WOMEN AND PARLIAMENTS POL612 Women and Politics Masaryk University, Spring 2018 DOES SUFFRAGE LEAD TO REPRESENTATION? •When did women get suffrage vs. when they got seats in parliaments? •Reluctance of voters to vote for women •Still unequal representation in most parliaments PAXTON AND HUGHES CZECH REPUBLIC: THE LOWER HOUSE •1992: 10,5% •1996: 15% •1998: 15% •2002: 20% •2006: 15,5% •2010: 22% (and the Chair of The Chamber of Dep.) •2013: 19, 5% •2017: 20% • NUMBER OF WOMEN IN LEGISLATURES •Increasing world-wide •In 1999 11,7% in average •2009: 18.3% in average •2017: 23.5% 2017 TOP 20 SOURCE: WWW.IPU.ORG WOMEN IN LEGISLATURES •The Czech Republic: •Rank: 97 •Lower House: 40 out of 200 (20%) •Upper House: 15 out of 81 (15.5%) • •Slovakia: •Slovakia: •Rank 97 •National Council: 30 out of 150 (20%) •USA: •Rank: 101 •Lower House: 84 out of 433 (19.4%) •Upper House: 21 out of 100 (21%) • •UK: •Rank: 38 •Lower House: 208 out of 650 (32%) •Upper House: 207 out of 805 (25.7%) WOMEN IN LEGISLATURES •MPs as the main form of political representation •The question of political representation of women •Are women represented enough? •Two approaches: •Descriptive representation •Substantive representation POLITICS OF PRESENCE •Anne Philips, The Politics of Presence 1995 •Women are best represented by women MPs •How descriptive is political representation ? •Why are women better representatives of women’s interest? •Men and women have different life experiences •Child bearing, education, professional life, division of paid and unpaid labor, harassment, violence etc. •Women MPs share this experience with other women • • DESCRIPTIVE REPRESENTATION •Longer tradition of research •More elaborated •M. Duverger (1955), electoral systems influence number of female MPs •What is the dependent variable? •The number of women elected into office •Topic of recruitment of women in politics (mostly in Western democracies) • • PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITMENT MODEL: P. NORRIS A LOVENDUSKI (1993) PARLIAMENTARY RECRUITMENT •1) SYSTEMATIC FACTORS •Legal system •Electoral system •Party system •Structure of opportunities •2) POLITICAL PARTY FACTORS •Party ideology •Party organization •Rules •3) INDIVIDUAL FACTORS •Resources of candidates •Motivation CULTURAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS •Women’s representation conditioned by culture •What are the values of the society? •Values of equality are necessary •Gender-equality culture and social mobility •Traditional gender roles culture •Inglehart and Norris 2000: post-material values lead to gender equality •Attitudes to female leaders, professional rights, education and maternal role •G-E scale correlates with number of women in parliament • INGLEHART AND NORRIS CULTURAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS •Before 1989: •Women’s enfranchisement •Communist regime •After 1990: •Proportional electoral system and gender quotas •Protestantism •High level of economic development (Wilde 2006) • QUOTA TREND •A formal measure •Goal: to increase women’s representation •In a constitution or electoral laws (legislative quotas) •Or party quotas (implemented by individual parties) •Trend from 1970s •Norwegian Socialist Party •Milestone in 1995, the UN 4th World Conference in Women, Beijing •Beijing Action Platform (removal of obstacles for women) •Increasing representation mainly in the West (what is the difference with other regions?) •Sweden vs Rwanda? • WELFARE STATE •Nordic/ Scandinavian exceptionalism •Welfare state facilitates women’s participation •Women can enter paid workforce •Public sector jobs •Increase in state expenditure correlates with increase in no. of female MPs •But parties are still the gatekeepers •Parties use female candidates to exploit the gender gap •Iversen and Rosenbluth 2008: political arena as a job-market • SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION •What do women do in parliaments? •Do they represent women’s interest? •Less mature research •What effects of higher representation should we expect? •Is substantial change in the representation caused only by the presence of women in the parliament? PRECONDITION FOR CHANGE •Is there a “tipping point”? •Critical mass theory •Mostly 30 % (some say 15%, some 40 %) •Kanter 1997, study of corporations •Absence of greater number of minority group unable to create a counterculture, little choice about accepting the dominant culture •Or critical acts? •Who is pushing for change? •What kinds of strategies are useful? PRECONDITION FOR CHANGE •Dahlerup extends Kanter’s research on politics •6 areas where women have impact •Reactions to women politicians •Performance and efficiency of female politicians •Social climate of political life •Political discourse •Policy agenda •Power of women in general •Role of CRITICAL ACTS •Few strong representatives can have an impact •Recruitment of other women, introduction of quotas, equality legislation.. •Critical acts lead to critical mass HOW MUCH SEATS IS THE CRITICAL MASS? •40% (Kanter 1977) •30% (Dahlerup, 1988, 2006) •15% (Bystydzienski 1992) • •How many countries meet the 40 % treshold? •How many countries meet the 30% treshold? •The number of case is increasing, theory more testable •How to isolate other factors? OBSTACLES •Hostile reactions to women •Incompatibility with family life •Male-dominated networks • DO WOMEN INFLUENCE CULTURE IN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS? •Possible factors: •Position of the politician in the institution (time in institution, ideology and party ideology) •Numbers and newness (Beckwith 2007) •Larger number often comes with newness •For change: numbers and incumbency needed •Grey (2006) study of New Zealand : numbers not enough, can lead to backlash • WOMEN IN PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES •Thomas 1994: How Women Legislate •Women concentrated in a few committees in 1970 US •Proportion of women in other committees increasing •However still gendered assignment •Is this an institutional pressure or MPs own choice? •Sweden: gender patterns almost non-existent since 1994 • • • • POLITICS OF PRESENCE •Women are more suited to represent women. They share life experience. •How to proceed methodologically? •Longitudinal studies •Cross-sectional study with wide scope of indicators •Legislative procedures: speeches, work with colleagues, bargaining with lobbyists; gender gap closing I USA (Thomas 1994) •Legislative products: are voting, attitudes, policy priorities, gap not closing (Thomas 1994) • • • ATTITUDES •Gender differences identified often •Disagreement about their magnitude •Agreement about the direction of the difference •Women are more leftist then men •Women more in favor of new policies •Women more interested in issues related to social policy (more permissive), pornography (skeptical), affirmative action (in favor). •Gendered issues = those not crucial for parties ATTITUDES •Importance of partisan affiliation •Some issues divide men and women along ideological divides (Pornography) •Some issues divide men and women along gender divide – in case of SOME parties •Women mostly more liberal on welfare and social issues, economic issues •Difference between POSITIONS on issues and PRIORITIES • • DECLARED GOALS •Survey or interview with politicians •Women more often declare representation of women's interests as their goals •Self-defined champions of women’s interests more active (Nordic countries, USA) • • CASE STUDY: SWEDEN •Wangnerud’s (2006) •Member‘s of parliament attitudes across 20 years •Social policy, Family policy, care for elderly, healh care as a campaign issue or as a personal interset • CASE STUDY: SWEDEN CASE STUDY: SWEDEN CASE STUDY: SWEDEN