ABSTRACT
In search of a conceptual framework that goes beyond the inclusion-to-influence agenda, this chapter reviews recent developments in the field of gender and politics. The chapter finds that the field lacks an integrated framework for undertaking comparative analysis of how politics shapes the progress of gender equity, particularly in the Global South. It argues that bringing together recent advances made in theorizing the politics of development with the literature on gender and politics can offer a more coherent and overarching framework that encompasses the political conditions under which governments adopt and implement gender equity reforms. This is captured by our power domains framework, which focuses on the interplay between the underlying configuration of power that shapes how polities function on the one hand and the more specific domain of women's interests on the other. The chapter then proceeds to outline the methodological approach adopted in this book to investigating how anti—domestic violence legislation was passed in the six case-study countries of the Global South.
