Upholding Male Parliamentary Dominance

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This contribution evaluates the theoretical and methodological challenges of researching the gendered dynamics of candidate selection in comparative perspective. It argues that comparative studies should take into account not only the gendered nature of political parties and their wider institutional context, but must also investigate the informal aspects of the selection process and their gendered consequences. The article explores these dynamics by revisiting original in-depth research on the candidate selection process in two different settings -Thailand and Scotland. Using a common analytical framework, the article reflects on this work and points to two key aspects of the interaction between formal and informal rules -the gendered consequences of informal party recruitment and of local influence over candidate selection -which are critically important for understanding the continuity of male political dominance and female under-representation. The article concludes by outlining a research agenda for comparative work on gender, institutions and candidate selection and pointing to future directions for work in this area.Keywords: candidate selection, gender, feminist institutionalism, political parties, informal institutions Investigating the gendered and institutional dimensions of the opportunity structures within political parties is essential in order to explain women's chronic minority status in politics as well as the persistence of male dominance. The small but growing body of work on gender, political parties and candidate selection has contributed many important insights about the

Section: Challenges In the Comparative Study Of Gender And Candidate mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges In the Comparative Study Of Gender And Candidate mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges In the Comparative Study Of Gender And Candidate mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing Candidate Selection: A Feminist Institutionalist Approach

Bjarnegård¹,

Kenny²

2016

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“…Apart from being characterized by an uneven playing field between political parties, gender inequalities in politics are also particularly pronounced in these states (Bjarnegård 2013, Fallon, et al 2012. From this perspective, it would seem promising that electoral gender quotas 2 , which aim at serving as a remedy for the uneven playing field that men and women face in party nomination processes to legislative bodies (Baldez 2007, Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2011, Krook 2009), have been adopted in many of these states.…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender Equality Reforms on an Uneven Playing Field: Candidate Selection and Quota Implementation in Electoral Authoritarian Tanzania

Bjarnegård¹,

Zetterberg²

2016

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This article investigates the dynamics that gender quota reforms create within and between government and opposition parties in electoral authoritarian dominant-party states. A dominant-party state regularly holds relatively competitive elections, but the political playing field is skewed in favor of the government party. We investigate the circumstances under which gender quotas' goal of furthering political gender equality within political parties can be reconciled with parties' electoral concerns. We address these issues by analyzing the implementation of reserved seats by the three largest parties in the dominant-party state of Tanzania. The empirical analysis suggests that the uneven playing field leaves an imprint on the specific priorities parties make when implementing candidate selection reforms. Because of large resource gaps between parties, the ruling party CCM is able to reconcile gender 2 equality concerns with power-maximizing partisan strategies to a larger extent than the opposition parties. states has an even stronger strategic component related to inter-party competition than is the case in many advanced democracies. Party leaderships in dominant-party states thus face two concerns, based on two different inequalities, when implementing the quota reform. On the one hand, in the spirit of the quota law they should use it to strengthen women's political power within the party. On the other hand, party leaderships are hard pressed to implement the reform in a manner that primarily strengthens the party vis-à-vis other parties. While the first concern would prompt parties to select candidates who work 'for women', the second concern would rather have parties look to recruit party-loyal candidates. KeywordsUsing a feminist rational choice institutionalist perspective that brings together questions of gender, strategy, institutions, power and change (cf Driscoll and Krook 2009), this article aims, more specifically, to examine the extent to which parties in electoral authoritarian dominant-party regimes are able to reconcile the ever-present party electoral strategies with 5 the newer gender equality concerns that arise as a consequence of the quota policy.Entrenched informal practices as well as rational vote-maximizing behavior are important in order to fully understand the potential impact of any reform seeking to transform gender hierarchies (cf Kenny 2013). Our approach is also explicitly comparative, in that we want to see whether and how the possibilities for reconciling gender equality goals with electoral strategies vary across parties in dominant-party regimes.Our empirical analysis concentrates on the implementation of electoral gender quotas in a typical electoral authoritarian regime characterized by unfair competition between political parties: Tanzania. More specifically, we examine the implementation process of reserved seats (or special seats, as they are called in Tanzania) within the dominant party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and the two biggest opposition parties Chadema an...

Opening Up the Black Box: Gender and Candidate Selection in a New Era

Kenny¹,

Verge²

2016

100

Recent global developments, including the feminization of parliaments and the rise of gender quotas, have transformed the ways in which parties and legislatures operate. This introduction to the special issue 'Candidate Selection: Parties and Legislatures in a New Era' puts these recent developments in context, making the case for revisiting the 'secret garden' of candidate selection in light of this 'new era' in politics. It sets out a critical dialogue between party politics and gender politics scholarship and points to the need for more research on how political parties facilitate or block women's access to political office. Building on the burgeoning research on gender and political recruitment, it outlines how a gendered and institutional approach allows us to retheorize candidate selection processes and opens up new avenues for empirically examining the pathways prior to election. The article then introduces the papers in this special issue and concludes by evaluating the main implications of gendering analyses of candidate selection and party politics more broadly. THE FEMINIZATION OF POLITICS -THAT IS, THE POLITICAL INCLUSIONof women and women's policy concerns -has transformed the social and political context within which parties and legislatures operate. Women activists have been key players in debates over political representation and constitutional and institutional design around the world and have mobilized in social movements at the local, national and global level, as well as within formal organizations such as political parties (Krook 2006). While women are still numerically under-represented in politics, the overall trend is upward, and dramatic jumps in women's political presence have occurred in a diverse range of countries worldwide.