The study of gender and political participation in the Global South is emerging as one of the most generative fields of inquiry in comparative politics. Within this expanding literature, The Patriarchal Political Order: The Making and Unraveling of the Gendered Participation Gap in India by Soledad Artiz Prillaman stands out as a landmark contribution. Through theoretical innovation and empirical rigor, Prillaman presents a compelling framework for understanding the structural barriers that sustain gendered hierarchies in democratic participation. The book is greater than the sum of its substantial parts and exemplifies how meticulous theorization, rigorous research design, and rich fieldwork can transform our understanding of political life.
The core question Prillaman addresses is why women participate in politics at lower rates than men. Existing research attributes the gender gap to factors such as gendered socialization, disparities in political ambition, resource constraints, and restrictive norms. However, if these barriers applied uniformly, we should observe similar gender gaps across all forms of political engagement. Yet in India, while women vote at similar rates to men, they remain far less active in politics between elections (making claims, attending/speaking in political and party meetings, and participating in campaigns, amongst others). This paradox is at the heart of this book’s inquiry.
To solve this puzzle, Prillaman’s theoretical framework (Ch. 3) integrates insights from political science, economics, sociology, and feminist theory, reorienting them to address political science’s central preoccupation: power—how it is distributed, sustained, and reconfigured, within and beyond the household. Central to this argument is the model of family-centered clientelism (FCC), which challenges the liberal assumption of an autonomous political actor. Drawing on extensive data and fieldwork, particularly in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, women’s political participation is mediated through household hierarchies. Male family members act as gatekeepers, dictating the terms and extent of women’s political engagement. While younger men may gradually assume roles as independent political actors, women remain tethered to familial power structures. This model of family-centered clientelism thus explains why women’s electoral participation has increased while their broader political activism remains constrained. Women’s voting is permitted as a household strategy, as it amplifies men’s voices, but autonomous political expressions like public discussions, activism, or protest, remain costly. This sustains a gendered division of political labor in which men dominate public engagement while women’s participation is restricted to the ballot box. In this way, patriarchal household relationships sustain a political order where women’s voices remain subordinated.
How, then, can women break out of this cycle? Prillaman argues that individual-level interventions are insufficient (Chs. 7 and 8); instead, collective action, gender consciousness, and solidarity are necessary to shift entrenched power dynamics. To demonstrate this, the empirical strategy leverages a partnership with Pradan, a civil society organization that facilitates self-help groups (SHGs) for women. Originally designed for economic empowerment, SHGs inadvertently foster political mobilization by creating networks of trust and interdependence. Exploiting the arbitrary establishment of SHGs in some villages but not others, Prillaman demonstrates that SHG participation significantly increases political engagement. These effects are amplified when SHGs incorporate gender-consciousness training, which helps women recognize shared experiences of exclusion and oppression.
What are the implications of solidary networks? In one of the most compelling uses of network analysis, Ch 6 shows how SHGs reshape political connectivity. In villages without SHGs, political networks center on caste, and women are politically isolated, engaging only through male intermediaries. In SHG villages, women forge direct ties, laying the groundwork for gender to emerge as a political cleavage, potentially reconfiguring the axes of political competition in these communities.
Yet, despite these gains, barriers persist within the home. While SHGs increase participation, they do not fundamentally alter gendered norms. Women undergoing gender-sensitization programs report backlash from men, constraining their ability to engage meaningfully in collective action. Although this could also be a function of changed reporting behaviors, it does underscore how structural change can be difficult when patriarchal power is deeply embedded in household and community life.
Prillaman’s methodological approach is exemplary, blending descriptive analysis with causal inference through natural experiments. The evidence draws from two large-scale surveys in the state of Madhya Pradesh, covering 5,000 women and 2,500 husbands across 376 villages, along with a network census of 3,565 adults in six villages. These quantitative data are complemented by 120 semi-structured interviews with women and 80 with husbands across 20 villages, offering rich qualitative insight into the mechanisms shaping women’s political agency.
As with much generative scholarship, The Patriarchal Political Order raises important questions for future researchers. First, what is the precise role of patriarchy within its analytical framework? Prillaman shows how patriarchal norms suppress women’s political expression. Yet if gendered political preferences originate from patriarchal labor divisions, then patriarchy is not just a constraint—it is also the source of distinct political voices (see Sarah Khan, “Count Me Out: Gendered Preference Expression in Pakistan,” 2021). This raises a broader question: in the absence of patriarchy, would gender remain a meaningful axis of political cleavage? Or would other social divisions, such as caste, continue to dominate political mobilization in India?
Second, are there alternative pathways to increasing women’s participation, particularly considering male resistance to collective action? Recent research suggests that reframing political engagement as norm-abiding or persuading male gatekeepers of its benefits may also facilitate participation (see Ali Cheema et al., “Canvassing the Gatekeepers: A Field Experiment to Increase Women Voters’ Turnout in Pakistan.” The American Political Science Review 117 (1): 1–21, 2022; Anirvan Chowdhury, “Domesticating Politics: How Religiously Conservative Parties Mobilize Women in India,” Governance and Local Development Institute Working Paper No. 75, 2024). While it remains unclear whether these strategies can produce long-term change, SHG participants do not also appear to challenge gender roles within the household.
Third, what are the limits of network-based mobilization, particularly in the light of inclusion and alternative power structures? SHGs tend to be ethnically homogeneous, meaning gender-based solidarity does not necessarily translate into intersectional alliances. Moreover, the political effects of SHGs seem largely localized—do they generate broader pipeline effects (see Brown, Mansour, and O’Connell, “Does Local Female Political Representation Empower Women to Run for Higher Office? Evidence from State and National Legislatures in India.” The World Bank Economic Review 36 (1): 198–218, 2022; Tanushree Goyal, “Local Political Representation as a Pathway to Power: A Natural Experiment in India.” American Journal of Political Science, 2024; Varun Karekurve-Ramachandra, “Gender Quotas and Upward Political Mobility in India,” 2025), or do they remain confined to the village level? A distinct advantage of SHGs is that they foster cooperation rather than the confrontational dynamics typical of political parties. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether SHGs offer a sustainable organizational framework for women to ascend the political ladder in the same way that political parties do.
Finally, what are the temporal scope conditions of FCC? Women’s turnout in India has increased significantly only in the past two decades, and the gender gap has closed even more recently. Given this, to what extent does the FCC explain historical patterns of women’s exclusion? If FCC is a relatively recent equilibrium, what structural shifts in clientelist relationships led to its emergence? Furthermore, as political parties increasingly target the “female vote” through distinct campaign strategies, does this suggest an implicit recognition of women as independent political actors? If so, are parties themselves disrupting FCC by appealing to women as autonomous voters rather than as dependents within family-based networks? Or are they simply responding to broader societal shifts?
In sum, The Patriarchal Political Order is a major contribution, advancing both theoretical and empirical debates on gender and political participation. It sets a new benchmark for multi-method research, offering a compelling model of meticulous scholarship poised to guide and inspire future research on gender, and comparative politics more broadly.
