Fiona Mackay is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Her research and teaching interests are in the broad areas of women and comparative politics, political representation, gender and public policy, and Scottish and British politics. She is an Associate Director of the Institute of Governance, also at Edinburgh, and was a Visiting Fellow at Auckland University in 2002. She has held research grants and consultancies with bodies including the Economic and Social Research Council, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Communities Scotland, and the Scottish Executive.

Current research focuses upon gender and constitutional change in the UK (funded under the ESRC Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme) and on gender and institutional theory. She has written a number of journal articles, book chapters and policy reports. She is also author of Love and Politics: Women Politicians and the Ethics of Care (Continuum, 2001); and co-editor of The Changing Politics of Gender Equality in Britain (Palgrave, 2002); and Women and Contemporary Scottish Politics (Polygon, 2001). Her latest book, Women, Politics and Constitutional Change: the first years of the National Assembly for Wales, is co-authored with Paul Chaney and Laura McAllister (University of Wales Press, 2007 forthcoming).