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AbstractStudies of women's representation have often explored the link between women's descriptive and women's substantive representation in parliament, analyzing whether female representatives bring a unique – and often feminist– contribution to the representation of women's interests. Recent studies however propose to apply a claim-based framework, leaving open how, why and by whom women's substantive representation occurs (Celis et al. 2008). In this article, we put this new claim-based approach to the empirical test. More in particular, we consider its added value by studying the variety of claims made about women in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives (1995–2007). We conclude that a claim-based framework indeed brings additional actors and perspectives to the fore, but that there are limits as to which claims can be formulated and by whom.

This article maps the field of substantive representation of social groups and carves out a new research agenda. Examining a database of 313 publications, we identify patterns in what is studied in the field and how it is studied. Our findings suggest that while scholarship on the substantive representation of social groups has expanded over the years, many studies still predominantly (1) analyse the representation of women in (2) the governmental sphere, while adopting a focus on (3) a single country, (4) a single group and (5) a single axis. Comparative work across countries and groups is more scarce. We therefore argue in favour of a comparative research agenda that prioritises more cross-country and cross-group research on the substantive representation of social groups using pluralistic research methods. This direction offers distinct advantages for answering new research questions, exploring diversity in how the substantive representation of social groups takes place, identifying broader patterns across different contexts and groups, and formulating new explanations on the occurrence and quality of the substantive representation of social groups.

This contribution to the Special Issue on Gender and Conservatism uses expert and election surveys to explore the extent to which the feminist or traditional gender ideology of parties of the right relates to their economic and liberal/authoritarian ideology. We show that although parties of the left generally espouse more feminist ideologies than parties of the right, there are a significant number of rightist parties in Western Europe that combine laissez-faire economic values with liberal feminist ideals. That said, there is more homogeneity among parties of the populist radical right than rightist parties more generally. We find that despite some variation in their gender ideology, parties of the populist radical right overwhelmingly—with the exception of one party in the Netherlands—continue to adopt traditional or antifeminist gender ideologies. In terms of attracting women voters, we find that rightist parties who adopt a feminist gender ideology are able to attract more women voters than other parties of the right. We detect several examples of center-right parties that include feminist elements in their gender ideologies and are able to win over larger proportions of women voters than rightist parties that fail to adopt feminist positions.

This contribution to the special issue on conservatism and gender uses expert and election surveys to explore the extent to which the feminist or traditional gender ideology of parties of the right relates to their economic and liberal/authoritarian ideology. We show that, although parties of the left generally espouse more feminist ideologies than parties of the right, there are a significant number of rightist parties in Western Europe that combine laissez-faire economic values with liberal feminist ideals. That said, there is more homogeneity among parties of the populist radical right than rightist parties more generally. We find that despite some variation in their gender ideology, parties of the populist radical right overwhelmingly- with the exception of the PVV in the Netherlands- continue to adopt traditional or anti-feminist gender ideologies. In terms of attracting women voters we find that rightist parties who adopt a feminist gender ideology are able to attract more women voters than other parties of the right. We detect several examples of centre-right parties who include feminist elements in their gender ideologies, and are able to win over larger proportions of women voters than rightist parties who fail to adopt feminist positions.