
previously marginalised groups through mechanisms for dialogue (RNGS, 2005, 4).
The insistence that SRW requires material justice as well as recognition and inclusion
relates to the suspicions of feminists, such as Fraser (1995, 2003) that governments in an
age of neo-liberal dominance may be willing to meet identity claims—the politics of
recognition—whilst avoiding the politics of redistribution. In other words that
governments may find it easier to perform symbolic politics (albeit with potential cultural
outcomes if done in good faith) rather than politics that require expenditure and material
outcomes in terms of redistribution of resources, power and benefits.
Keeping with the example of domestic violence, effective SRW would require
adequate expenditure commitments for programmes, in the context of wider efforts to
promote participatory parity including measures to ensure more equitable distribution of
economic resources between men and women.
 134 FIONA MACKAY

Accountability Structures and Relationships

Sharing the broadly social constructivist and institutionalist approach of RNGS and
other feminist comparative scholars requires attention to the policy making process as a
contest over ideas and values. Control over the interpretation of policy problems and
the framing of solutions are viewed as the essence of politics.9 Issues of timing and
sequence are crucial to understanding of the ‘two-steps-forward-one-step-back’
character of much policy and institutional innovation. Once the content of interests
has been defined and contingently fixed and translated into policy proposals and
developments, the skirmishes over meanings do not cease. This provokes the question
as to what happens next: who holds whom to account in delivering SRW in terms of
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substantive change? Mechanisms for scrutiny and accountability are as important as

inclusive mechanisms of dialogue in the ongoing and iterative processes of contestation
that accompany implementation.
Goetz (2003) cautions that there is a need to move away from an undue emphasis
on how women representatives—or even women’s civil society organisations—perform
and, instead, to take a more holistic and institutionally-focussed approach. This centres
upon what accountability mechanisms and relationships exist to hold to account
government and other state actors with regards to their performance on issues of gender
equality (see also Sawer 2002). Of course, accountability is understood as a key dimension
of representation (along with authorisation) in classic accounts of representation, however
most are concerned with holding to account individual representatives, rather than
institutional accountabilities. Accountability institutions and relationships have tradition-
ally been gender biased but institutional innovation, internal and external challenge, or
the creation of new institutions can serve as an opportunity to counter and correct
institutionalised gender exclusions and marginalisation.
According to Goetz (2003), accountability relationships on the one hand, serve to
require power-holders to explain and justify their actions and, on the other, impose
sanctions and penalties. In other words they are conventionally organised by the functions
of answerability (‘soft’ accountability) and enforceability (‘hard’ accountability). There are
vertical and horizontal accountabilities: vertical accountability includes institutions and
processes whereby politicians and public officials are answerable to citizens. This can
range from periodic voting to more routinised and institutionalised channels whereby
governments are required to account for their actions and to engage in dialogue with civil
society, for example through consultative mechanisms. Horizontal accountability relates to
political, administrative, judicial and financial scrutiny, for example the formal scrutiny of
executives by parliaments.
The inclusion of both horizontal and vertical accountability dimensions in any
framework underscores the political and contingent nature of SRW. Effective account-
ability mechanisms and relationships may counter legacies of institutional gender bias and
capture. Real world demands by women’s movement actors and others to have access to
and participate in effective accountability arrangements are animated by a practical
understanding of the importance of timing and sequence and the ongoing process of
seeking to institutionalise innovation against a backdrop of resistance, setback and drift.
Accountability therefore provides an important plank of substantive representation.
Methods such as process tracing (George and McKeown 1986)10 and discourse
analysis, which have already proved quite fruitful for Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP)
 CONCEPTIONS OF SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION 135

can be used to operationalise frameworks of representation and accountability will enable

us to identify the range of potential representative actors, relations, interactions,
institutions and norms involved in defining, negotiating, enacting and delivering SRW;
and the who, how and when political institutions are held to account. These methods
need to be supplemented by tools such as observation to capture the micro processes of
SRW.

Conclusions
Understanding and analysing the complexity and contingency of ‘what is going on
in political representation’ requires a ‘thick’ conception of substantive representation
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comprising a whole-system approach rather than a narrow focus on whether or not female
political representatives ‘act for’ women. Even when we leave aside the thorny question
about what might comprise ‘women’s interests’ by adopting ‘holding models’, a focus on
women parliamentarians, as individuals or groups, or even on parliaments as a whole, does
not enable a full appraisal of the complex policy process and multiple actors involved in
contesting, negotiating and delivering substantive gains for women. The capacity of
parliaments and parliamentarians substantively to progress distinctive policy agenda vis-à-
vis political executives is constrained. This is particularly the case with the Westminster
model. It is also the case that in multi-level polities in an increasingly globalised policy
environment, the capacity of any one level of governance to make policy decisions or
implement programmes is constrained and interdependent upon other levels.
These issues are well understood by feminist scholars of comparative policy and
politics, and work on gender and state institutions, upon whose pluralised approach I
build. A thick, contextual framework enables us to locate and analyse the ‘who’, ‘what’,
‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ of SRW in concrete situations. However, I take the work forward
in several ways. First, the proposed framework is ‘thick’ in the sense of an approach that
does not ‘fix’ the who, where, when and how of SRW in advance but which traces over
time the critical actors, sites and dynamics in context; including institutional and gendered
dimensions. Second, it suggests that attention needs to be paid to the internal dynamics
of institutions in terms of the daily enactment of institutions and the ‘doing’ of gender as
well as external pressures. Third, it addresses the question of what counts as SRW and
broadens conceptions of what SRW is or could be. Finally, the framework enhances
existing approaches by emphasizing the importance of accountability as a plank of SRW
over time
It seems to me that we need to live with the theoretical uncertainty and contested
nature of SRW. Representation involves complex sets of actors, relations, institutions and
norms. None is unproblematic: in reality all potential sources of substantive representation
are contingent and contestable, all share problems and dilemmas of authorisation and
accountability, all are interactive and relational. As Saward (2006) notes, all modes of
substantive representation involve the making and performing of claims: claims to be
representative, claims to represent women’s substantive concerns, claims that actively
construct subjectivities and interests in a dynamic process. These modes of representation
are all shaped and constrained by gendered institutional arrangements and norms.
Effective SRW requires institutional reform and innovation, including the creation of
arrangements that foster the norm of participatory parity and the opportunity to contest
and negotiate the meanings and content of SRW in a given context and over time. A thick,
 136 FIONA MACKAY

inclusive and institutionally-focussed approach to the study of SRW, further enhanced by

evaluative criteria and attention to accountability, provides tools to identify the different
elements and to assess the configurations and sequences that may enable or inhibit the
SRW.

NOTES

1. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at 8th Institute for Women’s Policy Research
(IWPR) Conference, Washington DC (June 19–21, 2005); 20th Congress of the International
Political Science Association (IPSA), Fukuoka, Japan (July 9–13, 2006); 102nd Annual
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Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Philadelphia (August 31–
September 3, 2006); and the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) 35th Joint
Sessions of Workshops, Helsinki (May 7–12, 2007). I benefited greatly from comments from
participants and discussants, particularly Pat Boles. I am grateful to the British Academy, the
Political Studies Association (PSA) and the University of Edinburgh School of Social and
Political Studies for financial assistance to attend these conferences. My thanks also go to
the anonymous reviewer, Kim Hutchings, Russell Keat, Sarah Childs and Judith Squires for
their constructive comments and to Special Issue editors Karen Celis and Sarah Childs for
their support and patience.
2. Similar approaches can be found in US scholarship, e.g., Swers (2002) and Dodson (2006).
3. See, for example, the substantial scholarly works on state feminism (e.g., Stetson and Mazur
1995), women’s movements and the state (e.g., Banaszak et al. 2003), gender and the state
(e.g., Chappell 2002, 2006; Kantola 2006) and mainstreaming (e.g., Rai 2003).
4. See Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) for a discussion of norm entrepreneurs. See Kingdon
(1984) for a discussion of policy entrepreneurs.
5. See www.femfiin.com for details of a new international collaborative project, which seeks
to develop a systematic feminist institutionalism.
6. For a similar argument based on women’s entry into the masculinist institutions of the
military and the church, see Katzenstein 1999.
7. See http://libarts.wsu.edu/polisci/rngs.
8. Jenny Chapman’s (1986) evocative metaphor for those whose sympathies lie dormant
unless provoked into bloom by the unpredictable crisis of ‘rainstorms’.
9. See http://libarts.wsu.edu/polisci/rngs. Also see the MAGEEQ project http://www.mageeq.
net/ for a similar social constructivist approach focussing on policy discourse.
10. My thanks to the anonymous reviewer

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Fiona Mackay is senior lecturer in Politics at the University of Edinburgh. She has
researched and written on women and politics and gender and constitutional
change in the UK. Publications include Love and Politics (2001); Women and
Contemporary Scottish Politics (co-edited, 2001); The Changing Politics of Gender
Equality in Britain (co-edited, 2002), and Women, Politics and Constitutional
Change (co-authored, 2007). E-mail: f.s.mackay@ed.ac.uk
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