Dr Tanya Jakimow

Centring Asia and the Pacific in Scholarship on Political Leadership

Few countries have achieved gender parity in political leadership, and fewer still have fair representation of racialised/religious minorities in parliaments. The global nature of these problems has resulted in a proliferation of studies and initiatives to understand and address them. While valuable lessons have been learnt, knowledge production is constrained by the dominance of North-Atlantic conceptual and theoretical lenses, and of limited cross-disciplinary engagement. This project centres Asia and the Pacific to advance scholarship on inclusion and equality in political leadership, and to develop new methodologies and modes of engagement to maximize social impact. Collaborative comparison of political systems across Asia and the Pacific will yield fresh thinking to tackle a problem of relevance to Australia and the United Kingdom: the underrepresentation of racialised minority women in local government. The proposed project aims to reset scholarship on political leadership through dialogue, while advancing a research-driven agenda for meaningful change.