Women Opposition Leaders: Pathways, Patterns, and Performance

Special Issue in Politics & Governance, 2023, 11(1)

This thematic issue provides the first comprehensive overview of women opposition leaders and their performance. Setting the stage for a new research agenda, this special issue integrates theoretical and empirical insights at the intersection of three distinct research areas: political opposition, political leadership, and gender and politics.

Applying a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, this collection of original articles captures the diversity of women opposition leaders, their career trajectories, and their exercise of leadership across different political regimes and world regions.

Contributions to the Special Issue:

Women Opposition Leaders: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Agendas
Sarah C. Dingler, Ludger Helms and Henriette Müller

Parliamentary Women Opposition Leaders: A Comparative Assessment Across 28 OECD Countries
Sarah C. Dingler and Ludger Helms

Gender and Strategic Opposition Behavior: Patterns of Parliamentary Oversight in Belgium
Benjamin de Vet and Robin Devroe

From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right
Elisabetta De Giorgi, Alice Cavalieri and Francesca Feo

The “Accidental Candidate” Versus Europe’s Longest Dictator: Belarus’s Unfinished Revolution for Women
Farida Jalalzai and Steve Jurek

Gender and Opposition Leadership in the Pacific Islands
Kerryn Baker and Jack Corbett

Political Pathways and Performance of Women Opposition Leaders in Indonesia and South Korea
Nankyung Choi

The Instrumentalization of Women Opposition Leaders for Authoritarian Regime Entrenchment: The Case of Uganda
Aili Mari Tripp

Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European Parliament
Henriette Müller and Pamela Pansardi