Explaining Legislators’ Actions on Behalf of Women in the Parliamentary Party Group: The Role of Attitudes, Resources, and Opportunities

Erzeel, Silvia

doi:10.1080/1554477x.2015.1082890

Cited by 8 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Even if male and female parliamentarians view themselves as ideologically similar, women's presence may indirectly lead parties to present more left‐leaning manifestos. Female politicians’ preferences on gender equality policies tend to be to the left of their male colleagues (Lovenduski & Norris ; McAllister & Studlar ), and they are more likely to articulate these claims during parliamentary party group meetings (Erzeel ). This focus on more left‐leaning issues is not restricted to explicitly gendered issues; in some cases female candidates are also more concerned about welfare services, poverty and healthcare (Norris ).…”

Section: The Effects Of Diverse Parliamentary Partiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse parties, diverse agendas? Female politicians and the parliamentary party's role in platform formation

Greene

O’Brien

2016

European Journal of Political Research

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Parties’ parliamentary delegations contain a multitude of interests. While scholars suspect that this variation affects party behaviour, most work on parties’ policy statements treats parties as unitary actors. This reflects the absence of strong expectations concerning when (and how) the parliamentary caucus matters for platform construction, as well as the difficulties inherent in testing such claims. Drawing on the literature on women's descriptive representation, this article argues that the makeup of the parliamentary party likely has important consequences for issue entrepreneurship, the scope of issues represented on the manifesto and even the left‐right position of election platforms. With the most comprehensive party‐level study of women's representation ever conducted, three diversity hypotheses are tested using data on the gender makeup of parties’ parliamentary delegations and the content of their manifestos for 110 parties in 20 democracies between 1952 and 2011. The analyses show that as the percentage of women in the parliamentary party increases, parties address a greater diversity of issues in their election campaigns. Women's presence is also associated with more left‐leaning manifestos, even when controlling for parties’ prior ideological positions. Together, these findings illustrate a previously overlooked consequence of descriptive representation and provide a framework for understanding when and why the parliamentary party influences manifesto formation. They show that diversity – or lack thereof – has important consequences for parties’ policy statements, and thus the overall quality of representation.

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Section: The Effects Of Diverse Parliamentary Partiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse parties, diverse agendas? Female politicians and the parliamentary party's role in platform formation

Greene

O’Brien

2016

European Journal of Political Research

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“…Attitudinal commitment to act for women is a fundamental aspect of how female politicians exercise their agency, and it is connected in important ways to gender consciousness and feminist awareness (Erzeel 2015). Understanding MEPs as critical actors, then, must include an assessment of their level of gender awareness.…”

Section: Theorizing Female Critical Actors In the European Parliamentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…16 This confirms to an extent how ideological cleavages shape how MEPs construct women's interests in the EP even if they broadly agree on similar issues (Pristed Nielsen and Agustín 2013). Erzeel (2015) argued that exposure to feminist attitudes and gender-related information from women's organizations are key resources in feminist awareness and, by extension, support for women's interests. One of the center-left MEPs admitted to being against gender quotas until she attended several events held by the Irish state feminist organization, the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI).…”

Section: Irish Female Mep S Acting For Women's Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Opportunities from the party political environment, levels of gender and feminist awareness supported by contacts with women's organizations, and membership on equality committees are important factors explaining legislators' actions on behalf of women (Erzeel 2015). Female representatives' political agency to act for women may be contingent on such factors.…”

Section: Conclusion: Irish Female Mep S Critical Actors For Women?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analysis of legislator agency and agenda-setting behavior for women at the national level (Erzeel 2015) and scholarship on critical actors (Childs and Krook 2009; Dahlerup 1988) and female political agency (Buckley and Galligan 2013) provides a framework for examining the factors that shape female political agency and acts for women. Erzeel (2015) explored legislators’ attitudes and their access to resources and opportunities as determinants of their actions on behalf of women. She concluded that factors including feminist awareness, gender-related resources, and incentives received from the party political context support legislators’ agency to pursue women's interests.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Irish Female Members of the European Parliament: Critical Actors for Women's Interests?

Cullen

2018

Pol & Gen

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The European Parliament (EP) is credited as an important actor in improving the rights of women in Ireland. Lacking a power base in national political parties, Irish feminists and European Union (EU) officials, including members of the EP (MEPs), have worked to secure progress on gender equality. This research explores whether, in the contemporary context, Irish female MEPs remain critical actors for women's interests at the EU level. Findings show that although Irish female MEPs have a limited record of involvement with the EP's main site for gender equality, the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, they do act in a variety of ways on women's interests. These include mobilization on gendered occupational roles and traditionally gendered areas such as care work, child poverty, and issues constructed as affecting women outside the EU. Irish female MEPs also facilitate forms of supranational lobbying in their support of EU-level advocacy for domestic gendered civil society and campaign groups. However, ideology and party political discipline, the pull toward local and national interests, and an absence of strong feminist agency work to diminish opportunities for female MEPs to act as critical actors and deliver critical acts on women's interests.

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For women only? Politicians’ attitudes towards men’s role in gender equality representation

Höhmann

2024

West European Politics

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Explaining Legislators’ Actions on Behalf of Women in the Parliamentary Party Group: The Role of Attitudes, Resources, and Opportunities

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

Diverse parties, diverse agendas? Female politicians and the parliamentary party's role in platform formation

Diverse parties, diverse agendas? Female politicians and the parliamentary party's role in platform formation

Irish Female Members of the European Parliament: Critical Actors for Women's Interests?

For women only? Politicians’ attitudes towards men’s role in gender equality representation

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