Institutionalizing Women’s Inclusion in Governing Cabinets

• In Event: Women, Gender and Cabinet Ministers in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how women’s inclusion in governing cabinets is institutionalized through a mechanism we label the “concrete floor.” Through an empirical analysis of seven countries –Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States – using three sources of data (elite interviews, media data, and autobiographies), we reveal the complex sets of rules governing cabinet formation in each country and show how institutional change emerges from a complex iterative process through which political actors use their agency to interpret and exploit ambiguity in rules to deviate from past practices of appointing mostly male cabinets. We show that, when they do so, women’s inclusion becomes institutionalized in new rules setting a new baseline of women’s presence, thereby constraining future political leaders in assembling their cabinets. The term “concrete floor” captures the process by which thresholds for women’s cabinet inclusion become locked in. For each of our seven cases, we explain how concrete floors emerge from competing rules for cabinet appointments, changing norms, and women’s mobilization in political parties.

Authors

• Karen Beckwith, Case Western Reserve University

• Susan Franceschet, University of Calgary

• Claire Annesley, University of Sussex