Introduction
The feminist approach fundamentally redefines mainstream comparative politics by establishing gender as a constitutive element of power relations rather than a mere demographic variable. By employing an intersectional comparative methodology, it interrogates how formal institutional architectures and informal patriarchal arrangements interact to structure political power, state authority, and citizenship across diverse political regimes.
Deconstructing the Public-Private Divide
Traditional comparative politics historically privileged formal public institutions such as legislatures, political parties, and state apparatuses. Theorists like Carole Pateman demonstrate that the private sphere of the household is deeply political; domestic patriarchy directly conditions formal political participation, necessitating a re-evaluation of comparative democratic transitions and citizenship regimes.
Feminist Comparative Political Economy and Welfare Regimes
Feminist scholars have challenged mainstream typologies of political economy:
- Critique of Esping-Andersen: Ann Shola Orloff and Birgit Pfau-Effinger demonstrated that traditional welfare regime classifications ignore unpaid care work and women's economic autonomy.
- Comparative Welfare Models: Scandinavian social-democratic states institutionalise dual-earner policies that support female labor force commodification, whereas Anglo-Saxon liberal regimes privatize care burdens, entrenching gendered poverty across market democracies.
Feminist Institutionalism and Electoral Comparison
Georgina Waylen and Pippa Norris analyze the interplay of formal constitutional rules and informal patriarchal norms within state structures:
- Electoral Quota Variations: Cross-national empirical comparisons reveal stark systemic divergence. Inter-Parliamentary Union data indicates that states utilizing legislated gender quotas average significantly higher legislative representation compared to those without quotas.
- Post-Conflict Institutional Design: Specific constitutional restructuring in post-conflict states like Rwanda demonstrates how intentional gender mainstreaming can yield world-leading descriptive representation in lower chambers.
Decolonial and Intersectional Methodologies
Moving beyond ethnocentric Western paradigms, post-colonial scholars such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Cynthia Enloe demonstrate how comparative state-building, globalized supply chains, and militarism rely upon historically specific, gendered, and racialized labor across the Global South.
Conclusion
Far from being a peripheral or merely normative framework, the feminist approach provides an indispensable empirical lens for comparative politics. By shifting the analytical focus from formal institutional design to substantive representation and political economy, it enables a deeper understanding of state-society relations and power dynamics across democratic and authoritarian regimes.