Diverse and inclusive high courts: a global and intersectional perspective

Kang, Alice J.; Kittilson, Miki Caul; Hoekstra, Valerie J.; Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C.

doi:10.1080/21565503.2020.1782948

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Kenney (2013) argues that gender plays a critical role in the courts for both legitimacy and decision-making reasons, particularly because of the benefits of diverse perspectives on the courts. Kirkpatrick, Kittilson, and Hoekstra (2020) offer a symposium of articles on diversity in the judiciary, including arguments that descriptive representation influences multiple conceptions of justice (Dovi and Luna 2020) and that intersectionality can offer a richer understanding of diversity on the bench (Kang et al 2020). And finally, recent work from Shortell and Valdini (2022) explicitly tests the impact of women on the bench on perceptions of legitimacy in democracies, and finds that the presence of women on the high court has a strong positive impact on citizen perceptions of court legitimacy, though not among those with hostile gender bias.…”

Section: Perceptions Of Women In Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Madame Justice Will Save Our Democracy: Gender Bias and Perceptions of the High Court in Transitional Regimes

Shortell

Valdini

2023

Political Research Quarterly

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While existing literature has established that women leaders are stereotyped as more likely to uphold the norms of democracy, the power of this effect in the non-democratic context is not established. We address this gap and argue that the context of regime transition cultivates a unique dynamic in which the stereotypes associated with women justices become especially valuable to both citizens and the state. However, we argue that this perception of women contributing to the health of democracy is not constant across all citizens equally; instead, those people with high levels of hostile bias against women are more likely to view women as the potential saviors of the democracy. To test our theories, we offer original survey data from Thailand and Poland, two countries in the midst of regime transition. We find evidence that suggests that the impact of women justices on assessments of democratic health is indeed dependent on hostile bias in Thailand, but that the relationship is not found in Poland. Our results suggest that bias can sometimes operate in unexpected ways, and that scholars should consider multiple measures of different types of bias when investigating its effects on behavior.

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Section: Perceptions Of Women In Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Madame Justice Will Save Our Democracy: Gender Bias and Perceptions of the High Court in Transitional Regimes

Shortell

Valdini

2023

Political Research Quarterly

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“…8 Knowledge of women's access to the judiciary is largely based on the Global North (see, e.g., Boigeol 1993;Kenney 2013a;Rackley 2013), especially U.S. courts (Cook 1982(Cook , 1984bGoelzhauser 2011;Resnik 1991). Researchers also tend to focus on more prestigious courts, be it women's entry to international courts (Dawuni 2019;Dawuni and Kuenyehia 2018;Grossman 2016) or comparative studies explaining global and regional variations in the number of women in countries' highest courts (Arana Araya, Hughes, and Pérez-Liñán 2021;Arrington et al 2021;Dawuni and Kang 2015;Dawuni and Masengu 2019;Escobar-Lemmon et al 2021;Kang et al 2020;Thames and Williams 2013;Valdini and Shortell 2016). Fewer studies include lower courts when explaining women's access to judiciaries beyond the Global North, with some notable exceptions (Bauer and Dawuni 2016;Bonthuys 2015;Kamau 2013;Kenney 2018;Sonnevold and Lindbekk 2017).…”

Section: Theoretical Background: Women's Access To Judiciariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's Judicial Representation in Haiti: Unintended Gains of State-Building Efforts

Tøraasen

2022

Pol & Gen

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Although women's representation in Haiti is generally very low, the number of women judges has increased since the demise of authoritarianism and violent conflict in the 1990s. This case study explores why. I find that “gender-neutral” judicial reforms aimed at strengthening the judiciary have done more for women's judicial representation than explicitly gender-targeted policies, which still lack implementation. Donor-supported reforms have introduced more merit-based and transparent appointment procedures for magistrates (judges and public prosecutors) based on competitive examinations. This has helped women circumvent the largely male power networks that previously excluded them from the judiciary. The judiciary remains understudied in the scholarship on women's access to decision-making in fragile and conflict-affected societies; this article contributes to this emerging literature.

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“…Using case studies drawn from the United States and Europe, Kenney (2013) likewise argues that gender plays a critical role in the courts for both legitimacy and decision-making reasons, particularly because of the benefits of diverse perspectives on the courts, but does not offer a test of this association. Kirkpatrick, Kittilson, and Hoekstra (2020) put together a symposium of articles on diversity in the judiciary, including arguments that descriptive representation influences multiple conceptions of justice (Dovi and Luna 2020) and that intersectionality can offer a richer understanding of diversity on the bench (Kang et al 2020). Arrington et al (2021), Kang et al (2021), Araya, Hughes, and Pérez-Liñán (2021), and Valdini and Shortell (2016) all argue for the value of gender diversity on courts, but they focus primarily on the methods by which women end up on the bench.…”

Section: Women's Presence and Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Women's Presence on High Courts: Bias and the Conditional Nature of Cultivating Legitimacy

Shortell

Valdini

2021

Pol & Gen

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While we know that women's presence in the legislature positively impacts how citizens view the institution, little is known about the impact of women's presence on the legitimacy of high courts. We argue that despite differences in public expectations for courts, women's presence on the high court does impact citizen perceptions of legitimacy. However, this effect is dependent on both the level and the type of bias held by citizens. That is, when a person feels hostile bias toward women, the bias disrupts the potential legitimacy that the court could gain. On the other hand, we argue that benevolent sexism does not trigger any change in how citizens view the high court in a democracy. Using evidence from an experiment, we find that the presence of women on the high court has a strong positive impact on citizen perceptions of court legitimacy, though not among those with hostile gender bias.

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Diverse and inclusive high courts: a global and intersectional perspective

Cited by 10 publications

References 35 publications

Madame Justice Will Save Our Democracy: Gender Bias and Perceptions of the High Court in Transitional Regimes

Madame Justice Will Save Our Democracy: Gender Bias and Perceptions of the High Court in Transitional Regimes

Women's Judicial Representation in Haiti: Unintended Gains of State-Building Efforts

The Politics of Women's Presence on High Courts: Bias and the Conditional Nature of Cultivating Legitimacy

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