Women Peers and Political Appointment: Has the House of Lords Been Feminised Since 1999?

Eason, Christina

doi:10.1093/pa/gsn049

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Women's share of government seats in the lower house ranges from 2.3% (1979) to 27.6% (2005) in the UK and from 8% (1983) to 32.5% (2007) in Australia. Systematic data on the members of the House of Lords by gender and party in the House of Lords over time is not available, but snapshots from recent years show women's share on government benches at between 20% and 25% (Centre for Women and Democracy 2013; Eason 2009; 2010). In Australia, women's share of seats in Senate ranges from 13.3% (1993) to 43.8% (2007).…”

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, women's access to the House of Lords has been constricted by two rules. Hereditary peerages were passed down the male line only until 1963, and nominated life peerages were not granted to women until 1958 (Eason 2010, 72). Rule changes by Labour governments (1997–2010) to the Lords appointment procedure restricted the number of hereditary peers to 92 and opened up recruitment to the House of Lords as life peers through a process of nomination by party and selection by committee.…”

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rule changes by Labour governments (1997–2010) to the Lords appointment procedure restricted the number of hereditary peers to 92 and opened up recruitment to the House of Lords as life peers through a process of nomination by party and selection by committee. This change significantly increased the presence of women in the Lords (Eason 2010).…”

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since membership of the House of Lords is now based primarily on selection, PMs can also proactively place favored ministerial candidates in the eligibility pool by appointing them to the upper house. In 2008 PM Gordon Brown made former MP Peter Mandelson a life peer so that he could return to cabinet as business secretary (Eason 2010), and in 2015 PM David Cameron appointed Dr. Ros Altman, former director of the pensioners' lobby group Saga, as pensions minister (Read 2015). By extension, nomination to the Lords can be used as a strategy to boost women's representation in government if the supply of eligible women in the Commons is low.…”

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Opportunities for women to accumulate generalist skills to qualify as ministers are also curtailed by the mode of debate in parliament (Lovenduski 2005). The Women in Parliament inquiry (APPG 2014, 42) reported “several MPs avoid the Chamber during Prime Minister's Questions due to the testosterone fuelled atmosphere.” In contrast, research on the reformed House of Lords found it “less-testosterone fueled,” “less confrontational,” and “a much gentler place to work” than the Commons, creating an atmosphere “in which women thrive” (Eason 2010, 142).…”

Section: How To Qualify As a Ministermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rules of Ministerial Recruitment

Annesley

2015

Pol & Gen

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Women's recruitment to ministerial office is improving, but our understanding of what determines women's access to cabinet remains underdeveloped. Comparative studies explain women's ministerial presence through correlations with country-level socio-economic or political factors. This research uses a feminist institutionalist approach to explain gendered access to cabinets. It uses original data from interviews with former ministers and special advisors to map the rules in use of ministerial recruitment. It demonstrates that that women's access to ministerial office is facilitated and constrained by three complexes of predominantly informal rules which structure: who is eligible to be chosen (the eligibility pool); how to qualify (specialist or generalist principles); and who selects ministers (the prime minister or the party). By examining the rules of ministerial recruitment in two Westminster democracies, Australia and the UK, the research demonstrates the differences that exist, even in most similar cases, at system level, at party levels, and over time. By identifying the specific complexes of rules which shape women's access it is possible to identify the rule changes which have been effective in improving women's ministerial opportunities and suggest future reform strategies which would be most effective in the specific context.

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Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Who Is Eligible To Be Chosen?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: How To Qualify As a Ministermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rules of Ministerial Recruitment

Annesley

2015

Pol & Gen

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The Core Executive: Gender, Power and Change

Annesley

Gains

2010

Political Studies

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The core executive is a central focus for the study of policy change especially in Westminster‐style parliamentary democracies such as the UK. This venue is recognised as the locus of power and where attention should be given for identifying and assessing the process of policy change. It is surprising, then, that studies on women's substantive representation – showing whether and how women can make a difference to politics and policy – have not examined this institution, focusing instead on parliament or women's policy agencies. We plug this gap in scholarship in suggesting that the core executive should be the key venue for examining substantive representation of women. At the same time we present the case that the core executive is a gendered institution in terms of recruitment, resource allocation, relationships and rules. We argue that this gendered disposition shapes the opportunities and constraints available to feminist actors intent on altering the gender emphasis of public policy and illustrate this empirically through a case study of the actions and successes of two feminist ministers – Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt. As such this article makes a contribution to mainstream core executive research, gender and politics scholarship as well as the new and feminist institutionalist literatures.

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How Democratic is the UK? The 2012 Audit

Wilks‐Heeg¹

2012

Political Insight

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Women Peers and Political Appointment: Has the House of Lords Been Feminised Since 1999?

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Rules of Ministerial Recruitment

Rules of Ministerial Recruitment

The Core Executive: Gender, Power and Change

How Democratic is the UK? The 2012 Audit

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