Constitutional Reform and the Gender Diversification of Peak Courts

Abstract

Do the processes states use to select judges for peak courts influence gender diversity? Scholars have debated whether concentrating appointment power in a single individual or diffusing appointment power across many individuals best promotes gender diversification. Others have claimed that the precise structure of the process matters less than fundamental changes in the process. We clarify these theoretical mechanisms, derive testable implications concerning the appointment of the first woman to a state’s highest court, and then develop a matched-pair research design within a Rosenbaum permutation approach to observational studies. Using a global sample beginning in 1970, we find that constitutional change to the judicial selection process decreases the time until the appointment of the first woman justice. These results reflect claims that point to institutional disruptions as critical drivers of gender diversity on important political posts.

Notes from the Editors

“…At the same time, authors are not expected to address every conceivable concern about methods and every robustness check. Instead, whether in the main paper or the Supplementary Materials (online appendix), they should engage the various potential methodological concerns that a reader might reasonably raise, selectively and thoughtfully (see Arrington et al 2021 for an exemplar). Readers, reviewers, and editors prefer reasoned discussions about what statistical analyses and results can and cannot tell us to kitchen sink approaches that include every possible estimation strategy.…”

Women's Judicial Representation in Haiti: Unintended Gains of State-Building Efforts

“…8 Knowledge of women's access to the judiciary is largely based on the Global North (see, e.g., Boigeol 1993;Kenney 2013a;Rackley 2013), especially U.S. courts (Cook 1982(Cook , 1984bGoelzhauser 2011;Resnik 1991). Researchers also tend to focus on more prestigious courts, be it women's entry to international courts (Dawuni 2019;Dawuni and Kuenyehia 2018;Grossman 2016) or comparative studies explaining global and regional variations in the number of women in countries' highest courts (Arana Araya, Hughes, and Pérez-Liñán 2021;Arrington et al 2021;Dawuni and Kang 2015;Dawuni and Masengu 2019;Escobar-Lemmon et al 2021;Kang et al 2020;Thames and Williams 2013;Valdini and Shortell 2016). Fewer studies include lower courts when explaining women's access to judiciaries beyond the Global North, with some notable exceptions (Bauer and Dawuni 2016;Bonthuys 2015;Kamau 2013;Kenney 2018;Sonnevold and Lindbekk 2017).…”

“…Democratic transitions in Africa have opened opportunities for women to become judges at different court levels as a result of the adoption of new, progressive constitutions and laws pertaining to women's rights (Bauer and Dawuni 2016; Kamau 2013). Emerging research finds that institutional ruptures—often linked to postconflict and fragile settings—help women advance to higher courts when changes are made to constitutional rules for appointment (Arrington et al 2021) and when there is political will (Arana Araya, Hughes, and Pérez-Liñán 2021). Still, we know little about how conflict, institutional ruptures, and political openings may influence women's entry to the judiciary as a whole.…”

The Politics of Women's Presence on High Courts: Bias and the Conditional Nature of Cultivating Legitimacy

“…Kirkpatrick, Kittilson, and Hoekstra (2020) put together a symposium of articles on diversity in the judiciary, including arguments that descriptive representation influences multiple conceptions of justice (Dovi and Luna 2020) and that intersectionality can offer a richer understanding of diversity on the bench (Kang et al 2020). Arrington et al (2021), Kang et al (2021), Araya, Hughes, and Pérez-Liñán (2021), and Valdini and Shortell (2016) all argue for the value of gender diversity on courts, but they focus primarily on the methods by which women end up on the bench.…”