Main research

My research focuses on gender and politics, French and comparative politics, elections, representation and political parties. My new monograph explores 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 also have a forthcoming edited book (released July 2010), looking at gender issues in the campaigns of women candidates for executive office around the world.  I have just been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to support my latest project, entitled "The Impact of Gender Quotas on Parliamentary Representation".  This study examines the interaction of descriptive and substantive representation of women in France. I am publishing articles on the early stages and will be on research leave in 2010-11 in order to complete the remaining stages and develop the findings into a monograph.  I am also part of a British Academy-funded team of forecasters working on French elections.

I am the convenor of the PSA Women and Politics specialist group, and 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
  

 

Courses taught

• Political Analysis. (Year 1)
• Comparative Government and Politics. (Year 1)
• Political parties and party systems (not on offer 2009-10). (Year 3)
• Gender and politics. (Year 3)
• Quantitative Research Methods (MRes programmes)
• Graduate Research Seminar (MPhil and PhD)
  

 

Major Publications

Books/edited collections

• 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
  
• "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, 2010

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• "Second among unequals?  A study of whether France's 'quota woman' are up to the job", Politics and 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

• Introduction, conclusion and chapter on France (Ségolène Royal) in "Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling:  A Global Comparison of Women's Campaigns for Executive office", ed. Rainbow Murray, Praeger, 2010
  

Non peer-reviewed articles

• Book review of "La force du nombre: Femmes et démocratie présidentielle" by Mariette Sineau (L'Aube, 2008), la Revue Française de Science Politique, 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 tentatively titled "Tranforming representation?  The impact of parity on the French parliament."  Based on research supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
  
• Several journal articles currently under review.
• Two articles in development.
• Book chapter on descriptive representation for a forthcoming book on gender quotas edited by Susan Franceschet, Mona Lena Krook and Jennifer Piscopo.
• Paper on electoral forecasting in France, to be presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, Washington D.C., September 2010.
  

PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group

I am the convenor of the PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group. Please contact me for more information, to join the group or if you would like to make an announcement to the group. Our biennial conference took place at the University of Manchester on 19 February 2010.

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.

Recent conference

I  organised a research conference at Queen Mary on 20 June 2008 entitled “Women in French Politics: Still le deuxième sexe ?”. The conference featured some of the top researchers in this field amongst the speakers. Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of Modern and Contemporary France, scheduled for publication in November 2010.  I will be editing the issue and contributing one of the research papers.

Personal website

www.rainbowmurray.co.uk

Selected research papers:

"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