In this first blog post, the current FIIN Directors — Cecilia Josefsson, Elin Bjarnegård, Josefina Erikson, Proma Raychaudhury, Claire Annesley, and Natalie Galea — take the opportunity to reflect on Feminist institutionalism’s relevance, and the network’s role today, 20 years after its emergence.
At a time of democratic backsliding, anti-gender mobilization, and growing contestation around equality and inclusion, understanding how institutions reproduce — but can also challenge — gendered power relations has become more important than ever. For nearly two decades, the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN) has brought together scholars interested in understanding how institutions are gendered — and how institutional rules, norms, and practices shape power, participation, exclusion, and resistance. Since the first FIIN workshop at the University of Edinburgh in 2006, feminist institutionalism has developed into a vibrant and internationally recognized field of scholarship that continues to evolve across disciplines, regions, and research traditions.
Originally emerging within political science, feminist institutionalist research has expanded far beyond its initial disciplinary boundaries. Today, scholars use feminist institutionalist approaches to study political parties, parliaments, bureaucracies, courts, universities, international organizations, workplaces, social movements, and economic institutions across a wide range of global contexts. Feminist institutionalist scholarship has generated important theoretical and methodological innovations while also producing empirically grounded analyses of how institutions reproduce — but can also challenge — gendered and intersecting inequalities.
At the same time, the political context in which we conduct this research has changed significantly. Across many parts of the world, we are witnessing democratic erosion, attacks on gender equality initiatives, and growing resistance to feminist and inclusionary reforms. Questions about institutional resilience, backlash, resistance, informal power, and the everyday reproduction of inequality have therefore become increasingly urgent. Feminist institutionalism offers important tools for understanding these developments — not only by examining formal rules and policies, but also by uncovering the informal norms, practices, and power relations that shape institutional life.
As a directors team, we represent different disciplinary backgrounds, institutional contexts, and regional perspectives within the broader feminist institutionalist community. FIIN is currently hosted by the Department of Government at Uppsala University, which serves as the institutional hub for the network’s activities and future development. Together, we are excited to launch this FIIN blog as a space for scholarly exchange, reflection, and conversation.
We envision the blog as an open and accessible platform where scholars can share ongoing research, methodological reflections, conceptual debates, fieldwork experiences, teaching practices, and public-facing interventions connected to feminist institutionalism. We particularly hope the blog will foster dialogue across disciplines, regions, and career stages, and create opportunities for emerging scholars to engage with broader conversations in the field.
Importantly, we also hope this space can help showcase the diversity of feminist institutionalist research today. Feminist institutionalism is no longer confined to a single region, discipline, or substantive area. Researchers around the world are applying feminist institutionalist perspectives to issues such as democratic decline, violence and resistance, climate governance, labour and welfare institutions, peacebuilding, colonial legacies, legal reform, migration, and digital governance. We hope this blog will reflect and further strengthen that diversity. Moreover, we hope the blog can help make feminist institutionalist research more accessible beyond academia and encourage dialogue with policymakers, practitioners, activists, and wider publics.
Looking ahead, we want FIIN to continue developing as an inclusive, international, and intergenerational scholarly community. Alongside supporting cutting-edge research, we hope to strengthen mentorship and collaboration across career stages, create more opportunities for intellectual exchange and training, and continue expanding the global reach of feminist institutionalist scholarship.
As part of these efforts, we are excited to announce that FIIN will host a 20-year anniversary conference in Uppsala, Sweden, on 26–27 January 2027: Feminist Institutionalism, 20 Years On: Resistance and Resilience in Times of Gender Equality Contestation. The call for papers and panels is now open! The conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on the development of feminist institutionalism over the past two decades while also engaging with new theoretical, methodological, and empirical directions in the field. We very much hope that scholars from across the FIIN community and beyond will be able to join us for what we hope will be an inspiring and forward-looking event.
We warmly invite scholars working on institutions, gender, power, and inequality to contribute to the blog — whether by presenting new research, revisiting earlier debates, reflecting on methods and concepts, or engaging with contemporary political developments through a feminist institutionalist lens. We especially welcome contributions from scholars working across disciplinary boundaries and from contexts that have historically been underrepresented within mainstream institutionalist research.
Whether you are a long-standing FIIN member, an early career researcher, or newly engaging with feminist institutionalism, we warmly invite you to join the conversation — through the blog, future FIIN events, and our upcoming 20-year conference in Uppsala.
We look forward to the conversations ahead.
— The FIIN Directors