The Equal Presence of Women in Politics from a Party Programme Perspective (original) (raw)
Related papers
Party-centrism and gender equality: a study of European elections in Slovenia
Politics in Central Europe, 2009
In 2004 female candidates won a relatively large proportion of Slovenian MEP seats due to effective institutional engineering and despite the: a) persistent dominating political culture (unfavourable to women in politics); b) predominant party-centric electoral system and election campaign; and c) further marginalisation of female candidates compared to male candidates in the printed media during the party-centric election campaign. Research fi ndings support the thesis found in political party literature asserting political parties adapt to new electoral rules without radically changing how they function and without them struggling to change the dominant political culture and media reporting that is unfriendly to gender equality.
Yearbook of Polish European Studies, 2002
Both the European Union Member States and Poland have well-established democratic systems in place and the Constitutions of those countries define requirements imposed upon citizens regarding execution of their electoral rights. There is no single country in the above-mentioned group to introduce any restrictions regarding political involvement with respect to gender (the only requirements to be met concern the minimum age limits for candidates, their lack of criminal record and their citizenship). It may be argued, therefore, that from an official point of view there has been nothing to prevent women from active involvement in political activities. However, it is still the fact that their participation in political life is actually hampered by different kinds of barriers and their opportunities to make political careers are seriously hindered. Women have accounted for more than a half of the world’s population, yet their share among all members of national parliaments in the global...
From voluntary party to legal electoral gender quotas in Slovenia
Abstract When in Slovenia after the first multi-party election in National Assembly (NA) 1992 the share of women MPs dropped dramatically and did not changed a lot during the 1990s women activists and left-oriented female politicians started a struggle for an effective measure to improve this situation. First proposals to introduce quotas for internal party bodies and national election came from women in the center and left-wing political parties but with no visible effect for the presence of women in elected political bodies. It was only when legal quotas have been introduced that they brought significant changes in the representation of women in Slovene politics. This paper will focus on the importance of legal and institutional mechanisms that brought up more women in politics in the last elections at all levels but also on the limitations in the functioning of the quota regulations in the Slovene political and institutional context. Keywords Slovenia, Quotas, Gender Equality, Women, Legislation
Women's Political Parties in Europe
Politics & Gender, 2016
In representative democracies, political parties organize the public will, giving expression to political differences in society (see Katz and Mair 1995; Klingemann, Hofferbert, and Budge 1994; Sartori 1967). Parties can also deepen democracy by broadening the connections between representatives and constituents, helping to hold political institutions accountable and increasing the participation of previously marginalized groups (see Costain 2005; Kitschelt 1993; Shugart 1994; Kittilson and Tate 2005; Young 2000).
THE SLOVENE VERSION OF A " FAST TRACK " TO POLITICAL EQUALITY
After the first multi-party election in the Slovene National Assembly the share of women MPs dropped dramatically (from 24 per cent in 1986 to 17.5 per cent in 1990) and did not substantially change during the following two decades. This led to a debate among feminist activists and scholars and left-oriented female politicians regarding the absence of effective measures to improve the situation. The first proposals to introduce gender quotas initially for internal party bodies and later for national elections were put forward by women in the centre and left-wing parties. The voluntary quotas adopted by these parties did not yield visible progress on the presence of women in important political bodies, as these parties' gatekeepers did not fully respect their own rules when composing candidate lists. It was only when legal quotas were introduced that significant changes occurred in the share of women at the highest levels of Slovene politics. In contrast to previous studies on gender quotas in Slovenia, this paper focuses on the importance of the legal and institutional mechanisms in the Slovene context that increased the number of women in politics and examines the political process that paved the way for greater gender equality by using data from elections and putting the data into a broader context. The authors conclude that without gender quotas imposed by legislation the percentage of women in the last parliamentary election in 2014 would not have increased to 37 per cent (the highest among CEE countries) but also identify some limitations to the effectiveness of quota regulations in the Slovene political and institutional context.
Proceedings 2021, 2021
The political parties play a unique and fundamental role within the democratic process and they can also play a significant role in what concern the opportunities to promote women in political structures. Thus, the present paper seeks to describe the way in which the main political parties supported the women's involvement within political life at local level (mayors) from 1996 till present. In order to realize the study, quantitative methods are going to be used, the data being collected from the official sites regarding the local elections. In this sense, there were analyzed the 1996-2020 databases that concern: the candidates, their parties and their gender, the winners and their parties, the voters' turnout. The results show that the percentage of female candidates proposed by the parties is slightly increasing, but it does not exceed the 10% threshold, a sign that gender equality is more accepted in theory than in practice. The study focuses on women candidates who have been nominated by parties to run, but also those who have won. Interesting are the situations by parties and two trends can be observed: large parties neglect the attention given to women, these being below the national average (PSD, PNL), and small or newly founded parties promote them to a greater extent.
DOES PARITY EXIST IN THE ‘MACHO’WORLD? PARTY REGULATION AND GENDER REPRESENTATION IN THE BALKANS
Representation 49 (4), 425-438, 2013
Recent work on the regulation of political parties looks at the question of whether increasing regulation promotes democracy, or whether it creates barriers to entry and thus damages at least one of the rights guaranteed by democratic political systems—the right to be represented. How regulation affects representation is particularly important to under-represented groups—ethnic, religious, or gender. Focusing on the representation of women, we examine the effect of party regulation on gender representation, as seen in the Constitution and the Party Law. We study the effect that rules about the establishment, existence and competition of political parties have on female representation. To do so we examine changes in the descriptive representation of women across parties, districts and over time in Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia. We find that while regulation of political parties has important indirect consequences for women representation, thus far gender-specific regulation, and quotas in particular, proves to be the most powerful tool for the inclusion of women in politics.
In a discussion about a place of women in contemporary political life, the role of various actions and mechanisms aiming at increasing female involvement is extremely significant, since today women represent slightly more than half of the world population, and their participation in formal political structures remains insignificant. Without any doubt, since 1989, one may observe increasing women's role in Polish political life. One of the proofs for it is a higher number of women registered as candidates before parliamentary elections, as well as higher percentage of women in Polish Sejm. In spite of this, Polish women are still less active in the political life than men, which results from the existence of several barriers hindering their participation and involvement in politics. The main aim of this article is to analyse the opinion of Poles on the activities of women in political life and introduction of additional mechanisms having the potential to increase wom-en's participation in political bodies. The research was based on empirical data collected in November and December 2013 within the project " Political preferences: Attitude – Identification – Behavior " .