Ethnic Politics and Women's Empowerment in Africa: Ministerial Appointments to Executive Cabinets

Abstract

Under what conditions do women participate in executive power in multiethnic societies? Previous research has examined how political institutions, socioeconomic factors, and cultural norms affect the appointment of women as cabinet ministers. However, no study has assessed the extent to which the politicization of ethnicity—a cleavage that shapes political life in many countries—affects women's cabinet appointments. Focusing on sub‐Saharan Africa, we argue that women are less likely to become cabinet ministers where incumbents use such appointments to build patronage‐based alliances with politicians who act as advocates for ethnic constituencies. Using an original dataset on the composition of cabinets in 34 African countries from 1980 to 2005, we show that women's share of cabinet appointments is significantly lower in countries where leaders must accommodate a larger number of politicized ethnic groups, but it rises with higher levels of democracy and greater representation of women in parliament.

Corruption and women in cabinets: Informal barriers to recruitment in the executive

“…For example, close relationships between two men are seen as stabilizing, whereas close relationships between a man and a woman are seen as endangering the predictability and stability of these ties (Bjarnegård & Kenny, 2016). Arriola and Johnson (2014) advance a similar argument about clientelism in the African context. They propose that women are seldom included in cabinets in settings where ethnicity is politicized, as they rarely have the resources and status to become ethnic patrons that can collect votes.…”

“…A growing literature (e.g., Barnes & O'Brien, ; Davis, ; Escobar‐Lemmon & Taylor‐Robinson, ; Jacob, Scherpereel, & Adams, ; Krook & O'Brien, ; Mavisakalyan, ; Reynolds, ; Siaroff, ; Whitford, Wilkins, & Ball, ) has started to look at the macro‐level factors, such as the type of governmental system; the meso‐level indicators, such as type of party in power (e.g., left‐wing or right‐wing party); and the micro‐level determinants, such as the ambition of men and women to run for office, to explain women's recruitment to ministerial portfolios. Though several works mention the role of informal procedures in “engendering” recruitment to the executive (e.g., Annesley & Gains, ; Arriola & Johnson, ; Bauer & Okpotor, ; Bauer & Tremblay, ; Bego, ; Claveria, ; Escobar‐Lemmon & Taylor‐Robinson, ; Franceschet & Thomas, ), no study has so far examined the influence of corruption on women's representation in cabinets across time and space; our study is the first to conduct such an analysis.…”

“…In electoral democracies, however, leaders might face societal and political pressures to nominate women to cabinet. Krook and O'Brien (, p. 847) suggest that the degree of democracy “would contribute to an enhanced culture of inclusion as the more democratic a state was, the more difficult it would be to exclude members of half of the population from consideration.” Second, within both types of regimes, we distinguish between leftist governments and all other governments (Arriola & Johnson, ). Leftist governments in both democracies and autocracies praise themselves for their high levels of gender equality and also have strong women's organizations within the party or regime (Krook & Childs, ).…”

Her Ladyship Chief Justice: The Rise of Female Leaders in the Judiciary in Africa

“…Yet much remains to be understood regarding women across African judiciaries. Scholars have examined the rise of women in African cabinets (Arriola and Johnson 2013;G. Bauer and Okpotor 2013;Russell and DeLancey 2002), legislatures (G. Bauer 2012;Lindberg 2004;Stockemer 2011;Yoon 2001Yoon , 2004, and presidencies (Adams 2008;G.…”

Presidentas Rise: Consequences for Women in Cabinets?

“…I use two proxies to account for this possibility: the percent female in Congress and the number of women in the predecessor's end-of-term cabinet. 9 The percentage of women in Congress routinely appears in models of female appointments (Arriola and Johnson 2014;Claveria 2014;Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005;Krook and O'Brien 2012;O'Brien et al 2015). Data on the percent female in the legislature come from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU 2015).…”