School of Social and Political Science

Background

Meryl is Professor of Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh. She was, previously: Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching and QA Director for the School of Social and Political Science (2021-24); Acting Deputy Head of School and Director of Learning and Teaching (2022), and Co-Director of the Centre on Constitutional Change (2021-2023). She joined the subject area of Politics and International Relations in August 2015, having held previous positions at the University of Leicester and the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). 

Meryl's research interests centre on the gendered dynamics of political institutions and representation, with a particular focus on political parties and parliaments. Collectively, her body of work demonstrates the crucial role gender relations play in processes of institutional design, continuity and change, particularly in devolved and decentralised settings. She is Deputy Lead Editor of Regional and Federal Studies; Co-Director of the Feminism and Institutionalism International Network (FIIN); and co-editor of the book series Studies in Feminist Institutionalism with Oxford University Press. Meryl is currently a team member of the ERC (UKRI) Synergy Project QUALREP, investigating the quality of women’s political representation in five European countries; and PI of a BA/Leverhulme funded project on gender, ministers and institutions in Scotland.

In 2021, Meryl received the UK Political Studies Association's Richard Rose Prize awarded to a younger scholar who has made a distinctive contribution to the study of British politics; in 2023 won the PSA's Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding contributions to political studies by a mid-career scholar; and in 2024 was awarded the Chancellor's Award for Teaching at the University of Edinburgh. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. 

Topics interested in supervising

I welcome PhD proposals in most areas relating to gender politics (international, national, sub-national and local); party politics, parliaments and political representation; and Scottish, UK and comparative politics. I would particularly welcome prospective students with interests in feminist institutionalist approaches to the study of parties and parliaments in the UK and/or comparatively. 

Recent Publications

2025 forthcoming. Gendering Party Politics: Feminist Institutionalist Perspectives [co-edited with Elin Bjarnegård]. New York: Oxford University Press. 

2024. Experiencing the Executive: Gender, Ministers and Institutions in Scotland [with Alan Convery]. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations. E-pub ahead of print. 

2024. ‘The First But Not the Last’: Women’s Descriptive and Substantive Representation in the 2021 Scottish Parliament Election [with Emilia Belknap]. British Politics 19(3): 430-49.

2022. Reclaiming Party Politics Research [with Elin Bjarnegård, Joni Lovenduski, Sarah Childs, Liz Evans and Tània Verge]. European Political Science 21(2): 274-91.