Does Gender Have an Effect on the Selection of Experts by Parliamentary Standing Committees? A Critical Test of “Critical” Concepts

Holli, Anne Maria

doi:10.1017/s1743923x12000347

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…It is also the committee consulting most often with women's NGOs, state equality agencies and gender scholars (see Table 3; cf. Holli, 2012). Numerically, CEE consults with these actors roughly to the same extent as all the other standing committees put together.…”

Section: Finland: the Committee For Employment And Equalitymentioning

confidence: 97%

Towards a Dual Approach: Comparing the Effects of Parliamentary Committees on Gender Equality in Denmark and Finland

Holli

Harder

2016

Parliam Aff

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Drawing on insights from state feminism and legislative studies on parliamentary committees, this article develops a dual approach for the comparative analysis of committees on gender equality. Empirically, it compares the standing committees on gender equality in Denmark and Finland, two Nordic countries acknowledged as forerunners in gender equality, which also have 'fairly strong' parliamentary standing committees. The results show that both committees on gender equality can be regarded as 'feminist' in character and both interact with relevant civil society organisations. Their impact as measured by legislative outputs and oversight differs, however, in line with differing committee system characteristics: the Finnish committee has more impact on legislative outputs while the Danish committee has more impact on overseeing government.

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Section: Finland: the Committee For Employment And Equalitymentioning

confidence: 97%

Towards a Dual Approach: Comparing the Effects of Parliamentary Committees on Gender Equality in Denmark and Finland

Holli

Harder

2016

Parliam Aff

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“…Consultation motions typically request to bring in an expert to speak at a committee hearing (e.g., the Ministry of Health or education interest groups for the Social Issues committee; the Ministry of Foreign Trade or banking groups for the Economics committee; the Ministry of Natural Resources or producer groups for the Agriculture committee). The opportunity to give a group the ability to articulate its position on a bill is important for determining which groups get their views heard in the policy-making process (Holli 2012; Saint-Germain and Morgan 1991; Taylor-Robinson and Ross 2011). Thus, it is potentially important for the representation of diverse interests that women make use of their capability to provide groups with this opportunity.…”

Section: Analysis and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Committee Composition and Agendas on Women's Participation: Evidence from a Legislature with Near Numerical Equality

2016

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Previous studies of women's participation in legislative debates could not disentangle the possible effect of institutionalized gender discrimination from the effect of gendered patterns because of women lacking seniority and leadership posts. Costa Rica's Legislative Assembly offers an opportunity to control for seniority and leadership. The prohibition on immediate reelection means that no legislators have seniority. The country's successful gender quota, presence of an equal number of men and women committee presidents, and election of the first woman president in 2010 all point to women having relatively equal access to formal positions of power. In this context, unequal debate participation between men and women legislators would indicate that it is very difficult to change the gendered nature of an institution. We use multilevel modeling to analyze repeated observations of individual-level participation in three of six standing committees during the 2010–14 term (Agriculture, Economics, and Social Issues) to explore differences in patterns of participation under various conditions (sex ratios, discussion topics, sex of committee leaders). Findings indicate that women are active participants in committees with both stereotypically feminine and masculine policy jurisdictions, but also that women are more active when the gender composition of the committee is less skewed.

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“…Parliamentary groups can also push for gender-equal participation when engaging with societal interests. Holli (2012), for example, showed that women's presence in committees alone did not ensure the number of women experts or attention to (gender) equality issues improved in Finland. Thus, parliamentary groups need to actively put women experts and equality issues forward, particularly when holding formal positions (e.g., committee chairs or secretaries).…”

Section: Gender-sensitive Parliamentary Groups and Engagement With So...mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Parliament to Party: The Gender‐Sensitive Parliamentary Group

Ahrens,

Meier

2024

PaG

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Gender-sensitive parliaments are an emergent international norm. Research primarily focused on parliaments as gendered workplaces functioning with formal and informal rules and routines that either constrain or promote gender equality. We shift the focus to parliamentary groups and parties in public office as key actors in achieving a gender-sensitive parliament. We argue that they play a crucial role in many parliamentary systems and can actively contribute to gender-sensitive transformations. Building on the gender-sensitive parliament literature, we first explore the potential of parliamentary groups to improve parliamentary functioning across four aspects: representation, policy-making, engagement with societal interests, and groups as gender-sensitive workplaces. Secondly, we delve into the broader parliamentary and party contexts, recognizing how factors such as the diversity of parliamentary systems, organizational structures, parties in central office, and political dynamics shape parliamentary groups’ room for manoeuvre. We conclude by calling for further empirical, but especially conceptual, research to develop intersectionality-sensitive parliaments which we suggest are crucial for dismantling existing power hierarchies based on social markers.

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Does Gender Have an Effect on the Selection of Experts by Parliamentary Standing Committees? A Critical Test of “Critical” Concepts

Cited by 10 publications

References 25 publications

Towards a Dual Approach: Comparing the Effects of Parliamentary Committees on Gender Equality in Denmark and Finland

Towards a Dual Approach: Comparing the Effects of Parliamentary Committees on Gender Equality in Denmark and Finland

The Impact of Committee Composition and Agendas on Women's Participation: Evidence from a Legislature with Near Numerical Equality

From Parliament to Party: The Gender‐Sensitive Parliamentary Group

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