{"title":"Feminine Leadership Ideals and Masculine Practices: Exploring Gendered Leadership Conditions in the Swedish Parliament","authors":"Josefina Erikson, Cecilia Josefsson","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x23000090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x23000090","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Women’s access to political leadership positions has increased greatly in recent decades, which calls for research concerning the conditions of women’s political leadership in more gender-balanced contexts. This article responds to this need by exploring the leadership ideals, evaluations, and treatment of men and women leaders in the numerically gender-equal Swedish parliament (the Riksdag). Drawing on interviews with almost all the current top political leaders in the Swedish parliament, along with an original survey of Swedish members of parliament, we reveal a mainly feminine-coded parliamentary leadership ideal that should be more appropriate for women leaders. Masculine practices remain, however, and women leaders continue to be disadvantaged. To explain this anomaly between ideals and practices, we argue that a feminist institutionalist perspective, which emphasizes how gender shapes a given context in multiple ways, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions for women’s political leadership than that provided by the widely employed role congruity theory.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121064978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Window-Dressing or Window of Opportunity? Assessing the Advancement of Gender Equality in Autocracies","authors":"E. Bjarnegård, D. Donno","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000496","url":null,"abstract":"There is growing evidence of the international and domestic political benefits for autocrats to advance women’s rights (Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2016; Bush and Zetterberg 2021; Donno and Kreft 2019; Tripp 2019). Research on the adoption of gender reforms in autocracies—including contributions in this Critical Perspectives section by Audrey L. Comstock and Andrea Vilán (2022) and Aili Mari Tripp (2022)—emphasizes the dual role of international pressure (Donno, Fox, and Kaasik 2021; Edgell 2017; Okundaye and Breuning 2021) and women’s movements (Giersdorf and Croissant 2011; Htun and Weldon 2012; Tripp 2015). Reforms can be “top-down” if the autocrat advances rights even while suppressing the women’s movement, or “bottom-up” if the regime allies with—and seeks to co-opt—civil society groups.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116951625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Looking beyond Ratification: Autocrats’ International Engagement with Women’s Rights","authors":"Audrey L. Comstock, A. Vilán","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000472","url":null,"abstract":"Although authoritarian regimes often repress the rights of women, many autocrats have committed to international treaties protecting women’s human rights. Scholars have typically overlooked this engagement, focusing instead on autocrats’ commitment (and violation) of treaties protecting civil, political, and physical integrity rights. Yet existing explanations for autocrats’ ratification of these treaties—such as appeasing domestic opposition groups—do not necessarily apply to women’s rights (von Stein 2013). As authoritarian international law is increasingly viewed as an important area of study (Ginsburg 2020), scholars should explore how authoritarian regimes navigate participation regarding women’s rights issues, including their engagement with the main women’s rights treaty, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). After taking a closer look at how autocracies shape, commit, and challenge women’s rights internationally, we suggest several research directions to build this area of study.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"145 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123133956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Opinion and Women’s Rights in Autocracies","authors":"Yuree Noh","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000514","url":null,"abstract":"Authoritarian regimes around the world have increasingly implemented policies and reforms to strengthen women’s rights, ranging from adopting gender quotas to penalizing gender-based violence. Recent literature highlights that authoritarian leaders are at the forefront of these initiatives, often aiming to strengthen their rule rather than advance women’s rights (e.g., Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2016; Bush and Zetterberg 2021; Donno, Fox, and Kaasik 2021). While we cannot ignore the contributions of grassroots activism in advancing gender equality (e.g., Kang and Tripp 2018; Krook 2009), authoritarian regimes, by nature, have less incentive to pay attention to popular demands. Thus, women’s rights reforms in autocracies tend to be top-down: initiated by the leadership, with a lack of citizen involvement in the design process. This essay considers how top-down gender reforms may be viewed by the public, and as a consequence, how the public’s perceptions of them may affect women’s status in the broader society.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133304492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender Equality and Authoritarian Regimes: New Directions for Research","authors":"S. Bush, Pär Zetterberg","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000460","url":null,"abstract":"There are competing global trends in terms of gender equality. International concern with gender inequality is significant. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000), and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (2015), among other instruments, pushed countries to increase women’s access to decision-making and basic rights such as education, paid labor, and health care. Yet more recently, there has been a “backlash” against progress in gender equality (Berry, Bouka, and Kamuru 2021; Chenoweth and Marks 2022; Piscopo and Walsh 2020; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018).","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123562639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"All Politics Is Local: Studying Women’s Representation in Local Politics in Authoritarian Regimes","authors":"C. Barnett, Marwa Shalaby","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000502","url":null,"abstract":"The past decade has witnessed a significant increase in women’s presence in local politics. According to the newly published United Nations (UN) Women in Local Government data set, women constitute 36% of local deliberative bodies worldwide compared to merely 25% in national parliaments.1 Much of this increase is the result of gender quotas: the Gender Quotas Database (International IDEA 2022) shows that as of 2021, 75 countries had some form of gender quota on the local level, 24 of which were authoritarian regimes. Yet, extant work on gender politics in authoritarian regimes tends to focus on the national level, given the highly centralized decision-making processes in such contexts. We contend that the study of women’s engagement and representation in local politics can help scholars better understand not only gender and politics, but also authoritarian politics more generally.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131802808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How African Autocracies Instrumentalize Women Leaders","authors":"A. Tripp","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000484","url":null,"abstract":"Although democratic countries historically have had stronger outcomes in advancing gender equality than other regime types, many authoritarian regimes in Africa have proved rather adept at adopting women’s rights provisions, making extensive constitutional and legislative reforms, and promoting women as leaders. These outcomes are particularly evident when it comes to women’s political representation, where one finds little difference between authoritarian and democratic regimes in Africa. This essay explores how authoritarian regimes in Africa came to promote women leaders and how the instrumentalization of women leaders served to enhance the longevity of their rule.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131456544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why Theorizing and Measuring Shared Experience in Descriptive Representation Is “A Mess Worth Making”","authors":"Christina Xydias","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000551","url":null,"abstract":"Jane Mansbridge’s (1999) “contingent ‘yes’” amplified a chorus of voices discussing the substantive and symbolic functions of historically marginalized groups’ presence in political office. In her essay, Mansbridge points to contexts of mistrust and uncrystallized interests as domains where presence enhances “adequate communication” and “innovative thinking” for these social groups (628). In this and many other accounts, the linchpin between descriptive and substantive representation for these functions is group members’ shared experiences, alternatively framed as the perspectives informed by those experiences. Shared experiences cannot and do not produce identical effects (they are filtered through many lenses), but they are widely understood to inform and indeed often to authenticate political representation.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"14 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127972620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Amanda Clayton, Diana Z. O’Brien, Jennifer M. Piscopo
{"title":"Exclusion by Design: Locating Power in Mansbridge’s Account of Descriptive Representation","authors":"Amanda Clayton, Diana Z. O’Brien, Jennifer M. Piscopo","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000605","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000605","url":null,"abstract":"A much-circulated image during the Donald Trump administration showed Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus discussing the removal of maternity coverage from the Affordable Care Act—with not a single woman or person of color among them. In another image, white men watched approvingly as Trump signed an executive order reinstating the global gag rule, which bans foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive American aid from supporting abortion access. These images contrast with one from early in Joe Biden’s presidency. In his first address to Congress, Biden was backed by two women occupying the second- and third-most-powerful positions in the country, Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, respectively. After acknowledging “Madame Speaker, Madame Vice President,” Biden said, “No president ever said those words and it is about time.”","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125065790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reevaluating the Contingent “Yes”: Essays on “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women?”","authors":"Suzanne Dovi, C. Wolbrecht","doi":"10.1017/s1743923x22000277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x22000277","url":null,"abstract":"Underlying almost every conversation about descriptive representation are questions about whether gender does and should always matter in politics. More specifically, those conversations rest on assumptions about whether political scientists should always evaluate the performance of political actors based on their membership in historically disadvantaged groups. How one answers that question can be problematic: A “yes” suggests that democratic citizens should evaluate the performance of members of historically disadvantaged groups using criteria (burdens?) beyond those used to evaluate members of privileged groups. A “ no ” seems to challenge the theoretical arguments for why the presence of historically disadvantaged groups is necessary. Admitting that not every woman in politics is a preferable descriptive representative for women seems to implicitly support having more men in politics and, thereby, the preferences that perpetuate male dominance in politics. Faced with such a quagmire of competing assumptions, those who study descriptive representation must balance concerns about essentializing women on one hand and reinforcing male dominance in politics on the other hand.","PeriodicalId":203979,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Gender","volume":"14 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123663385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}