Gender & Governance

Catalog description

What does it mean to govern well in the 21st century from a gender angle? How are political institutions gendered? And, what role do states, political institutions, and governance processes play in socially and politically constructing gender across time and diverse regions and contexts? How does gender shape our political identities, ways of thinking, and ways of acting, including how we act and interact within governance and state structures? How do social, cultural, economic, political, and historical dynamics in the context of the state produce gender arrangements and dynamics, as well as how does gender in this context intersect with other social identities, including race and ethnicity, class, nation, and sexualities. This course examines how gender, as a social category, shapes and is shaped by the state, political institutions, and governance processes from historical, contemporary, and global perspectives. It critically interrogates how the constitutional foundations, political institutions, and the formal and informal processes through which states operate are gendered. The materials of this class reach from feminist theories, state and governance paradigms to several subfields of gender and politics.