Women, Gender and Cabinet Ministers in Comparative Perspective

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In recent decades, there has been a wealth of research on women’s political representation, including women’s access/barriers to political office, presence in political institutions, effective power in office, and relative impact on distinct outcomes. The bulk of this research has focused on legislative assemblies, where women’s presence in many countries has substantially increased, often due to the use of sex-based candidate quotas. There is also a smaller, though growing literature on women and executive office. The comparative research on political executives has paid most attention to women chief executives or candidates for chief executive.

This panel presents path-breaking research on women, gender and executive cabinets. Studying cabinets and ministers is tremendously important because of their influence on policy design and implementation, and their visibility. In addition, the mechanisms for women’s inclusion and the consequences of women’s presence in cabinets may be very distinct from the parliamentary/legislative arena. Cabinet ministers are distinct from parliamentarians in that they are appointed politicians. Therefore, the recruitment paths and challenges or opportunities for women’s representation may be different.

To help explain women’s access to ministerial office, Adams, Hayes and Scherpereel gender Gamson’s Law—i.e. the correlation between a party’s share of seats in parliament and the share of government portfolios it receives in a coalition deal. The paper investigates whether the gender composition of governing parties’ parliamentary delegations affects the gender composition of the cabinets those parties construct. Barnes and O’Brien examine women’s access to prestigious and traditionally masculine portfolios. Focusing on the finance portfolio, they present a new theory of women’s access to these powerful positions: women are likely to be selected as finance ministers when the position becomes less desirable. Moving beyond access, Beckwith, Franceschet and Annesley investigate the institutionalization of women’s inclusion in cabinets, through the mechanism of what they call a “concrete floor.” The concrete floor provides a new baseline of women’s presence in cabinets, constraining future political leaders in assembling their cabinets. Field analyzes the potential impact of women’s inclusion in cabinets on further advancement of women’s representation. The paper investigates the incentives women and men ministers face when they make political appointments in their ministries and whether women ministers appoint more women to subcabinet offices than their male counterparts.

Jointly, the papers employ diverse methodologies, including large N statistical analyses, small N qualitative comparative analysis and a mixed methods case study.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 31: Women and Politics Research

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 23: Presidents and Executive Politics

Individual Presentations

• Gendering Gamson’s Law - Melinda J. Adams, James Madison University; Katherine Hayes; John A. Scherpereel, James Madison University

• Women Finance Ministers in Global Perspective - Tiffany D. Barnes, University of Kentucky; Diana Z. O'Brien, Rice University; Brenna Gail Armstrong

• Institutionalizing Women’s Inclusion in Governing Cabinets - Karen Beckwith, Case Western Reserve University; Susan Franceschet, University of Calgary; Claire Annesley, University of Sussex

• Women Ministers and Political Appointments: Evidence from Spain - Bonnie N. Field, Bentley University

Chair

• Bonnie N. Field Bentley University

Discussants

• Shan-Jan Sarah Liu University of Edinburgh

• Juan Rodríguez Teruel University of Valencia