Tracing Gender Differences in Parliamentary Debates: A Growth Curve Analysis of Ugandan Mps’ Activity Levels in Plenary Sessions, 1998–2008

Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation: Evidence from a Content Analysis of Ugandan Plenary Debates

“…We cannot test whether the increasing amount of attention devoted to women's issues over time is a result of the quota's ability to shift the plenary contributions of all MPs toward more attention to women's interests; but there is significant qualitative evidence that male MPs are becoming more perceptive to legislative issues that disproportionately affect women. An increasing number of male MPs are associated members of the Ugandan cross-party women's parliamentary caucus and female MPs report enhanced collaboration with their male colleagues in recent years, in part explaining the recent success in enacting important pieces of women's rights legislation, including in areas of domestic violence, rape, and female genital mutilation (Wang 2013a(Wang , 2013b.…”

“…Finally, examining the Ugandan case in particular, Clayton, Josefsson, and Wang (2014) find that, over time, all women, regardless of seat type, are recognized in plenary debates less frequently than their male counterparts. Using similar data, Wang (2014) finds no significant gender differences in overall speech activity but does find evidence that female MPs in parliamentary leadership speak significantly more than any other group.…”

“…Advocates of gender quotas point to evidence that quota reforms change the legislative arena by normalizing women's political presence, thereby generating new political cultures, broadening the mainstream political agenda, and causing both women and men to pay more attention to women's interests (Franceschet 2011;Mackay 2008;Xydias 2014). Further, a growing body of work suggests that quotas may change the personal legislative agendas of individual female legislators, encouraging female MPs to give greater attention to issues that directly affect women's welfare (Childs and Krook 2012;Franceschet and Piscopo 2008;Skjeie 1991;Wang 2013b) and to enact policies that reflect female citizens' political and economic preferences (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004;Devlin and Elgie 2008).…”

“…Given this, female MPs may realize the strategic advantage of making male allies in order to achieve more broad-based support in male-dominated legislatures. Indeed, in Uganda, female MPs have actively mobilized their male colleagues to speak on their behalf to muster support for women's rights legislation (Wang 2013a(Wang , 2013b. In addition, given that "women's interests" often also have direct implications for men (e.g., inheritance laws or bride price), men certainly have incentives to actively participate in these policy debates.…”

Electoral Security and Legislator Attention: Evidence from the Kenyan National Assembly Debates, 2008-2017.

“…Kathlene 1994;Bäck, Debus, and Müller 2014), while others find that they are just as active in debates as their male colleagues (Pearson and Dancey 2011). In the sub-Saharan Africa context, Wang (2014) and Clayton, Josefsson, and Wang (2017) show that there are no significant differences by gender in overall speech activity, but female MPs who hold parliamentary leadership positions speak significantly more than any other group in their studies of the Ugandan Parliament. In Kenya, the 2010 constitution introduced 47 county women representative positions and stipulated the socalled two-thirds gender rule which states that at least 33% of the MPs should be female -a rule that has never been met yet.…”