Diverse parties, diverse agendas? Female politicians and the parliamentary party's role in platform formation

Abstract

Parties’ parliamentary delegations contain a multitude of interests. While scholars suspect that this variation affects party behaviour, most work on parties’ policy statements treats parties as unitary actors. This reflects the absence of strong expectations concerning when (and how) the parliamentary caucus matters for platform construction, as well as the difficulties inherent in testing such claims. Drawing on the literature on women's descriptive representation, this article argues that the makeup of the parliamentary party likely has important consequences for issue entrepreneurship, the scope of issues represented on the manifesto and even the left‐right position of election platforms. With the most comprehensive party‐level study of women's representation ever conducted, three diversity hypotheses are tested using data on the gender makeup of parties’ parliamentary delegations and the content of their manifestos for 110 parties in 20 democracies between 1952 and 2011. The analyses show that as the percentage of women in the parliamentary party increases, parties address a greater diversity of issues in their election campaigns. Women's presence is also associated with more left‐leaning manifestos, even when controlling for parties’ prior ideological positions. Together, these findings illustrate a previously overlooked consequence of descriptive representation and provide a framework for understanding when and why the parliamentary party influences manifesto formation. They show that diversity – or lack thereof – has important consequences for parties’ policy statements, and thus the overall quality of representation.

When Do Men Represent Women’s Interests in Parliament? How the Presence of Women in Parliament Affects the Legislative Behavior of Male Politicians

“…in the weekly meetings of the PPG’s working groups), they usually vote together (Sieberer ), and ‐ most importantly ‐ also share similar political norms and ideologies with their party colleagues. Thus, the influence of female MPs on male MPs in the same PPG is much stronger than that of the overall proportion of women in the parliament (see Greene and O’Brien ).

H 1 : The higher the proportion of female MPs in the PPG, the more strongly will male MPs represent women’s interests in parliament ( spillover effect).

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Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Women's Collaboration in US State Legislatures

“…Constraints like rules and procedures and, importantly, political party as the primary organizers of legislatures may limit any legislator's attempt at women's substantive representation (Greene and O'Brien ; Osborn ). Legislatures that function as two‐party systems are ideal conditions for fostering mistrust where “mere categorization and perceived differentiation may create a climate of presumptive distrust between groups” (Kramer , 588).…”

“…Some individuals, including women, minority-party members, and those excluded from governing coalitions, may be more likely to collaborate than others (Barnes 2016;Kanthak and Krause 2010;Swers 1998). Institutional characteristics can also accelerate or decelerate collaboration; for example, party control (Greene and O'Brien 2016;Osborn 2014) and polarization (Thomsen 2014(Thomsen , 2015 may reduce collaboration, while organizations like caucuses may increase collaborative work by their members (Miller 1990;Osborn 2012). Overall, the incentives to collaborate and the benefits derived from the act vary based on institutional and individual characteristics.…”

The Effects of Women Officeholders on Environmental Policy

“…For example, we know that in advanced industrial democracies, women tend to be more to the left than men (Inglehart & Norris, ). And, within political parties, Greene and O’Brien () find that as the percentage of women in the parliamentary party increases, the party becomes more left‐leaning, even when controlling for prior ideological position. In a similar vein, Greene and Lühiste () illustrate that the higher the level of female representation in a party's parliamentary delegation, the greater the media's attention to compassion‐based issues relative to the same issue's coverage in the party's manifesto.…”

“…For example, Kittilson () has shown that greater women's representation in both the parliamentary delegation and party leadership committee is associated with a greater emphasis on social justice in the party program and with gender quotas. In addition, Greene and O’Brien () have shown that increased women's representation is associated with greater diversity in party election platforms.…”