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6 British J. Pol. & Int'l Rel. 1 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/bhjlplcs6 and id is 1 raw text is: BJPIR: 2004 VOL 6, 1-2 Gender in Contemporary British Politics Vicky Randall and Joni Lovenduski From early attempts to bring women into the purview of mainstream political science, our understanding has come a long way. On the one hand women them- selves have made substantial inroads into the masculine world of politics, for instance as MPs and through the creation of women's policy machinery. On the other, analysis of the complex gender dynamics involved in these processes has become much more sophisticated and imaginative, even if there remains strong resistance within this male-dominated discipline to absorbing many of the new insights. We are very pleased, in this special issue, to be able to showcase five articles that together provide a valuable and timely commentary on contemporary political developments and at the same time perfectly demonstrate both the quality and range of current research in this area. All of them focus in some way or other on the nature and implications of women's participation in contemporary British politics. For both Sarah Childs and Nirmal Puwar the context is the House of Commons. Childs uses the experience of the 1997 intake of Labour women MPs to ask whether they have a distinctive 'style' of politics. Puwar reflects on the symbolically disrup- tive impact of the presence in parliament of women, 'black' and other ethnic minor- ity MPs. Judith Squires and Mark Wickham-Jones provide an assessment of what has been achieved, in terms of mainstreaming gender concerns in the policy process, by what since 2001 has been known as the Women and Equality Unit. Vivien Lowndes uses data on women's participation in politics and social networks at local level to engage with the currently highly influential 'social capital' thesis. Rosie Campbell explores current gender differences in ideology and issue preferences through a statistical analysis of data from the British Election Study. Fiona MacKay discusses the achievements of UK research on gender and political representation. While they share a common substantive focus, these authors vary strikingly in the methods and theoretical perspectives they bring to bear. Data sources range from in-depth interviews through Hansard and official government documents and local case studies to attitudinal surveys. Both Puwar and Lowndes explicitly challenge the narrow disciplinary boundaries of political science, insisting on the need to incorporate the findings and perspectives of other relevant disciplines, especially sociology. Squires and Wickham-Jones employ concepts drawn from the public administration literature. Campbell and Childs both use their findings to question received wisdom concerning gender differences but from very different method- ological standpoints. MacKay's reflection on the literature notes both gender and institutional 'turns' in recent research. She calls for both a greater integration of feminist and mainstream concerns and an extension of the ambitions of feminist research to include still more mainstream concerns. .HIOr Political Studies © Political Studies Association, 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, i Association Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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