Dr Rainbow Murray, BA (Manchester), MRes, PhD (London)
Reader

Office hours: 

Monday 3-4pm and Thursday 10-11am

Research interests:

My research focuses on gender and politics, French and comparative politics, elections, representation and political parties. I am currently working on several projects.  The first, entitled "The Impact of Gender Quotas on Parliamentary Representation", explores the impact of the French 'parity' law on parliamentary representation in France.   This research is funded by grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the City of Paris.  I am also working on media coverage of women candidates for executive office around the world; this project resulted in an edited book ("Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling"). and we are now updating the data to incorporate new candidates such as Dilma Rousseff.  I am heavily involved in the French presidential and parliamentary elections.  With Raymond Kuhn, I am organising a day conference on this theme at Queen Mary on 24 May, and a special issue of the journal Parliamentary Affairs.  Please contact us for more information about attending the day conference.  Other projects I am working on include a reassessment of our understanding of gender quotas, and the start of a larger study looking at how gender quotas change representative democracy over space and time.

I am a visiting research fellow at CEVIPOF (Sciences Po Paris), France.  I co-edit the Political Data Yearbook, part of the European Journal of Political Research.

My first monograph, "Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France", explored the role of political parties in the (non) selection of women candidates, explaining why different parties might be more or less motivated to implement France's compulsory gender quota, known as the ‘parity' law.

I am the founding convenor of the Women in French Politics network.

I would be happy to supervise research students in the following areas:

• Gender and politics
• Contemporary French politics
• Political parties, especially in the areas of candidate selection and electoral behaviour
• Elections, including voter behaviour, electoral systems and electoral forecasting
• Political executives and legislatures

Recent podcast on the French Presidential Elections 2012

Publications:

Books

Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France, Palgrave, 2010

Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: a Global Comparison of Women's Campaigns for Executive Office (ed), Praeger, 2010

Journal editorials

From 2011, I am the co-editor of the Political Data Yearbook, part of the European Journal of Political Research

Special Issue on The French Presidential and Legislative Elections 2012, Parliamentary Affairs, 2013 (with Raymond Kuhn)

"Symposium on Forecasting the French 2007 Elections" (ed), French Politics 6(2): 103-165, 2008

"Special Issue on Women in French Politics" (ed), Modern and Contemporary France 18(4), 2010

Journal articles

Several articles forthcoming; publication details to follow.

"Why are Gender Quotas Adopted? party Pragmatism and Parity in France." (co-authored with Mona Lena Krook and Katherine Opello). Political Research Quarterly, 2012

"Parity in France: A Dual-Tack Solution to Women's Under-Representation." West European Politics 35(2): 343-361, 2012

"Political Data in 2010" (co-authored with Daniele Caramani and Kevin Deegan-Krause). European Journal of Political Research 50 (7-8): 869-887, 2011

"Linear Trajectories or Vicious Circles? The Causes and Consequences of Gendered Career Paths in the National Assembly." Modern and Contemporary France 18(4): 445-459, 2010

“Women in French Politics: Still le deuxième sexe?” Modern and Contemporary France 18(4): 411-414, 2010.

"Second among unequals? A study of whether France's 'quota woman' are up to the job." Politics & Gender 6(1): 93-118, 2010.

"Was 2007 a landmark or a letdown for women's political representation in France?" Representation 45(1): 29-38, 2009.

"Fifty years of Feminising France's Fifth Republic." Modern and Contemporary France 16(4): 469-482, 2008.

"The power of sex and incumbency: a longitudinal study of electoral performance in France." Party Politics 14(5): 539-554, 2008.

"Is the mere presence of a strong female candidate enough to increase the substantive representation of women?" Parliamentary Affairs 61(3): 476-489, 2008.

"How a high proportion of candidates becomes a low proportion of députées: a new model to forecast women’s electoral performance in French legislative elections." French Politics 6(2): 152-165, 2008.

"Introduction: Symposium on forecasting the French 2007 elections." French Politics 6(2): 103-105, 2008.

"How parties evaluate compulsory quotas: a study of the implementation of the 'parity' law in France." Parliamentary Affairs 60(4): 568-584, 2007.

"Why didn't parity work? A closer examination of the 2002 election results." French Politics 2(3): 347-362, 2004

Book chapters

“Parity and Legislative Competence in France.” In S. Francheschet, M. L. Krook and J. Piscopo, The Impact of Gender Quotas: Women’s Descriptive, Substantive and Symbolic Representation. Oxford University Press, 2012.

"Gendered leadership in the Fifth Republic.” In David Bell (ed), Political Leadership in the Fifth Republic. Palgrave, forthcoming.

"Introduction: gender stereotypes and media coverage of women candidates." In R Murray, Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: a Global Comparison of Women's Campaigns for Executive Office. Praeger, 2010

"Conclusion: a new comparative framework." in Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling, 2010.

"Ségolène Royal: Madonna and Four Children." Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling, 2010

Book reviews and other pieces

Book review of Gender and Policy in France by Gill Allwood and Khursheed Wadia (Palgrave, 2009), Modern and Contemporary France 18(2), 2010.

Book review of "La force du nombre: Femmes et démocratie présidentielle" by Mariette Sineau (L'Aube, 2008), la Revue Française de Science Politique, 59(5):1038-9, 2009

"Liberté, Egalité, Sororité", The Voter 1(2):14-15, Electoral Reform Society, 2007

Book review of "Gender quotas, parity reform and political parties in France" by Katherine Opello (Lexington, 2006), Modern and Contemporary France, 2007

In preparation

Book manuscript: "Transforming Representation? The Impact of Parity on the French Parliament."

Several journal articles in development.

Grants, contracts, awards and external publications:

• Leverhulme Research Fellowship (£44,932), March 2010. 'The impact of gender quotas on parliamentary representation.'
• "Research in Paris" grant (€15,000), May 2010, to support six months of fieldwork as a fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, January-June 2011.

• Drapers' Award for Excellence in Teaching (£1500), Queen Mary, University of London, June 2010.

• British Academy Small Research Grant (£4092), January 2009. 'Electoral forecasting in France'. Jocelyn Evans is the Principal Investigator. Other members of the team are Vincent Tiberj, Nicolas Sauger, Gilles Ivaldi and Kai Arzheimer.

Undergraduate teaching:

• POL246 Representative Democracy in Practice (Level 5)
• POL361 Gender and Politics (Level 6)

Postgraduate teaching:

• Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods
• Graduate Research Seminar

Professional activities and outreach:

Women in French Politics Network

I founded and convene the international network on Women in French Politics.  Our email list is for members only to avoid unsolicited emails, but we welcome anyone working in the broad area of gender and French politics.  Please contact me if you would like to join.

Conference on the French Presidential and Legislative Elections, 2012

Along with Raymond Kuhn and the convenors of the PSA French Politics group (Alistair Cole and Helen Drake), I am organising a conference on the French Elections 2012, to be held at Queen Mary on 24 May 2012.  Please contact me if you are interested in attending.  Raymond and I will also be editing and contributing to a special issue of Parliamentary Affairs on this theme, due to appear in early 2013.

Personal website

www.rainbowmurray.co.uk

Selected research papers:

Keynote speech at a conference on “Femmes et Politiques: Quelles Répresentations Médiatiques?” (Media Representation of Women in Power), Québec, October 2012.

"How Sex and Party Interact: Women in the French Right-Wing Majority". To be presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Antwerp, April 2012.

"Women in the 2012 French Elections: Candidates, Voters, Policies." To be presented at the PSA Annual Conference, London, April 2012, and Conference on the French Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, Queen Mary, University of London, May 2012.

"Free Choice, Discrimination or Path Dependence?  Gendered Composition of Parliamentary Committees in France". To be presented at the PSA Annual Conference, London, April 2012.

"Quotas for Men? Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Quality Control". Presented at the PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group Conference, Bristol, February 2012, and PSA Annual Conference, Belfast, April 2012.

"Free Choice, Discrimination or Path Dependence? Gendered Composition of Parliamentary Committees in France." University of Manchester, December 2011.

"Gendered policy-making in the French National Assembly." LEGIPAR final conference, Bordeaux, December 2011.

"Has 'Parity' Encouraged the Advocacy of Women's Rights in Parliament?" Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Seattle, September 2011.

"'True' and 'Assumed' Gender Differences: A Study of Representation in the French Parliament." Presented at the Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference, London, April 2011. Also presented at Washington University in St Louis, May 2011.

"Parliamentary Representation: How Does the Parti Socialiste Compare to Other Parties?" Presented at the PSA Annual Conference, London, April 2011.

"The Representation of Whom - and What? Self Perceptions of French MPs of their Role as Representatives." Co-authored with Réjane Sénac-Slawinski. Presented at the PSA Annual Conference, London, April 2011.

"Do Women MPs have different issues and/or perspectives? A Study of Gender Differences in the French Parliament." Presented at the European Conference on Politics & Gender, Budapest, Hungary, January 2011. An updated version of this paper was presented at the PSA Women and Politics group workshop, Birkbeck, London, February 2011.

"Forecasting how Votes will Translate into Seats in the French 2012 Legislative Elections."  Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., September 2010.

"Gendered campaigns for executive office: a new comparative framework". Presented at Shifting Agendas, the PSA Women and Politics Conference, Manchester, February 2010.

"Different Paths, Different Perspectives? An Examination of Whether Men's and Women's Parliamentary Career Trajectories Translate into Policy Outcomes in France". Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto, September 2009

"Gendered leadership in the Fifth Republic". Presented at a colloquium on Political Leadership in the Fifth Republic, Oxford, May 2009

"Elite bias, not voter bias: gender quotas and candidate performance in France". Co-authored with Mona Lena Krook and Katherine Opello. Presented at the European Conference on Politics and Gender, Belfast, January 2009

“Second among unequals? A study of whether France 's ‘quota women' are up to the job”. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston , August 2008. Also presented at the PSA EPOP specialist conference, Manchester, 2008

"A right Royal mess: why the French said 'non' to the opportunity of having a woman president". Co-authored with Sheila Perry, University of Nottingham. Presented at the annual meeting of APSA, Boston, USA, August 2008. Also presented at the PSA EPOP specialist conference, Manchester, 2008

“Political renewal in France 's National Assembly: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?”. Presented at the PSA annual conference 2008, Swansea , April 2008

“ France 's new women MPs”. Presented at the PSA annual conference, Swansea , April 2008

“Analysing the performance of women in France 's 2007 presidential and legislative elections”. Presented at the PSA EPOP specialist conference, Bristol , September 2007

“From victor to victim: did the French media cost Ségolène Royal the presidency?”. Presented at the French Media Research Group day conference, Derby , June 2007

“Have French political parties delivered for women in the 2007 presidential and legislative elections?”. Presented at the Gender Research Network conference, Manchester , June 2007

“La parité et la representation des femmes au parlement”. Presented (in French) at the French AFSP “journées électorales”, Paris , June 2007

"To boldly go where no woman has gone before: is the mere presence of a strong female candidate enough to increase the substantive representation of women?". Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Helsinki , May 2007

"Will 2007 be the year for women in French politics?". Paper presented at the PSA French Politics & Policy specialist conference, Oxford , May 2007. An earlier version was presented at the PSA Women and Politics specialist conference, London , February 2007

“Forecasting the impact of the 2007 French elections on women's parliamentary representation”. Presented at the PSA annual conference, Bath , April 2007

“Putting the ‘party' into ‘parity': a new model for understanding the implementation of compulsory quotas”, presented at the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Graduate Conference, Essex , September 2006

“Parity in France 's 2007 elections: will parties redeem themselves or repeat the failure of 2002?” (with Aurélia Troupel, University of Nice ), presented at the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Graduate Conference, Essex , September 2006

“Explaining French parties' response to the parity law: a new theoretical approach”, presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago , April 2006. Also presented at the Political Studies Association annual conference, Reading , April 2006.

“What impact has the ‘parity' law had on French political parties?”, presented at the ECPR General Conference, Budapest , September 2005

“Accounting for the variable performance of parity in France : an institutional analysis”, presented at the ECPR General Conference, Budapest , September 2005

“The power of sex and incumbency: a study of longitudinal electoral performance in France ”, presented at the Political Studies Association annual conference, Leeds , April 2005