What role does the international diffusion of gender norms play in determining recent increases in women's political representation? We argue that norm diffusion has larger positive effects on women's cabinet representation than on women's legislative representation. We also show that within cabinets, norm diffusion affects low-prestige appointments more than highprestige appointments. We test these arguments using an original database of ministers from 1979 to 2009 and find that the association of women's representation with three separate indicators of international diffusionlevels of women's representation among neighboring states, levels of women's representation among intergovernmental organization partners, and time since ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women-is consistent with our arguments.Women make up more than 50% of the world's population, but they are dramatically underrepresented in the world's most powerful decisionmaking bodies. In 2011, 19.3% of the world's national legislators and 16.0% of the world's cabinet ministers were women. Still, women have recently made substantial gains. Levels of women's representation moved sharply upward beginning in the 1990s (see Figure 1). The number of countries with all-male cabinets declined steadily.What factors explain the recent, relatively rapid global rise in the ranks of women political leaders? To date, scholars have focused on domestic sources of variation, calling attention to the roles of social structural, ideological, and political variables. Yet, the increasing visibility of international commitments to gender-balanced decision making and the coincident sudden upward ticks in women's representation suggest that international factors may also be affecting national outcomes. This article investigates the extent to which states' international interactions have propelled women's gains.While political scientists (Krook and True 2012) and sociologists (Paxton, Hughes, and Green 2006) have examined the evolution of a norm
The article extends the limited literature on women national leaders by providing a comparative study of two popularly elected women presidents: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Both Bachelet and Johnson-Sirleaf rose to power in situations that lacked the circumstances identified by current literature as mitigating gendered barriers to national leadership: neither woman was connected to politically powerful families, they were elected in presidential systems, and they were elected in countries that lag behind regional leaders in terms of women's political inclusion. This comparison reveals important similarities in how both Bachelet and Johnson-Sirleaf incorporated gender into their campaign strategies. Both women pursued electoral strategies that combined attempts to confront gendered disadvantages and to take advantage of specific gendered opportunities present within their political contexts. Both women drew upon their personal biographies, highlighting their education and careers, and political experience to demonstrate that they had the traditionally masculine traits associated with political leadership. In addition, they also strategically appealed to gendered beliefs about women's unique capabilities and strengths and linked these perceived strengths to pressing political issues in both countries. Our study thus demonstrates the continuing salience of gender, even as its influence becomes more flexible and complex.
Will rising world powers tilt global norms in less progressive directions? While there has been much theoretical speculation on this question, few scholars have explored it empirically. This article uses existing empirical evidence to test the extent to which countries compromise their own values to gain favor with influential countries. We analyze the gender of ambassadors sent to rising powers and established powers and suggest that this analysis generates insight into the likely effects of rising powers on global norms. We find that the probability that a country will send a woman ambassador to a rising power is significantly lower than the probability that it will send a woman ambassador to an established world power. We show that this difference increases when the sending country exhibits high levels of international economic dependence. Our findings imply that the rise of countries like China, Russia, and India may undermine the global gender-balanced decision-making norm and progressive global norms more broadly.
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