Author Meets Critics: Soledad Prillaman's "The Patriarchal Political Order"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

This is an author-meets-critics session for Soledad Prillaman’s book The Patriarchal Political Order: The Making and Unraveling of the Gendered Participation Gap in India. (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Women across the Global South, and particularly in India, turn out to vote on election days but are noticeably absent from politics year-round. Why? This book combines descriptive and causal analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from more than 9,000 women and men in India to argue that coercive power structures diminish women's political participation. The Patriarchal Political Order unpacks how dominant men, imbued with authority from patriarchal institutions and norms, benefit from institutionalizing the household as a unitary political actor. Women vote because it serves the interests of men but stay out of politics more generally because it threatens male authority. Yet, when women come together collectively to demand access to political spaces, they become a formidable foe to the patriarchal political order. Ultimately, this book serves to deepen our understanding of what it means to create an inclusive democracy for all.

This panel brings together a diverse group of scholarly critics with expertise in political economy, gender and politics, and the politics of India: Rachel Brulé, Ana de la O, Diana O'Brien, and Pavi Suryanarayan. Prillaman will also present a new research agenda on political agency across contexts and geographies.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Cosponsor

• Division 31: Women , Gender and Politics Research

Chair

• Diana Z. O'Brien Washington University in St. Louis

Presenters

• Soledad Artiz Prillaman Stanford University

• Ana Lorena De La O Torres Yale University

• Pavithra Suryanarayan London School of Economics

• Cesi Cruz University of Michigan

• Rachel E. Brule Boston University