Professor Karen Beckwith’s work focuses on the comparative politics of gender in the US and West Europe, including women and elections, political parties and participation, and social movements. Her research concerns how citizens participate in politics through social movement activism, and engagement with political parties and interest groups. She is particularly interested in how political institutions shape political opportunities and disadvantages along gender lines, and how women – and men – mobilise to assert their policy preferences.  Her most recent work concerns the gendered processes of party leadership selection in parliamentary systems and how gender, race, and ethnicity shape cabinet formation in the US and West Europe.

Read more from Professor Karen Beckwith: 

Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender Claire Annesley, Karen Beckwith, and Susan Franceschet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019

“Feminist Approaches to the Study of Executive Politics,” The Oxford Handbook of Executive Politics, eds. Rudy B. Andeweg, Robert Elgie, Ludger Helms, Juliet Kaarbo, and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2020.  Pp. 130-150.

“Review Essay: Democracy with and without Women:  Inclusion, Exclusion, and Violence,” Perspectives on Politics, 19 (3), September 2021.