Given BB’s death anniversary on Dec 27, and all kinds of recent spotlight on Maryam Nawaz, I’ve been thinking about the gendered nature of dynastic politics in PK, and the research that has helped me understand it. 🧵/1

I explored this a bit in my chapter on women’s exclusion from electoral politics in a volume on Pakistan’s Political Parties edited by @NiloSiddiqui @sahar_shafqat & Mariam Mufti https://t.co/bKIlD0smTF

The book is out now in PK via @foliobooks: https://t.co/tLKsKs0fWD /2

Here’s a figure from that chapter. The pattern extends beyond BB & MNS; women elected representatives with family connections make up a starkly high proportion of all women in national & provincial assemblies. There’s a gender gap in dynastic connections /3

Family connections are on the one hand a "channel" for women, otherwise excluded, to enter a very very male dominated space of national and provincial level politics. At the same time, the *lack* of such connections poses a much higher barrier for women than it does for men. /4

This isn’t a Pakistan specific pattern by any means. Amrita Basu explores this in her excellent chapter "Women, dynasties, and democracy in India" in a volume on Democratic Dynasties edited by Kanchan Chandra https://t.co/ZcRRKyvrrl /5