Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in Contemporary Western EuropeThis book provides systematic cross-national and case study evidence to show that political parties are the key mechanism for increasing women's parliamentary representation. Kittilson uncovers party-level mechanisms that explain the growth in women's parliamentary participation since the 1970s in ten European democracies. The inclusion of new challengers in party politics is often attributed to mounting pressures from activists and public opinion at large. This book contradicts the conventional wisdom by demonstrating that women's gains within parties flow not only from pressure from party supporters, but also from calculated efforts made by the central party leadership in a top-down fashion under specific circumstances. Certainly women's efforts are essential, and they can be most effective when they are framed, timed, and targeted toward the most opportune structures within the party hierarchy. Kittilson concludes that specific party institutions encourage women's ascendance to the top ranks of power within a political party. |
Contents
Women Parties and Political Power | 1 |
The Key to Womens Access | 18 |
Women in Party | 40 |
Rule Changes to Increase Womens Parliamentary | 50 |
Women Parties and the House of Commons | 67 |
Women Parties and the Bundestag | 85 |
Women Parties and the Eduskunta | 103 |
A Model for Change | 118 |
Implications for Party Theory | 129 |
Women and Parties Navigate in | 137 |
Appendix A List of Sources for Party Variables Used in the Study | 159 |
| 169 | |
| 183 | |
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Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in ... Miki Caul Kittilson No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
activists adopt quotas Alliance 90/The Greens Britain Bundestag candidate gender quotas central party chapter Clare Short constituency demands Eduskunta efforts election electoral rules electoral system elites Eurobarometer female Finland Finnish parties Finnish women gender gap German Green Party groups ideology increase women's Inter-Parliamentary Union internal quotas issues KESK Kolinsky Labour Party leftist parties Liberal Democrats Matland national executive committee nomination number of women opportunity structure party change party hierarchy party leaders party leadership party lists party officials party organization party politics party rules party structure party system party-level party’s percentage of women political parties positions pressure promote women candidates proportion of women role rule changes seats Social Democratic strategy Studlar tion variable voters Western Europe women in parliament women in party women MPs women’s gains women's movement women's organization women’s parliamentary presence women’s presence women’s representation women’s votes