Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-208) and index.

1. Introduction -- 2. Gender, Institutions and Political Recruitment -- 3. A Feminist Institutionalist Approach -- 4. Political Recruitment in Post-Devolution Scotland -- 5. Breaking With the Past? The Case of the Labour Party -- 6. The Story of a Selection -- 7. Applying a Feminist Institutionalist Lens -- 8. Rethinking Political Recruitment.

"Political parties can make or break women's attempts to stand for political office, yet there have been surprisingly few systematic studies into the 'secret garden' of political recruitment. This book investigates this under-researched area, bringing together insights from feminist and new institutional theory to explore and understand the gendered dynamics of institutional innovation and change in candidate selection and recruitment. Drawing on an original empirical case study of candidate selection in post-devolution Scotland, Gender and Political Recruitment highlights the complex and gendered dynamics of institutional design, continuity and change in the political recruitment process and illustrates the difficulties of reforming recruitment in the face of powerful institutional and gendered legacies"--