Women’s Legislative Representation

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

What explains variation in the level of women’s legislative representation? Scholars generally explain women’s legislative representation in terms of both demand-side and supply-side factors. In this paper, I make two theoretical contributions to the prevailing literature. The first theoretical contribution is to recognize the inherent interaction between demand and supply. Women’s legislative representation should only be high when demand is high and the supply-side is open. The second theoretical contribution is to recognize that there are two sources of demand for women’s legislative representation – demand from elites and demand from the masses. I evaluate the theory using a new dataset that covers 54 African countries from 1945 to 2016.

Author

• Kostanca Dhima, Texas A&M University