Polish, and Slovak, Women in the European Parliament: an Analysis of the Results of the Election Held in May 2019

Abstract The objective of our paper is to analyse the political activity of Polish, and Slovak, women in EP elections; we aim to determine, among other things: whether gender quotas are a decisive factor for women’s electoral success, or do other factors result in an increase/decrease in the number of female candidates and the number of women MEPs? What are the particular characteristics of women representing Poland, and Slovakia, in the EP? What was their path to the EP? Which (conservative, liberal) parties are more willing to put women forward in EP elections? Poland introduced the so-called gender quotas into the electoral system, while Slovakia does not have such legal solutions in place. However, when comparing Slovakia to the situation in Poland, it can be stated that although there is a system of election quotas in Poland, its practical implementation may be purely theoretical. In percentage terms, the number of Slovak women elected to the European Parliament (except 2019) was significantly higher than in Poland, even though there is no quota system in the Slovak Republic. The success of Polish, and Slovak, women in the elections to the EP of the 9th term is the result of many factors, which include so-called electoral engineering (quotas, gender balance, first and second places on lists), electoral strategy of a party, but above all, political and social activity of the women themselves. We consider the last factor to be determinant in this respect.

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The Consequences of Quotas: Assessing the Effect of Varied Gender Quotas on Legislator Experience in the European Parliament

Politics & Gender ◽

10.1017/s1743923x19000291 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-30

Author(s):

Andrea S. Aldrich ◽

William T. Daniel

Keyword(s):

Party System ◽

Electoral System ◽

European Parliament ◽

Gender Quotas ◽

Electoral Institutions ◽

Female Representation ◽

Playing Field ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Political Experience ◽

Using Data

Abstract This article explores the consequences of quotas on the level of diversity observed in legislators’ professional and political experience. We examine how party system and electoral system features that are meant to favor female representation, such as gender quotas for candidate selection or placement mandates on electoral lists, affect the composition of legislatures by altering the mix of professional and political qualifications held by its members. Using data collected for all legislators initially seated to the current session of the European Parliament, one of the largest and most diverse democratically elected legislatures in the world, we find that quotas eliminate gendered differences in experience within the institution, particularly when used in conjunction with placement mandates that ensure female candidates are featured on electoral lists in viable positions. Electoral institutions can generally help to “level the playing field” between the backgrounds of men and women in elected office while increasing the presence of desirable qualities among European Parliament representatives of both genders.

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The Troublesome “Paradox of Gender Quotas”: A Few Methodological Notes on the Margin of an Article by Michael Jankowski and Kamil Marcinkiewicz

Politics & Gender ◽

10.1017/s1743923x19000011 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Maciej A. Górecki

Keyword(s):

Parytety i kwoty wyborcze a Konstytucja RP

Przegląd Politologiczny ◽

10.14746/pp.2011.16.2.7 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 67-78

Author(s):

Krzysztof URBANIAK

Keyword(s):

Public Life ◽

Electoral System ◽

Point Of View ◽

Political Life ◽

Female Representation ◽

Quota System ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Constitutional Tribunal ◽

The Subject ◽

Electoral Law

The issue of intensifying female participation in public life, and particularly in political life, has recently been the subject of lively discussions, in particular in the social sciences. The number of female candidates on the election ballots for representative organs is clearly insufficient in comparison to the size of the female electorate, as well as the abilities, skills and intellectual potential women occupy. This problem has also been widely discussed in Poland. As a result of these quite heated disputes and discussions, accompanied by an interesting exchange of views on the doctrine of electoral law, an instrument to increase female representation on election ballots (a quota system) was introduced into the Polish electoral system. The subject of this paper, however, is not the issue of the grounds or justification for the legal instruments applied, or an assessment of the activities of the state authorities or the institutions of public life in this respect. Rather, the paper analyzes the legal solutions introduced in Poland in order to increase the political participation of women from the point of view of their conformity with the regulations of the Constitution of the Polish Republic. For this purpose, the author refers both to the doctrine of constitutional law and the adjudications of the Constitutional Tribunal. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the ‘compensatory privilege’, introduced in law, is highly questionable in terms of its conformity with the Polish Constitution. In this light an amendment to the Constitution would be recommended, providing a constitu- tional status to the provisions on equality.

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Closing the Gap: Gender and Constituency Candidate Nomination in the 2013 Bundestag Election

German Politics & Society ◽

10.3167/gps.2014.320206 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 86-105 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Louise K. Davidson-Schmich

Keyword(s):

Electoral System ◽

Candidate Selection ◽

Gender Quotas ◽

Selection Rules ◽

Bundestag Elections ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Closing The Gap

Since the adoption of candidate gender quotas, women have always fared better in the “second” or PR tier of Bundestag elections than in the “first” or plurality tier, where quotas do not apply. This gap, however, has been closing. In the 2009 Bundestag election, 27 percent of the major parties' direct mandate candidates were women compared to almost 30 percent in 2013. All parties experienced an increase in the percentage of women among their nominees for direct mandates between 2009 and 2013. Why have the numbers of female candidates for the 299 directly elected Bundestag constituencies been increasing? This increase is puzzling because gender quotas have not been extended to this tier of the electoral system and candidate selection rules have not changed. This article explores five potential mechanisms that may be driving the observed rise in women nominated as constituency candidates. I argue that the main reasons for these increases lie in the advantages female incumbents incur, the openings presented when male incumbents retire, and the diffusion of female candidates across parties and neighboring Wahlkreise after one woman manages to win a direct mandate. I develop these conclusions by comparing candidate nominations and direct mandate winners in the 2009 and 2013 Bundestag elections.

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Quotas as Opportunities and Obstacles: Revisiting Gender Quotas in India

Politics & Gender ◽

10.1017/s1743923x19000722 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-25

Author(s):

Brian Turnbull

Keyword(s):

Empirical Research ◽

Women Politicians ◽

Political Representation ◽

Local Level ◽

Gender Quotas ◽

Theoretical Expectation ◽

Quota System ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Over Time ◽

Do So

Abstract This article addresses the empirical uncertainty regarding whether gender quotas establish a foundation of political representation and experience that encourages female candidates to compete against men. It updates and expands existing empirical research by contributing an analysis of the most recent electoral data across four municipal corporations in India over two election cycles. Critical questions on the theoretical expectation that gender quotas should encourage and enable women politicians to compete in open-gender contests over time are considered. The Indian quota system has not encouraged women to broadly compete outside the quota at the local level but has made some wards more likely to elect women. Parties also continue to resist nominating women outside the quota but are more likely to do so in wards previously represented by a woman. Finally, the unique overlap of gender and community quotas can discourage incumbency by essentially blocking incumbents from running again in their ward due to shifting community requirements.

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The impact of gender quotas on voting behaviour in 2016

The post-crisis Irish voter ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781526122643.003.0009 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 165-189

Author(s):

Gail McElroy

Keyword(s):

Electoral System ◽

Gender Quotas ◽

Women Candidates ◽

Female Candidates ◽

First Case ◽

Women In It ◽

Fianna Fail ◽

Dramatic Rise ◽

Irish Case ◽

The Impact

In 2016 Ireland joined over fifty countries worldwide in the adoption of candidate gender quotas, and it became the first case of a country doing so under the single transferable vote electoral system. Its impact was evident from the dramatic rise in the number of women candidates fielded in this election – 163, as compared to 86 in 2011. This chapter builds on previous research of the Irish case to assess whether the use of gender quotas had any impact on voters’ attitudes towards women candidates. The analyses of INES data in previous elections found no evidence of voter prejudice against female candidates. There could be reason to expect that might change in the light of gender quotas. The introduction of the quota in 2016 was a significant ‘shock’ to the system: parties were forced to find a large number of women candidates very quickly, so the recruitment pool was likely to have more ‘average’ women in it. Given this context, the chapter tests for true bias amongst the Irish electorate. The analysis reveals little evidence of this on the whole, apart from the slight exception of Fianna Fáil, whose supporters revealed some male bias. Apart from that partial exception, the findings generally are consistent with previous studies: what matters most is how well the candidate is known, and therefore it is incumbency that is the main factor, not the sex of the candidate.

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A Law on Paper Only: Electoral Rules, Parties, and the Persistent Underrepresentation of Women in Brazilian Legislatures

Politics & Gender ◽

10.1017/s1743923x16000179 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (03) ◽

pp. 415-442 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Kristin Wylie ◽

Pedro dos Santos

Keyword(s):

Political Representation ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Electoral System ◽

Gender Quotas ◽

Electoral Rules ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Party Strategies ◽

Underrepresentation Of Women ◽

Gender Quota ◽

State Legislative

This article advances a party-centric analysis of gender quotas in Brazil. We examine how parties mediate electoral rules, finding that neither the implementation of the Lei de Cotas (Quota Law) in 1995 nor its 2009 mini-reform was sufficient to induce significant change in party strategies for the nomination and election of women. Moreover, we find that while the open-list proportional representation electoral system is an important part of the explanation for the quota's failure to enhance women's representation, an analysis of how those electoral rules interact with decentralized party politics and women's absence from subnational party leadership structures yields superior explanatory power for understanding quota (non)compliance. We marshal extensive evidence on interparty variation in candidacies to Brazil's Chamber of Deputies and state legislative assemblies and interviews with candidates, party leaders, bureaucrats, and activists throughout Brazil to show how electoral rules and party dynamics interact to undermine the gender quota, resulting in a limited increase in the number of female candidates and stagnation in the number of women elected. We conclude that reform efforts must target not only electoral rules but also the subnational party structures that mediate these rules if they are to enhance women's political representation.

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Female Candidates, Islamic Women’s Organisations, and Clientelism in the 2019 Indonesian Elections

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs ◽

10.1177/1868103420988729 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 73-92

Author(s):

Muhammad Mahsun ◽

Misbah Zulfa Elizabeth ◽

Solkhah Mufrikhah

Keyword(s):

Structural Barriers ◽

Women Candidates ◽

Electoral Success ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Central Java ◽

Grassroots Support ◽

Nahdlatul Ulama ◽

And Gender ◽

Women's Networks

This article analyses the factors leading to the success of women candidates in the 2019 elections in Central Java. Recent scholarship on women’s representation in Indonesia has highlighted the role that dynastic ties and relationships with local political elites play in getting women elected in an environment increasingly dominated by money politics and clientelism. Our case study of women candidates in Central Java belonging to the elite of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)-affiliated women’s religious organisations Muslimat and Fatayat shows that strong women candidates with grassroots support can nonetheless win office. Using the concepts of social capital and gender issue ownership, and clientelism, we argue that women candidates can gain a strategic advantage when they “run as women.” By harnessing women’s networks and focusing on gender issues to target women voters, they are able to overcome cultural, institutional, and structural barriers to achieve electoral success even though they lack resources and political connections.

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Political Dynasties and Women Candidates in Indonesia’s 2019 Election

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs ◽

10.1177/1868103421991144 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 28-49

Author(s):

Sri Budi Eko Wardani ◽

Valina Singka Subekti

Keyword(s):

Gender Bias ◽

Electoral System ◽

Regional Government ◽

Local Power ◽

Detailed Data ◽

Power Structures ◽

Women Candidates ◽

Female Candidates ◽

Political Networks ◽

Political Success

In this article, we provide evidence suggesting that almost half (44 per cent) of female candidates elected to Indonesia’s national parliament in 2019 were members of political dynasties. Providing detailed data on the backgrounds of these candidates, including by party and region, we argue that several factors have contributed to their rise. Parties are increasingly motivated – especially in the context of a 4 per cent parliamentary threshold – to nominate candidates who can boost their party’s fortune by attracting a big personal vote. Members of political dynasties (especially those related to regional government heads and other politicians entrenched in local power structures) have access to financial resources and local political networks – increasingly important to political success in Indonesia’s clientelistic electoral system. We show that the rise of these dynastic women candidates is not eliminating gender bias within parties, but is instead marginalising many qualified female party candidates, including incumbents.

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Local Candidates, Place-Based Identities, and Electoral Success

Political Behavior ◽

10.1007/s11109-021-09712-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Julia Schulte-Cloos ◽

Paul C. Bauer

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Local Community ◽

Unique Feature ◽

Causal Effect ◽

Large Body ◽

Electoral System ◽

Local Communities ◽

The Political ◽

Electoral Success ◽

Matching Strategy

AbstractWhile a large body of literature empirically documents an electoral advantage for local candidates, the exact mechanisms accounting for this effect remain less clear. We integrate theories on the political geography of candidate-voter relations with socio-psychological accounts of citizens’ local attachment, arguing that citizens vote for candidates from their own local communities as an expression of their place-based identity. To test our argument, we exploit a unique feature of the German mixed-member electoral system. We identify the causal effect of candidates’ localness by relying on within-electoral-district variation coupled with a geo-matching strategy on the level of municipalities ($$\hbox {N}=11175$$ N = 11175 ). The results show that voters exhibit a strong bias in favor of local candidates even when they are not competitive. More than only expecting particularistic benefits from representatives, citizens appear to vote for candidates from their own local community to express their place-based social identity.

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