Political Party Characteristics and Women’s Representation: The Case of the European Parliament

Sundström, Aksel; Stockemer, Daniel

doi:10.1080/00344893.2021.1898458

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…On the other hand, the positive news is that other right-wing parties, or any of the other parties for that matter, face no electoral disincentive to place more women on their lists. This is encouraging considering that the descriptive underrepresentation of women in politics mainly stems from right-wing parties (e.g., Caul, 1999;O'Brien, 2018, p. 105;Sundström and Stockemer, 2021). To illustrate again with the Dutch case, this means that a party like the VVD, with currently 26% women in the Lower House, can aim for gender parity in parliament without fearing backlash from their electorate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…As a result, right-wing and populist right parties actually face an electoral disincentive to increase the share of women among their candidates. In most legislatures, right-wing and particularly populist right parties are already the parties with the strongest male overrepresentation (e.g., Caul, 1999;O'Brien, 2018, p. 105;Sundström and Stockemer, 2021), which means that precisely those parties that are in the best position to improve women's representation, have no electoral incentive to do so. This party-voter conditionality is not an entirely new argument: previous scholarship has shown a relation between voters' gender bias and partisanship in the context of the US.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender bias in political candidate evaluation among voters: The role of party support and political gender attitudes

Pas¹,

Aaldering²,

Steenvoorden³

2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

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To explain women's underrepresentation in politics, supply-side factors receive much empirical support, emphasizing the low numbers of women on the ballot. Whether demand from voters also contributes to the problem is less clear, however, as both observational and experimental research shows that average voters are not less likely to vote for women candidates. We argue that voters actually do play a role, although not all voters to an equal extent. More precisely, we expect the gender bias in the electorate to be conditional upon partisanship and propose two mechanisms through which this materializes: political gender attitudes and/or gender stereotypes. Although the conditionality of voters' gender bias based upon partisanship is convincingly shown to exist in the US, much less is known about it in the European context, while its multi-party political systems lend themselves well for a more detailed differentiation between party families. We expect that right, and especially populist radical right, voters are biased in favor of men politicians, while left, and especially green left, voters are biased in favor of women politicians. We test our hypotheses with a large-scale vignette experiment (N = 13,489) in the Netherlands, and show that there is indeed a (slight) preference for women representatives among Green party voters, and a clear preference for men candidates among voters of populist radical right parties. Moderate left-wing or right-wing voters, however, show no gender bias. Thus, although right-wing populist parties have electoral incentives to be hesitant about promoting women politicians, most other parties face no electoral risk in putting forth women politicians.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender bias in political candidate evaluation among voters: The role of party support and political gender attitudes

Pas¹,

Aaldering²,

Steenvoorden³

2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

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“…In recent years, this tradition has also generated important research and findings on the EP. In the EP, member state electoral systems, the use of gender quotas and the characteristics of political parties have been shown to impact the share of women in political groups (Lühiste & Kenny, 2016;Sundström & Stockemer, 2022). More specifically, political party ideology matters a great deal for women's political representation in the political groups within the EP, with the left (GUE/NGL), green (Greens/EFA) and liberals (ALDE) performing better than the radical right populist groups (ECR; EFDD) (Sundström & Stockemer, 2022, p. 12).…”

Section: Researching Gendered Inequalities and Gender Equality Practi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parliamentary Politics and Polarisation Around Gender: Tackling Inequalities in Political Groups in the European Parliament

Kantola

2022

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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Gender equality has become strongly contested in contemporary European politics. The European Parliament (EP) is not insulated from these developments. This chapter analyses the internal functioning of the parliament’s political groups from the perspective of gender equality. Rather than focusing on policies and policy-making processes, the chapter analyses the ways in which the political groups are perceived as gendered actors by MEPs and staff. This involves examining both remaining gender inequalities, and the practices for advancing gender equality at the political group level. The chapter draws on a large qualitative dataset of 135 interviews with MEPs and political staff conducted in 2018–2021. The findings show that despite differences between the political groups, gendered inequalities are persistent across the political spectrum. The chapter discusses how the political groups show different levels of commitment to gender equality and employ different practices in advancing it with potential for democratic representation and political work.

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“…КУЛЬТУРА. ОБЩЕСТВО • № 2S • 2022 ных женских движений, благодаря которым гендерный дискурс приобретает конфликтные формы, демонстрируя тенденцию к обострению По мнению М Кастельса, «деятельность "старых" женских общественных организаций сопровождается нарастанием значимости и влиятельности новых социальных движений и медиа» [2], которые включают в активные политические практики все большее количество граждан Это закономерным образом усилило исследовательский интерес к гендерной проблематике в политическом пространстве, поставило перед учеными задачу расширения исследовательских стратегий и применения комплексного подхода с опорой на качественные методы [3] Работы, посвященные представленности женщин в политике можно разделить на несколько групп Основная масса исследователей фокусируются на описании региональных или страновых особенностей участия женщин в политике К таким исследованиям можно отнести статьи С Глас о представленности женщин в арабских странах Персидского залива [4] , Д Т Агбаладжоби о ситуации в Нигерии [5], Й Кантола и Э Лобардо -сравнительный анализ ситуации в Финляндии и Испании [6], работа М А Мира и Дж А Бхата о гендерном равенстве в Индии [7], а также сборник публикаций об участии женщин в политике в странах Латинской Америки под редакцией Л А Швиндт-Байер [8] В центре внимания других работ осмысление гендерного равенства в различных странах происходит через призму исследуемой проблемы: насилие в отношении женщин (Ф Бироли [9]), экономика в рецессии (Й Кантола и М Верло [10]) Третья группа исследований анализирует процессы, возникающие как реакция на проводимую политику по достижению гендерного равенства, к таким работам относятся публикации И Энжели и Э Мазур [11], а также М Равлушко [12] В российских исследованиях вопрос гендерного равенства рассматривается как социальная проблема без акцента на политическом участии женщин, но часть авторов рассматривает эту проблему в нормативно-правовом ракурсе Среди последних работ можно выделить публикации следующих авторов: О А Воронина [13], К Хонкелдиева и З Фарохиддинова [14], И Е Калабихина [15], Г Р Тожибоева [16], С Г Асланян [17] Наименьшее количество женщин представляют правые и правоцентристские партии, являющиеся проводниками политики евроскептиков, консерваторов и противников миграционных процессов в ЕС Тот факт, что максимальная представленность женщин имеет место в партиях левой части спектра и у зеленых, вполне закономерен Повторим, что именно к концу XX века партии социалистического толка ввели практику активного включения женщин в политический и избирательный процесс, принимая сначала на партийном уровне определённые административные решения, обеспечивающие представленность женщин как в руководящих органах партии, так и в партийных списках во время выборов [20] В «Декларации принципов», принятой в 2011 году «Партией европейских социалистов», лучшее будущее подразумевает гендерное равенство, означающее что «мужчины и женщины 4 Там же …”

Section: гендерные отношенияunclassified

How do women are represented in the European legislative assemblies: comparative analysis of the left and populist political parties’ practices

Velikaya

Berezkina

2022

Science. Culture. Society

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The article is devoted to the problem of gender equality in politics and the representation of women in legislative bodies in Europe. The authors draw attention to the fact that the role of women in the European political landscape is increasing against the background of the crisis of traditional political parties. There is a relationship between the percentage of women involved in the work of legislative bodies and the political orientation of the parties that nominated them. As a hypothesis, the idea is accepted that the countries with the highest gender equality index and strong positions of social democratic parties are main donors for women in politics. Populist parties are mainly supporters of classical European traditionalism, therefore, in countries with strong right-wing populist parties’ women are less represented and there is an uneven distribution of legislative seats in favor of men. By analysing the empirical base (electoral statistics and discourse analysis), the authors come to the conclusion that gender parity has not been achieved in the most European countries. The most effective way to enforce women representation in the European legislative bodies is to implement quotas at the level of national legislation, as well as to use of voluntary party quotas. However, the artificial nomination of weak female candidates who do not find support among voters and thus ensure guaranteed electability for strong male candidates. This is especially true for right-wing populist political parties, furthermore this trend is typical for most European countries. In addition to quotas, the European countries use special educational and social policies to minimise the pressure of gender stereotypes and expand the practice of women's political participation at all levels of government, which has yielded positive results; in today's convocation of the European Parliament, women are represented more than in previous convocations.

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Political Party Characteristics and Women’s Representation: The Case of the European Parliament

Cited by 19 publications

References 55 publications

Gender bias in political candidate evaluation among voters: The role of party support and political gender attitudes

Gender bias in political candidate evaluation among voters: The role of party support and political gender attitudes

Parliamentary Politics and Polarisation Around Gender: Tackling Inequalities in Political Groups in the European Parliament

How do women are represented in the European legislative assemblies: comparative analysis of the left and populist political parties’ practices

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