This article builds a conceptual framework for understanding the gendered character (and effects) of institutional formation, and tests it in a case study of the new Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales. Inspired by new institutionalism's generic claim that ‘the organisation of...

The sub-discipline of 'urban politics' has been constructed in opposition to a traditional version of 'institutional theory'-an approach that collapsed the political processes affecting urban communities with the workings of elected local government. Attention has shifted towards the broader...