Gendering the debate on political representation in Italy: a difficult challenge

Guadagnini, Marila

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511490996.008

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…In 2003, the legislature passed a constitutional amendment allowing affirmative action to increase women's presence in elected bodies, but legislators have not yet acted on this opportunity to reintroduce legislative quotas (Guadagnini, 2005). In 2010, a bill requiring a 30% quota for women on all corporate boards inspired the same type of zero-sum rhetoric about quotas and qualifications as the 1993 legislative quota did.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Advocates claimed that adopting a gender quota would mitigate the negative effects that a majoritarian system would have on women's representation. Opponents argued that the quota entailed an unnecessary form of protectionism and would result in electing less qualified women to office (Guadagnini, 2005). While controversial, the quota legislation passed into law in August 1993.…”

Section: Case Selection: Why Italy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quotas and qualifications: the impact of gender quota laws on the qualifications of legislators in the Italian parliament

Weeks

Baldez

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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This article addresses concerns that candidates nominated because of gender quota laws will be less qualified for office. While questions of candidate quality have long been relevant to legislative behavior, quota laws requiring a certain percentage of candidates for national office to be women have generated renewed interest. Gender quotas are often perceived to reduce the scope of political competition. By putting gender identity center stage, they preclude the possibility that elections will be based on 'ideas' or 'merit' alone. Other electoral rules that restrict candidate selection, such as the centralization of candidate selection common in closed list PR systems, have been found to reduce the quality of candidates. Rules that open selection, such as primaries, result in higher quality candidates. We exploit the institutional design of Italy's mixed electoral system in 1994, where quotas were applied only to the PR portion of the list, to compare the qualifications of men, women, and 'quota women'. We estimate regressions on several measures of deputies' qualifications for office and performance in office. We find that unlike other rules limiting candidate selection, quotas are not associated with lower quality on most measures of qualifications. In fact, quota women have more local government experience than other legislators and lower rates of absenteeism than their male counterparts. Contrary to critics, quota laws may have a positive impact on legislator quality. Once the quota law was rescinded, quota women were less likely to be re-elected than non-quota women or men, which suggests that discrimination -not qualification -limits women's status as candidates.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Selection: Why Italy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quotas and qualifications: the impact of gender quota laws on the qualifications of legislators in the Italian parliament

Weeks

Baldez

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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“…Several studies have highlighted how all these external obstacles materialize and play a role in the underrepresentation of Italian women at the parliamentary and executive level (Beccalli, 1999;Bimbi and Del Re, 1997;Brunelli, 2006;Del Re, 2003;Francescato et al, 2008;Guadagnini, 1993Guadagnini, , 2003Guadagnini, , 2005Rossi Doria, 1996).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Discussion, Views of Political Expertise and Women’s Representation in Italy

Campus¹

2010

European Journal of Women's Studies

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Italy is one of the advanced industrial democracies with the smallest number of women elected to public office. Current literature has focused on several structural, institutional and cultural factors to explain such a gender gap in political participation and representation. However, one of the most basic forms of political participation, political discussion, has not received a thorough investigation. This article analyses gender differences in the attitudes and the habits of talking about politics with relatives, friends and social acquaintances during the Italian 2006 electoral campaign. The main argument is that the analysis of political discussion may shed new light on how Italian women approach politics and help explain their reluctance to be involved in political activities in terms of elected office and party membership.KEY WORDS gender politics ! political discussion ! political participation ! political representation Increasing education and labour force involvement are supposed to lead citizens to a more intense political participation and to a greater willingness to stand for major political office. The case of Italian women, however, seems to belie such an assumption. As a matter of fact, Italy has one of the smallest number of women elected to parliament among the advanced industrial democracies. In the 2008 elections, the number of female representatives (192 out of 945, 1 20.3 percent) did eventually reach and slightly surpassed the world average of 18.4 percent, 2 but women elected to the national parliament still represent a small minority of the legislative body.

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“…According to respondents also the attitude of the parties that have opposed resistance and have offered few opportunities for women helps to explain the low representation of women in politics (Guadagnini, 2005;Yirmibeşoğlu, 2008;Lovenduski and Guadagnini, 2010;Bellè, 2012;. About this Sara, 60 years, says:…”

Section: Politics As Masculine Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

The hegemonic gender order in politics

Simone

Putzu

Lasio

et al. 2018

EDI

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Despite the ongoing increase of women in the top positions, they are still underrepresented in politics. The studies focused principally on women's underrepresentation in politics neglecting the role of gender as a category that structures and makes sense of social practices. The principal aim of this study is to investigate the mechanisms that regulate the contemporary gender order in politics through discourse analysis and the contribution of the critical feminist perspective. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on 30 biographical interviews with Italian politicians and focuses on the account of their political experiences and on the meanings attributed to these. Findings Results underline the tendency to either absolve or blame women for gender inequality in politics through different interpretative repertoires: "Women's disinterest toward politics", "Politics as masculine context", and "Politics-family unbalance". The analysis allowed to unravel the way in which the discursive practices create and reproduce the hegemonic gender order in politics. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to 30 qualitative interviews and so results cannot be generalised. Practical implications The findings highlight the importance of exploring issues relating to the gender gap in politics and stress the need to implement actions to promote gender equality in politics. Originality/value The paper contributes to an understanding of women's underrepresentation in politics and offers causes for reflection on a phenomenon that has profound implications for our society.

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Gendering the debate on political representation in Italy: a difficult challenge

Cited by 32 publications

References 3 publications

Quotas and qualifications: the impact of gender quota laws on the qualifications of legislators in the Italian parliament

Quotas and qualifications: the impact of gender quota laws on the qualifications of legislators in the Italian parliament

Political Discussion, Views of Political Expertise and Women’s Representation in Italy

The hegemonic gender order in politics

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