Resumen de Specialised Parliamentary Bodies and the Quality of Women's Substantive Representation: A Comparative Analysis of Belgium, United Kingdom and New Zealand

Karen Celis, Sarah Childs, Jennifer Curtin

• This comparative analysis investigates formal parliamentary bodies ‘for women’ and informal networks and parliamentary groups (‘gender equality bodies’). These are evaluated to determine the extent to which they contribute to a ‘good’ collective process of women's substantive representation. Focusing on three countries, Belgium, the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand (NZ), we explore which venues are responsive to women and which are inclusive of a wide variety of claims. The UK and NZ cases score better than Belgium on the responsiveness criterion given that linkage with the women's movement is more or less guaranteed while Belgium and the UK appear more promising on inclusiveness, predominantly because of their rules concerning the composition of the gender equality bodies. However, in none do the various bodies constitute a strong site for quality substantive representation of women (SRW). Rather, it appears SRW remains dependent on the role of critical actors.