Historical Perspectives in Comparative Politics and Gender Studies

Abstract

Historical perspectives form the backdrop and the context for much work on gender in comparative politics scholarship, yet history itself has rarely been incorporated as the lens through which the theorizing of gender occurs. The current growth of interest in gender studies in American political development is strangely not reflected in contemporary trends of historical institutionalism within comparative politics (see Gretchen Ritter's essay in this issue). Although scholars of comparative politics working on gender or women almost always incorporate historical perspectives in their analyses, history is generally drawn on as background or to provide context. History itself is generally not the primary focus of their analysis and historical processes are not used to generate theory. It has been only recently that scholars, especially in the field of historical institutionalism (HI), have begun to think about new ways in which history could be used to develop theory and create new empirical knowledge in the field of comparative politics and gender.