Does it matter that working-class citizens are numerically underrepresented in political offices throughout the world? For decades, the conventional wisdom in comparative politics has been that it ...does not, that lawmakers from different classes think and behave roughly the same in office. In this article, we argue that this conclusion is misguided. Past research relied on inappropriate measures of officeholders' class backgrounds, attitudes, and choices. Using data on 18 Latin American legislatures, we show that lawmakers from different classes bring different economic attitudes to the legislative process. Using data on one least likely case, we also show that pre-voting decisions like sponsoring legislation often differ dramatically along social class lines, even when political parties control higher-visibility decisions like roll-call votes. The unequal numerical or descriptive representation of social classes in the world's legislatures has important consequences for the substantive representation of different class interests.
Across Africa, women’s political representation is twice as high in postconflict states as it is in non-conflict-afflicted states. Scholars have attributed gains to changing gender norms, ...international pressure, and local women’s movements. However, these factors do not explain variance in women’s representation across political parties. This article asks how the conflict legacies of political parties influence these trends, by analyzing patterns of women’s political representation in rebel groups that transition into political parties. The article argues that these parties have unique incentives to promote women’s representation. Novel data on women’s candidacy and electoral success at the party level in postconflict Africa from 1970 to 2020 are presented. Findings suggest that rebel parties run and elect significantly more women than other political parties. These results are consistent across contexts, including varying conflict outcomes. These findings are relevant to understanding women’s postconflict political representation and the role of women in rebel parties.
We combine two dominant approaches to studying how issues influence elections: one that emphasizes parties’ issue positions, and the other parties’ issue ownership. Research from the latter approach ...shows that voters ascribe greater economic competence to right-wing parties. Based on this finding, we argue that parties enhance their economic issue ownership when voters perceive them shifting to the right. In the following step, we show that perceived rightward shifts of parties also lead to subsequent increases in electoral support. We analyze economic ownership survey data and election outcomes in 15 democracies over the period 1986–2015 that supports the expectations that parties’ perceived rightward shifts result in increases in economic ownership and subsequent vote shares. We also show that the right-shift vote gains are strongest during recessions when voters prioritize parties’ economic competence.
This article reconceptualizes informal political representation to accommodate both conscripted and voluntary IPRs. An IPR’s desire to represent, intention to represent, or awareness that they ...represent may each play a role in helping us understand how an IPR came to be in their position and what their duties are once so positioned. Yet neither desire nor intention nor awareness is necessary for emerging as an IPR.
Ten countries have established quotas for female representation on publicly traded corporate and/or state-owned enterprise boards of directors, ranging from 33 to 50 %, with various sanctions. ...Fifteen other countries have introduced non-binding gender quotas in their corporate governance codes enforcing a "comply or explain" principle. Countless other countries' leaders and policy groups are in the process of debating, developing, and approving legislation around gender quotas in boards. Taken together, gender quota legislation significantly impacts the composition of boards of directors and thus the strategic direction of these publicly traded and state-owned enterprises. This article outlines an integrated model of three institutional factors that explain the establishment of board of directors gender quota legislation based on the premise that the country's institutional environment co-evolves with gender corporate policies. We argue that these three key institutional factors are female labor market and gendered welfare state provisions, left-leaning political government coalitions, and path-dependent policy initiatives for gender equality, both in the public realm as well as in the corporate domain. We discuss implications of our conceptual model and empirical findings for theory, practice, policy, and future research. These include the adoption and penalty design of board diversity practices into corporate practices, bottom-up approaches from firm to country-level gender board initiatives, hard versus soft regulation, the leading role of Norway and its isomorphic effects, the likelihood of engaging in decoupling, the role of business leaders, and the transnational and international reaction to board diversity initiatives.
Can representation in foreign policy deliberations – in particular, increased female representation – impact deliberators’ support for interstate conflict resolution? While existing work on gender ...representation in IR suggests that increased female representation should moderate intragroup hawkishness, making conflict resolution more viable, I offer empirical evidence that qualifies this idea, based on a survey experiment on 149 male and 55 female elite Pakistani legislators. Politicians of both sexes were randomly assigned to ‘listen in’ on a hypothetical national security deliberation that was either all-male or gender-mixed. I find that politicians’ decisionmaking in these hypothetical committees was informed simultaneously by notions of committee competence and by inferences about the social desirability of hawkish outcomes in deliberative settings. Specifically, respondents assigned to gender-mixed committees became less supportive of external conflict resolution. I show how different mechanisms accounted for this increased hawkishness for men and women. Female politicians assigned to gender-mixed committees became more conscious and wary of how their participation, the result of increased representation, would be perceived, compelling them to opt for more hawkish policies. Male politicians, in contrast, attempted to overcompensate for the increased visibility of female representation by resorting to greater levels of aggression.
In the wake of a shifting global landscape marked by a resurgence of authoritarianism, this article explores the challenges facing Western democracies. The euphoria of the post-1989 era has given way ...to self-doubt, with the rise of left- and right-wing populism a symptom and not a cause of the crisis. The lack of a cohesive vision for the future European society is identified as a major contributor to the current underperformance of Western democracies. Four key axes of development are outlined: societal cohesion, reinterpreting the concept of work, (re-)legitimising democratic political representation and unleashing new sources of value creation. The analysis delves into complex issues such as intergenerational justice, multi-ethnic integration and the re-evaluation of work, emphasising the need for a broader understanding of human existence. The article concludes by advocating for a renewed social vision, drawing on the historical insights of Christian Democratic thinking to navigate the challenges posed by the ongoing transformations in Western societies.
After conflict, many ex-combatant men experience the spoils of war as their rebel groups transition into political parties and elect former members to party seats. However, it is unclear whether ...these opportunities are reserved only for male ex-combatants. This article considers when and why voters might support former rebel women running for political office. It argues that the election of these women will depend on their roles within rebel groups, as well as their use of violence during conflict. The article presents a novel dataset on the election of former rebel women to rebel parties from 1970 to 2020. The results indicate that women’s roles as combatants and leaders in rebel groups are associated with higher levels of election for rebel women. In contrast, rebel women’s ties to violent tactics such as terrorism and sexual violence during war are associated with a lower level of election for rebel women after conflict. The interactions between rebel women’s roles and ties to violence are tested; the results suggested that, regardless of elite roles, rebel women’s electoral chances are hurt by extreme forms of violence, demonstrating the salience of the negative stigmas attached to violent women. The findings also demonstrate that while many former rebel women are marginalized after war, a select few experience political gains.
Ideas, Political Power and Public Policy Béland, Daniel; Carstensen, Martin B.; Seabrooke, Leonard
Journal of European public policy,
03/2016, Volume:
23, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Introduces a special issue of this journal focusing on a collection based on the task of investigating the relation between ideas and political power to develop clearer understandings of ideational ...power in policy research.
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