ABSTRACT
Until recently, the UK has been presented as a textbook case of a highly centralised unitary state. A parliamentary system, its representatives are elected under a simple plurality system and governments are formed from the majority party in the parliament.1 The polity is characterised by single-party government, executive dominance of the legislature, and adversarial two-party politics. Within this framework, women have traditionally fared poorly: the UK has had one of the worst records in terms of female representation in parliament However, the political system of the UK has recently undergone rapid change with far-reaching constitutional and institutional restructuring. By far the most important developments are the creation of devolved legislatures in Scotland and Northern Ireland and a devolved assembly in Wales in the late 1990s. As a result substantial power has been devolved from the centre to the sub-state level and Britain has moved from being a highly centralised unitary state to a quasi-federal model of governance. Another defining – but under-reported – feature of this reconfiguration of the political landscape has been the historic shift that has occurred in terms of the gendered distribution of political power. The first elections to the new devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales resulted in a gender coup with high levels of female representation at 37 per cent and 42 per cent respectively – all the more dramatic given the poor track record of the UK. In Northern Ireland, although women make up a relatively modest 14 per cent of assembly members, this represents a considerable improvement upon past records in the Province. The second Welsh and Scottish elections in 2003 broke new ground. In Wales women achieved their goal of equal representation, taking up 50 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly for Wales – believed to be a world first. In Scotland, women edged closer to the top of global league tables and now make up 39.5 per cent of members of the Scottish Parliament (Mackay, 2003).The implications for women and politics from these moves towards a multi-level polity form a key theme of this chapter.
