My research examines the extent to which formal institutional rules shape the possibilities for achieving gender equality. I focus on three particular sets of formal rules: human rights treaties, specifically the United Nations’ Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), gender quota laws, which require political parties to nominate female candidates for office, and the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States. In 2014, Cambridge University Press published Defying Convention: US Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women’s Rights, which examines the history of CEDAW, the reasons why the U.S. has not ratified it and what impact it might have in the U.S. if it were ratified.