Gendered Institutions and Women s Substantive Representation: Female Legislators in Argentina and Chile

Gendered Institutions and Women’s Substantive Representation: Female Legislators in Argentina and Chile Susan Franceschet Department of Political Sci...
Author: Florence Murphy
52 downloads 0 Views 124KB Size
Gendered Institutions and Women’s Substantive Representation: Female Legislators in Argentina and Chile

Susan Franceschet Department of Political Science University of Calgary Canada sfrances@,ucalgary.ca

Paper Prepared for the ECPR Joint Sessions Rennes, April 11-16th, 2008

Workshop: Gender, Politics, and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?

This paper is a work in progress. Please do not cite without the author’s permission.

1 Gendered Institutions and Women’s Substantive Representation: female legislators in Argentina and Chile

Women have been making steady gains worldwide in terms of their access to elected office. While many students of gender and politics continue to debate the factors that shape women’s participation in electoral politics, many more are turning their attention to the impact that women are having on the legislative process and on legislative outcomes that advance women’s rights. Do female legislators “act for” women by introducing women-friendly initiatives? If so, do their efforts succeed? Existing scholarship on the link between women’s descriptive representation (women’s presence in legislatures) and women’s substantive representation (the promotion of women’s interests) has generally explored three types of factors thought to influence the relationship between women’s presence and its consequences: the proportion of women (“critical mass”); individual factors (such as party membership and “feminist” attitudes); and contextual factors (for example, whether a Left party is in government and whether there is a strong feminist movement and/or supportive public opinion). Surprisingly, few scholars have turned to institutionalist theories in political science to inform their research on women’s legislative impact. My goal in this paper, therefore, is to fill a gap in the literature on women’s substantive representation by drawing on one strand of institutionalist theory, historical institutionalism, to develop a conceptual framework for studying the link between women’s presence and its consequences for the promotion of women’s interests. I then explore the usefulness of the framework with (some very preliminary) evidence from the contrasting case studies of Argentina and Chile.

2 Studying women’s substantive representation

Over the last few decades, a vast literature has emerged that explores both the attitudes and actions of female office-holders. Some of this research is guided by the explicit goal of uncovering whether women in politics promote women’s interests or contribute to women’s substantive representation. Other researchers ask whether female legislators differ from their male counterparts in terms of their attitudes or their legislative activity. Yet even researchers who seek merely to uncover sex differences frequently infer that if men and women display different attitudes or behaviours, then this is an indication of women’s substantive representation. In other words, studies that find that legislator sex is a predictor of different attitudes or legislative priorities often take these differences as evidence that women’s substantive representation is enhanced by the presence of female office-holders (Schwindt-Bayer 2006). Alternatively, researchers who find little sex-related difference in attitudes conclude that electing more women will likely not have an impact on women’s substantive representation (Htun and Power 2006; Tremblay 1998). The conflation of sex-based differences among legislators and women’s substantive representation is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the concept of women’s substantive representation is inherently complex and impervious to straightforward definition. 1 Thus, taking sex differences as an indicator of substantive representation will yield a very partial and incomplete picture of something much broader and multi-faceted. Moreover, even when narrowing the focus to one site of

1

Many of the theoretical debates about women’s substantive representation have revolved around questions of essentialization and reification of “women” as a category and whether it is even possible to talk about “women’s interests” given the heterogeneity of women as a group. Due to space constraints, I do not delve into these debates in this paper. My own view, however, is that the concept of “women’s interests” remains useful so long as it is understood that the content of women’s interests is shifting, contextual, and open to democratic dialogue, rather than static and essential.

3 representation—the legislature—women’s substantive representation occurs at multiple stages of the legislative process. Women’s interests are promoted when legislators introduce women’s rights bills, when they try to mobilize support for these bills (either behind-the-scenes or publicly in committee and chamber debates), and when women’s rights laws are adopted. Women’s substantive representation can thus be conceived as both process and outcome (see Franceschet and Piscopo, forthcoming). Much of the existing literature, however, focuses on either the legislative process or policy outcomes while drawing conclusions about women’s substantive representation as a whole. Studies that focus on process, in particular those that compare the role of men and women in initiating women’s rights bills, tend to find that female legislators are more likely than their male colleagues to take action (Jones 1997; Reingold 1992; Schwindt-Bayer 2006; Swers 2002; Tamerius 1995; Taylor-Robinson and Heath 2003; Wolbrecht 2002; Bratton 2005). But while these studies show that women’s presence in legislatures influences the legislative agenda, they often tell us little about legislative outcomes. Without looking at the outcomes of women’s actions we miss out on a fuller account of the ways in which legislative institutions are gendered and how the gendered dynamics within legislative institutions affects different aspects of women’s substantive representation. This is important because research that focuses on legislative outcomes, whether defined as women’s empowerment within legislative bodies or the adoption of women’s rights laws, tends to be more pessimistic about the kind of difference that women make (Goetz 2003; Marx, Borner and Caminotti 2007; Piscopo 2006; Vincent 2004). Researchers focusing on outcomes frequently find that even when the proportion of women in the legislature grows, there are few significant changes to political norms and behaviours that undermine women’s empowerment (e.g., male-defined standards of conduct continue to predominate), and policy outcomes are

4 rarely transformed in a significant way. However, studies that explore both women’s actions (bill introduction) and their consequences (the adoption of women’s rights laws) demonstrate that the two aspects of women’s substantive representation can occur separately. For example, Franceschet and Piscopo (forthcoming) show that women can effect fairly dramatic transformations of the legislative agenda without a similar transformation of legislative outcomes. Similarly, Sarah Childs usefully distinguishes between the “feminization of the political agenda (where women’s concerns and perspectives are articulated) and a feminization of legislation (where output has been transformed)” (Childs 2006, 9). While the first problem derives from the fact that some researchers collapse what are in fact two separate dependent variables into one, the second problem is that scholars use different measurements or proxy variables for women’s substantive representation. Scholars have variously measured substantive representation through surveys of legislator attitudes or preferences (Htun and Power 2006; Schwindt-Bayer 2006; Tremblay and Pelletier 2000; Wängerud 2005), through bill introduction (Jones 1997; Swers 2005; Taylor-Robinson and Heath 2003), or through voting records (Vega and Firestone 1995). Again, this is problematic because it assumes that a multi-faceted concept such as women’s substantive representation can be measured by a single indicator. But this approach makes a further assumption that is highly problematic: it assumes that there is an automatic relationship among attitudes, legislator activity, and legislative outcomes. In reality, any relationship among attitudes, activity, and outcomes is highly contingent rather than automatic. Legislators, whether male or female, may hold favourable attitudes toward women’s rights and may prioritize gender issues. But they will not always act on these attitudes by introducing or supporting women’s rights bills (Childs 2004). Even when attitudes are translated into action, these actions do not always succeed

5 (Franceschet and Piscopo forthcoming). Although research that looks at just one stage of the process will yield a more decisive answer about whether women’s substantive representation is occurring, that answer will likely be incomplete. Women’s interests may be promoted at the process stage yet if the legislative initiatives fail, then women’s substantive representation as outcome is not occurring. Hence, women’s substantive representation is better conceived as a multi-faceted and dynamic process that includes both legislative activity2 (process) and outcome (laws adopted). 3 A conceptual framework that distinguishes between the process and outcome stages of women’s substantive representation has at least two advantages. First, it allows for a more precise analysis of women’s roles in promoting women’s substantive representation. Although existing studies that focus on process (e.g., bill introduction or participation in chamber and committee debates) are explicitly interested in whether women make a difference in women’s substantive representation, studies that look at outcomes—especially policy outcomes—may be missing out on the role that women play in bringing about these outcomes. This is particularly the case for quantitative studies that seek correlations among women’s descriptive representation and the existence of specific policy outcomes across a large number of cases. In brief, a focus on both process and outcomes allows researchers to be more precise in studying the role of female legislators in women’s substantive representation, and, as such, gain a firmer grasp of the gender dynamics in legislatures that either facilitate or obstruct women’s substantive representation. Distinguishing between process and outcome will also draw researchers’ attention to a broader array of independent variables that affect women’s substantive representation. Much of 2

This can include a number of things such as bill introduction, behind-the-scenes lobbying to generate support for a bill, communication and sharing information with women’s organizations in civil society, and speaking out in support of gender issues in committees and parliamentary debates. 3 The distinction between substantive representation as process and outcome is drawn from Franceschet and Piscopo (forthcoming).

6 the existing research has looked at individual-level variables, e.g., feminist orientation and party affiliation, and, not surprisingly, has found that feminist attitudes are correlated with “acting for” women, and that membership in a Left party is also correlated with feminist attitudes and activism on behalf of women (Htun and Power 2006; Tremblay and Pelletier 2000; Vega and Firestone 1995). Other scholars have looked at “critical mass” (the proportion of women in a legislative body) as an independent variable that affects both process and outcome. Studies have assessed whether higher proportions of women increase legislative activity on behalf of women (Grey 2002), and also whether the increased descriptive representation of women produces more gender-friendly outcomes (Bratton and Ray 2002). Partly because this latter group of studies has produced such divergent findings, critical mass theories have come under increased scrutiny in recent years. There seems to be an emerging consensus that a focus on numbers alone is problematic (Beckwith 2007; Childs and Krook 2006; Dahlerup 2006; Trimble 2006). Other scholars have expanded the research agenda beyond a focus on the individual characteristics of legislators (such as party membership or identification with feminism) or on the proportion of women in legislatures. These scholars have investigated the impact of other contextual factors such as party discipline and other partisan dynamics, women’s seniority or status in the legislature (for example, committee leadership positions), and the influence of women’s movements and public opinion (Beckwith and Cowell-Meyers 2007; Dodson 2006; Reingold 2000; Swers 2002). While these and other similar studies expand the research focus thereby permitting a more multi-faceted understanding of how and why women’s substantive representation occurs, none draws specifically on institutionalist theories of politics to analyze women’s substantive representation. Moreover, with the exception of Karen Beckwith and Kimberly Cowell-Meyers’ (2007) work, none uses cross-national comparisons. The lack of an

7 explicitly comparative and institutionalist focus limits the conclusions we can draw, and also reduces these studies’ usefulness in developing a broader conceptual framework for analyzing how gendered institutions shape women’s substantive representation. In the next section, I discuss the advantages of an historical institutionalist approach for investigating women’s substantive representation.

Gender and Historical Institutionalism

Institutions are “relatively enduring collection[s] of rules and organized practices” that are “embedded in structures of meaning and resources” (March 2005, 1). One of the strengths of historical institutionalism is that it includes both formal organizations as well as the “informal rules and procedures that structure conduct” in its definition of institutions (Thelen and Steinmo 1992, 4). A useful way of distinguishing formal from informal institutions is that the latter are “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels” (Helmke and Levitsky 2006, 5) Incorporating a focus on informal institutions is crucial if we want to uncover the gendered dynamics inherent in legislative politics. This is because many of the norms that render parliaments unequal playing fields for women are informal. For example, the preference for an aggressive or combative style in committee or plenary debates can disadvantage women who opt for a more consensual style. In parliamentary systems, where an adversarial style is considered necessary (because the parliamentary opposition is one of the few checks on power where executive and legislative power is fused), then women’s softer voices can be literally drowned out in the debates. Another informal norm concerns the timing (and often the location) of political meetings and strategy

8 sessions. In many cases, meetings are held in the evenings, which gives rise to conflicting pressures for women, especially in countries where women’s motherhood roles are strongly valued. In these cases, women face a serious conflict because attending political meetings makes them appear more committed to the party, but simultaneously less committed to their families (Franceschet and Piscopo, forthcoming). In most countries, male politicians are not subject to these conflicting roles. What is important here is that the informal nature of these norms makes them even more resistant to change. Informal as opposed to formal norms are unwritten and are not sanctioned through official channels. Instead, failure to comply with informal norms leads to social disapproval. For female legislators, this disapproval can take the form of not being renominated or not being rewarded with desirable committee posts. In sum, the informal institutions that structure politics can constrain women’s abilities to gain sufficient political influence such that the actions they take on behalf of women (for example, introducing women’s rights bills) have a greater chance of succeeding. To put it more precisely, informal institutions may reduce women’s power in legislatures. Using the definitions of institutions outlined above, the institutions that structure the legislative environment and influence both legislator behaviour and policy outcomes include such things as electoral rules, party systems, candidate nomination procedures, executivelegislative relations (especially the formal rules that define the authority and scope of action of each branch), committee rules, and party discipline. Also included are the more informal norms about representative-constituent relations and internal party dynamics (for example, how parties distribute committee assignments among their legislative caucuses and how participation in floor debates is allocated).

9 In defining institutions broadly and placing them in their historical context, historical institutionalism (HI) has much to offer scholars of women’s substantive representation. More specifically, there are four aspects of HI that make it amenable to studying women’s substantive representation: (1) problematization of preference formation; (2) a focus on the power asymmetries embedded in institutions; (3) a focus on ideas; and (4) research methods that are more contextually sensitive. First, unlike much of the existing political science literature (and indeed, much of the literature on women’s substantive representation), HI scholars do not take preference formation as unproblematic or automatically given by one’s social location or economic position. Instead, historical institutionalists seek to understand how institutions influence the preferences that individuals come to hold (and possibly express politically). Institutions shape preferences because they embody a society’s norms and values. That is, the organizational and operational rules of political institutions reflect the political values held by the society in which they exist (or at least the dominant elite sectors of society who played a role in constructing those institutions). For example, a political system with extensive checks and balances is at least partly a response to a society’s concerns about the concentration of power. On the other hand, where formal rules give political actors (such as executives) extensive prerogatives and powers, it might indicate a society that values strong and decisive leadership. 4 Likewise, the very names given to institutions express the norms and values that they embody. For example, in recent years most Latin American countries have created parliamentary standing committees to address gender issues. But it surely matters for the roles and perceived obligations of those serving on these committees whether the committee is called a

4

Of course, because HI views institutions as historical creations, the organizational rules also reflect the outcome of conflict and power struggles. I discuss this aspect of institutions later on in the paper.

10 “Family Committee” (as in Chile) or the “Equity and Gender Committee” (Mexico). In the former case, the very name of the committee reminds its members of the importance of the family, indicating that women’s rights ought to be consistent with that society’s valuing of the family. In the second case, committee members are serving on a committee that is more explicitly geared toward equity promotion, thus, not constraining the preferences that can be legitimately expressed on the committee to those consistent with a traditional view of the family. In this way, institutions “affect the very identities, self-images, and preferences of the actors” (Hall and Taylor 1996, 939). Because institutions embody norms and values, the process of preference formation for individuals who occupy institutions will undoubtedly be influenced by those norms. More specifically, institutional rules and norms define what it means to be a member of a particular institution, for example, a parliamentarian, a judge, or a bureaucrat. These norms, in turn, define appropriate conduct for individuals in different parts of the state (and in society). For historical institutionalists, what is most important is that the meanings inscribed in particular institutions are always contextual, and therefore what it means to be a legislator differs not only crossnationally, but also across time. Institutions are not static, they are themselves subject to change brought about by new processes and actors’ collective responses to them. Indeed, having parliamentary committees dealing with gender issues is a recent development. The very creation of these committees signals that these issues have been accorded a legitimacy that had been denied in earlier historical periods. In addition to a concern with preference formation, historical institutionalists are also interested in how preferences are translated into action (or inaction) and how political outcomes are derived from these actions. Thus, an HI approach provides the causal links that are missing

11 in much of the existing scholarship on women’s substantive representation, while also drawing attention to substantive representation as a multi-faceted and dynamic process that cannot be equated with a single indicator. As noted in the previous section, much of the existing literature on women’s substantive representation assumes that there is a relationship between legislator attitudes and substantive representation. HI, on the other hand, does not assume an automatic relationship between preferences and actions. Instead, it seeks to uncover the ways that institutions mediate the relationship between individual attitudes and actions. According to Ellen Immergut, “institutionalist theory aims to expose and analyze the discrepancy between ‘potential’ interests and those that are expressed in political behaviour” (1998, 7). There are a number of ways in which legislative institutions can encourage or discourage the articulation of perspectives that advance women’s rights. The existence of formal or informal women’s caucuses can create space for female legislators to work together to promote issues of concern to women (Archenti and Johnson 2006; Marx, Borner and Caminotti 2007). As noted earlier, parliamentary committees on gender equality can encourage legislators to evaluate bills that come before the committee using equity standards. The level of legislator activity (i.e., the number of individual bills they introduce) is also shaped by institutional factors, namely, the human and technical resources provided to legislators by the institution. In cases where governments or political parties provide legislators with resources to hire highly skilled assistants (to research and compose legislative initiatives), then individual legislators can introduce a greater quantity of bills than in places where legislators do not have the resources to hire legislative assistants. Thus, where legislators have access to resources, they can introduce bills in a large array of areas, rather than focusing on just a few priority areas. This increases the potential for action on gender issues. On the other hand, where resources are lacking, legislators

12 may be forced to prioritize initiatives that have a greater chance of success, or that will accord them more prestige. Thus, whether legislators need to carefully prioritize the areas in which they will taken action surely influences women’s decisions to introduce bills that deal with women’s rights and equality. Using HI as an approach to studying women’s substantive representation thereby overcomes one of the weaknesses in much of the literature on substantive representation, namely, that much of it is overly voluntarist. Many existing studies of women in legislatures lead to the conclusion that if female legislators do not “act for” women, it is because they don’t hold feminist attitudes or simply do not prioritize women’s rights policies. Research along these lines fails to consider the ways in which individual action does not spring directly from attitudes and preferences but instead, “individuals turn to established routines or familiar patterns of behaviour to attain their purposes” (Hall and Taylor 1996, 939). Prevailing norms and patterns of behaviour can provide either opportunities or obstacles to the promotion of gender issues. The environment may be one in which party leaders determine the policy agenda and exercise strict control over the activities of legislators. Elsewhere, there may be fewer constraints on female legislators to develop their legislative priorities autonomously. Thus, in order to explain the kind of actions female legislators take on behalf of women, we need to explore the rules and norms that structure their environment and provide incentives or disincentives for such actions. Even when female legislators engage in actions that promote women’s rights, the institutional context also mediates the translation of these actions into political outcomes. According to Sven Steinmo, “rules affect political outcomes because they define who participates in a political choice” (forthcoming, 18). This is why research that takes bill introduction alone as an indicator of women’s substantive representation is problematic. A fuller

13 understanding of whether women’s substantive representation is occurring demands an account of what happens to legislative initiatives that promote women’s rights. Under what conditions to they succeed? Do they fail at the same rate as other legislative initiatives? In answering these questions, HI is useful because of its emphasis on the way that institutions distribute power. More specifically, historical institutionalists are concerned with the power asymmetries embodied in and reinforced by political institutions. For HI, institutions are not neutral, but instead, mobilize bias in ways that make certain outcomes more or less likely (Hall and Taylor 1996; Immergut 1998; Thelen and Steinmo 1992). As historical creations, institutions embody a particular set of power relations present at the time of their creation. In this way, institutions “structure politics,” thereby privileging the expression of certain interests over others (Thelen and Steinmo 1992). Here, HI converges with feminist analysis, for example, the work of Joan Acker who defines “gendered institutions” as those in which “gender is present in the processes, practices, images and ideologies, and distribution of power” (1992, 567). Political institutions were created by men and have also been “symbolically interpreted from the standpoint of men in leading positions” (Acker 1992). The fact that legislative institutions were created by men and are mostly dominated by men has important implications for women’s substantive representation. The hierarchies and power relations in political institutions are those that privilege male-defined interests and priorities. The most prestigious and influential legislative committees, for example, correspond to those policy areas that have been defined as most relevant to the national interest, such as finance, foreign affairs, industry and natural resources. As Lyn Kathlene notes, men’s dominance of these committees “reinforces the given that these are the power committees” (1995, 168). Consequently, women seeking to advance their political careers will focus on those

14 policy issues and seek access to positions on those committees, rather than focus on policy areas more narrowly defined as “women’s issues.” 5 Note that this is another example of how institutions shape individual preferences. The hierarchy of policy issues, where women’s issues are considered of less national or strategic importance, makes it less likely that female legislators seeking to advance their political career will express a preference for working in these areas. On the other hand, the common assumption that the “soft” policy areas, such as education and welfare, are of greater interest to women has meant that female legislators are often placed on these kinds of legislative committees by male party bosses (Heath, Schwindt-Bayer and TaylorRobinson 2005). There is another way in which the policy divisions and legislative specializations that have developed in modern legislatures constrain the substantive representation of women. Most of the policy specializations are those relating to the economy, internal and external security, or social welfare. But many of the issues relating to women’s rights and equality, for example, violence against women or equality in the workforce, are difficult to address as singular policy issues. This complicates the trajectory of legislative initiatives on these issues. Often gender issue bills are sent to multiple committees which has the effect of increasing the veto points for these types of bills. Thus, institutional bias is expressed in the organizational rules that structure legislative institutions. These rules shape the opportunities and constraints for successful women’s rights initiatives by determining the number of veto points and the thresholds needed for success. For example, it is sometimes the case that certain women’s rights initiatives (for example, candidate gender quotas or some equality provisions) require a change to that country’s

5

This is not meant to imply that gender interests cannot be expressed in foreign affairs or finance. Indeed, these areas have important implications for gender relations. But even within these policy domains, the gendered aspects tend to be accorded less attention, particularly because they are defined as areas of “national” interest and therefore less amenable to the advancement of particularistic or group-based claims.

15 constitution. In such cases, the threshold for success is likely much higher, because constitutional change usually requires more than simple majority support in parliament. In federal countries, constitutional change normally requires the consent of the subnational units, a factor that can erect additional obstacles to women’s rights legislative initiatives. 6 Gendered power relations are also expressed in legislative institutions through male dominance of leadership positions on legislative committees. This makes it more difficult for women who do prioritize women’s rights initiatives to move their bills successfully through the committee process (Norton 1995). Women are also under-represented in other leadership positions in legislative institutions, which means that they seldom exert much influence over setting the legislative agenda. This is one of the factors that slows down the progress of women’s rights initiatives. Hence, this is another way that gendered power relations entrenched in political institutions can undermine the link between the presence of women in politics and women’s substantive representation. The third feature of historical institutionalism that makes it useful for an exploration of women’s substantive representation is its focus on ideas. Ideas have important “framing effects” that shape the policy debates in a particular context (Steinmo, forthcoming). For example, existing ideas about appropriate gender roles and existing ideas about equality, particularly societal norms about the appropriate state role in promoting equality, will shape the way policy issues are framed by both supporters and detractors. In other words, the ability to generate broader support for a particular policy initiative, say, publicly funded child care, is in large part determined by pre-existing ideas and norms about the appropriate role for women with small

6

In a number of Latin American countries, legislative initiatives have been introduced (and adopted in some cases) that add “right to life” provisions to the constitution, thereby substantially increasing the level of support needed to decriminalize abortion. This is an example of how institutional rules create obstacles to particular women’s rights policies.

16 children and the appropriate role for the state in family policy. Where norms of individualism and self-sufficiency predominate, it will be harder for legislators to generate support for initiatives for a strong state role in providing child care. This is clearly one of the reasons for the absence of publicly provided child care in Canada and the United States. Likewise, the predominance of norms in Latin American societies that valorize the family and women’s motherhood roles partly accounts for the difficulty confronted by advocates of reproductive rights. On the other hand, ideas can also serve as powerful mobilizing forces (Sanders 2006). The global diffusion of norms around violence against women legitimized the efforts of women’s movements and their parliamentary allies to achieve comprehensive domestic violence laws (Hawkins and Hume 1998). The adoption of domestic violence laws in Latin America had more to do with emerging norms and ideas about state obligations to address violence against women than the increased presence of women in congress. Likewise, emerging global norms about the importance of equality in political representation have made it somewhat easier for female legislators to mobilize domestic support for gender quota legislation, although this norm remains more contested than norms concerning violence against women (Krook 2005). The final advantage of HI for analyzing women’s substantive representation is its emphasis on contextualized and historical methods and its more complex view of causality. According to Sven Steinmo, “rather than treating all political action as if fundamentally the same irrespective of time, place, or context, historical institutionalists explicitly and intentionally attempt to situate their variables in the appropriate context” (forthcoming, 11). This has at least two implications for studying women’s substantive representation. First, it means that the search for correlates of substantive representation that would hold across time and place ought to be

17 abandoned. Taking pre-defined indicators, especially specific policy initiatives or outcomes such as the existence of reproductive rights, public child care, or anti-discrimination laws, as indicators of women’s substantive representation overlooks the extent to which the historical and political context in each country shapes what substantive representation means for women in that country at that point in time. This does not make cross-national comparisons unworkable. Indeed, it is only through cross-national comparison that we come to appreciate the importance of different institutional factors that affect women’s actions and their outcomes. What it does mean is that we must avoid pre-defining the content of those actions and outcomes. In other words, comparisons must be fully contextualized and grounded in the empirical realities of each case. Second, an historical institutionalist approach to women’s substantive representation would also abandon the quest for a general theory, and instead search for the “complex configurations of factors” that have some causal significance for women’s substantive representation (Immergut 1998, 19). This allows for women’s substantive representation to be conceived as a dynamic concept, involving both procedural and substantive aspects (i.e., agendasetting and policy outcomes). Studying it this way would produce more “dense empirical descriptions” of how the institutional context produces certain preferences among female legislators, encourages their articulation, and generates particular outcomes. In this way, researchers would focus on “telling a story” about the factors that produce (or inhibit) women’s substantive representation in a particular context. To summarize, an historical institutionalist framework for studying women’s substantive representation would include an investigation of: 1) the formal and informal organizational rules in legislative bodies and the ways in which gendered power relations are reflected (and

18 reinforced) by these rules; 2) the role of ideas and norms (both in their institutional expressions and as a mobilizing force for facilitating certain actions and outcomes); and 3) a dynamic and comparative approach, where women’s actions and their outcomes are rooted in the historical legacies of an existing institutional context. Moreover, these factors would be connected to an investigation of what female legislators do (substantive representation as process) and also the outcomes of these actions, thereby permitting a more complete understanding of women’s substantive representation.

Legislative institutions and women’s substantive representation in Argentina and Chile

In this section, I offer a few preliminary examples of how an historical institutionalist framework can shed light on aspects of women’s legislative behaviour and policy outcomes in Argentina and Chile. These two cases offer interesting contrasts. In 1991, Argentina was the first country in the world to adopt a gender quota law. The “Ley de Cupos” requires parties to include a minimum of 30 percent female candidates (and in electable spots) on all candidate lists (Chama 2001). The law has been very effective in increasing women’s descriptive representation. Between 1993 and 2005, women’s share of seats in the lower house increased from five to 36 percent. When a reform of senate electoral rules led to quotas also being applied to senate elections, women’s presence rose to over 35 percent in that body as well. In Chile, where a quota law has not been adopted, women’s representation remains low. 7 Women won 5.2 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies in the country’s first post-dictatorship elections (1989)

7

The main reason for women’s under-representation in politics is not the lack of a quota law, but rather an electoral system that sets up very high barriers to women’s entry (Franceschet 2008).

19 and that figure has risen to 15 percent in 2006. In the senate, women’s share of seats has ranged from three to five percent (Franceschet 2008). Numerical differences are not sufficient to explain differences in legislator behaviour or legislative outcomes, however. Despite their low numbers, female legislators in Chile have been fairly active on many women’s rights issues, and some of Chile’s gender policies are actually more progressive than Argentina’s. For example, while both countries adopted (fairly weak and ineffective) domestic violence laws in 1994, Chile reformed its law in 2005 in such a way that improves women’s protection from abusive spouses and increases sanctions for violence. This contrasting outcome does not mean that female legislators in Argentina care less about violence against women. Indeed, there have been over one hundred legislative initiatives on violence against women since 1991, and over 60 percent of these were introduced by female legislators (Franceschet and Piscopo, forthcoming). The explanation for success in reforming the domestic violence law in Chile and the failure in Argentina has more to do with executive-legislative relations in the two countries and the existence of a relatively influential executive agency charged with promoting women’s rights in Chile (Franceschet 2007). Another important difference between the two countries is that female legislators in Argentina are far more active in certain women’s rights areas, for example, reproductive rights, than their Chilean counterparts. The explanation for this, however, is not to be found in mere numbers (i.e., in the fact that Argentina has a substantially larger proportion of female legislators), but rather, in the informal rules and norms that govern the political process. One of the most deeply entrenched informal institutions governing the Chilean political process since the return of democracy in 1990 is the norm of consensus-seeking and conflict avoidance (Siavelis 2006; Weeks and Borzutzky, forthcoming). This produces a substantial degree of self-

20 censorship whereby even female legislators with well-known feminist views avoid introducing bills on conflictual issues. In a context where abortion is highly controversial (among both elites and the general public), few congresswomen have taken up the issue of decriminalizing abortion. 8 The avoidance of policy initiatives on abortion was entrenched after a female legislator, Adriana Muñoz from the Socialist Party, introduced a bill to de-criminalize therapeutic abortion in 1991. She was vilified in the press and by conservative legislators (Blofield 2006). She also failed to win immediate re-election (although she did go on to win subsequent elections). The intensely negative reaction experienced by Muñoz has reinforced the norm of self-censorship among feminist legislators, none of whom have associated themselves with explicitly pro-choice positions on abortion. In Argentina, in contrast, the norms of politics do not include an emphasis on consensusseeking or conflict avoidance. Indeed, political leaders (especially presidents) often act in a unilateral fashion and it is not uncommon for legislators to put forward initiatives that are controversial or potentially divisive. In this context, women are far more active on abortion than in Chile, even though Argentina already has a more liberal law, permitting legal access to abortion where a mother’s life is in danger, and where the pregnancy is the result of the rape of a mentally handicapped woman. In Argentina, there have been 37 bills introduced to liberalize the abortion law since 2000. Women introduced 76 percent of these bills (Franceschet and Piscopo, forthcoming). In Chile, there have been only six initiatives to expand reproductive rights in that same time period (and only two of these bills can be considered explicit attempts to liberalize the

8

Under Chilean law abortion is illegal in all instances. While therapeutic abortion had been legal prior to 1989, the Pinochet dictatorship, as one of its final acts, re-criminalized abortion in all instances, including danger to the mother’s life.

21 abortion law). 9 These bills carry 26 signatures in total 10 with women’s signatures representing 38 percent of the total. The difference in female legislative activity on abortion in the two countries owes to more than merely the numerical difference in the presence of women in the two bodies. The strong norms of conflict avoidance play a role in explaining women’s legislative behaviour in Chile. Indeed, the legislators most active on abortion are a group of young male legislators who appear to be making a name for themselves by taking on controversial issues (such as reproductive rights and sexual freedom). In 2006, these four men announced that they were forming a “bancada pro-género” (pro-gender caucus) and would promote gender issues in their work. In an interview with a long-serving female legislator with a lengthy trajectory in the women’s movement, I asked whether female legislators (in particular, those known for their pro-women’s rights activities) had been consulted on the initiatives of this group and she said they had not. 11 The lack of consultation with the handful of feminist legislators in the congress indicates a lack of seriousness on the part of the male legislators seeking to promote a gender rights agenda. In sum, if we assume, as many existing studies of women’s substantive representation do, that legislator actions (and inactions) are unproblematic indications of individual preferences, we would conclude that female legislators in Argentina are contributing to women’s substantive representation (by seeking to expand women’s reproductive rights) while Chilean legislators are not (at least on this issue). But if we explore the context in which legislator preferences are expressed (in bill introduction, for example), we see that female legislators in Chile face constraints in acting on their preferences. The norms of conflict avoidance in Chilean politics 9

There was another attempt to decriminalize abortion in October 2006, but the bill (sponsored by a group of male legislators) was deemed inadmissible (Author’s interview with Isabel Allende, Socialist Party Deputy, November 21, 2006, Valparaíso, Chile. 10 The records kept by the Chilean congress do not distinguish between a bill’s primary sponsor and co-sponsors. 11 Author’s interview with María Antonieta Saa, November 28, 2006.

22 lead legislators to focus on issues that are less divisive and that have a greater chance of attracting broader support. In this context, the women’s rights issue around which female legislators have been most active is violence against women. On this issue, there is cross-party support for expanding and improving the state’s role in protecting women from violence and for increasing sanctions for violent acts. The informal institution of consensus-seeking and conflict avoidance has gendered implications in Chile. The party system in Chile is one of the few in Latin America that is clearly organized around ideology and parties are highly programmatic and well-disciplined. As such, gender issues are subject to partisan conflict, with conservatives taking positions that prioritize the traditional family and the more constrained gender roles that go along with it. In this context, the norm of consensus-seeking has led consecutive governments to avoid taking up potentially polarizing issues, especially women’s reproductive rights. In this way, the informal norms governing the political process in Chile entrench deeply unequal gender relations. While the informal norms that govern the political process affect the actions of politicians (specifically whether or not they take action on certain issues), there are a number of formal organizational rules that affect the outcomes of those actions. An important aspect of legislative organization that affects policy outcomes is the existence of “policy gate-keepers who control the legislative agenda” (Alemán 2006). In both Argentina and Chile these policy gatekeepers are men, usually party leaders (although in Chile, the executive plays a larger gatekeeping role). The legislative process differs across the two countries in ways that are important for translating pro-women’s rights actions into successful policy outcomes. Policy gate-keepers are those who control the legislative agenda and who can therefore move through the legislature initiatives that they favour while blocking or stalling those they oppose (or those that simply are

23 not priorities). But different legislatures entrench different rules that either increase or decrease the power of gate-keepers. In Chile, the executive enjoys substantial agenda-setting powers. Presidents have the authority to declare “urgencies” which require that a bill be discussed in the chamber within a specified time period, and they also have the power to call “extraordinary” sessions of congress during which only executive bills are discussed. In Argentina, presidents do not enjoy these powers (Alemán 2006, 130). This has important implications for the ability of legislators to move women’s rights bills successfully through the legislative process. In the Chilean case, two key institutional realities influence the behaviour and success of female legislators on women’s rights initiatives: an executive with extensive legislative powers and a strong executive-based women’s policy machinery (the National Women’s Service, or SERNAM). These two realities have compelled female legislators to develop a close and cooperative working relationship with SERNAM so that they may rely on the agency’s executive prerogatives to move their bills through the committee process and on to chamber debates. 12 Indeed, successful women’s rights legislation has almost always been supported by SERNAM (and in many cases has been introduced by the executive rather than by legislators) (Haas 2006). While this reality can be frustrating for female legislators who would prefer to have their names associated with particular women’s rights bills, SERNAM’s influence and greater access to technical and human resources 13 make cooperation with SERNAM critical for the success of women’s rights initiatives.

12

See Haas (2006) for a discussion of the tensions that have defined the relationship between feminist legislators and SERNAM. 13 SERNAM has a legal reform department whose role is to research and design legislative initiatives that promote women’s rights and equality. Individual legislators in Chile do not have access to the same resources. Most legislators have only one secretary, rather than a team of highly trained legislative assistants as is common in countries with more powerful congresses.

24 Women in Argentina’s congress cannot count on an influential ally whose role it is to promote gender equality in the executive. In the Argentine congress, it is the leaders of the legislative blocs that act as policy gate-keepers (Jones 2002). Because there are no formal deadlines for committees to address bills within a specified time, committees only deal with bills when party leaders or committee chairs take action (Alemán 2006, 133). An Argentine senator explained in an interview that “it’s totally up to the committee chair [whether a bill advances], and even if there’s political will there, someone higher up—the president for example—will send signals to committee chairs about whether a bill should move or not.”14 Another legislator explained that legislative success depends on such things as the content of the bill, its author, and whether its main proponent is from the majority party. 15 This is why women’s rights bills almost always die in committees rather than being rejected in floor votes. Indeed, data show that party bloc leaders’ control over the legislative agenda filters bills in such a way that those that make it to floor votes in the Chamber of Deputies already have the support of the majority party (Alemán 2006, 144). Moreover, Argentine parties are highly disciplined because legislators owe their political careers to party bosses (in particular, to provincial party bosses who control nominations at both provincial and federal levels) (Jones 2002; 2004). In sum, the formal organizational rules in Argentina and Chile create different opportunities for female legislators to promote women’s right initiatives successfully. In Argentina, where party leaders play a key gate-keeping role, it is more difficult to have gender issues considered a high priority. Party leaders rarely prioritize gender issues, and with one exception in Argentina, all party leaders are men. In Chile, the executive has important agendasetting powers, and the existence of a well-resourced women’s policy machinery in the executive

14 15

Author’s interview with Senator Alicia Mastandrea, September 6, 2006, Buenos Aires. Author’s interview with Deputy Delia Bisutti, August 31, 2006, Buenos Aires.

25 means that female legislators have an ally in that body. Although a women’s policy agency exists in Argentina as well (the National Women’s Council), it does not play a legislative role and has virtually no resources that could be deployed in the research or design of women’s rights legislation. 16 As noted in the previous section, an important advantage of an historical institutionalist framework is its focus on ideas, particularly the ways in which ideas can have mobilizing effects. An important difference between Argentina and Chile is the effect of Argentina’s gender quota law. The impact of this law go well beyond the numerical impact. Gender quotas can also create the idea that women are needed in politics precisely to act as substantive representatives for women. Hence, in countries with gender quotas (particularly where there was a broad-based mobilization campaign to achieve quotas), female legislators may perceive an obligation to represent women. There is evidence in Argentina that female legislators do indeed perceive this obligation (Franceschet and Piscopo, forthcoming). Interviews that I conducted with female legislators in Argentina in 2006 reveal a sense of debt to women because it was women’s collective action that led to institutional changes that facilitated women’s access to elected office. Not surprisingly, as women’s presence in both chambers grew, the number of women’s rights bills introduced expanded considerably. While there have been some legislative successes in recent years, such as the 2002 Sexual Health law and a 2006 law permitting surgical methods of contraception, the overwhelming majority of women’s rights initiatives fail to progress through the legislative process. Legislated gender quotas are thus a potential source of institutional change. To use Kathleen Thelen’s terms, gender quotas can be considered a form of “layering” whereby “institutional arrangements are renegotiated periodically in ways that alters their form and 16

This was confirmed in interviews with a number of legislators and legislative assistants in Argentina.

26 functions” (2003, 213). At the very least, the incorporation of legislated gender quotas constitutes an explicit recognition that gender discrimination exists and needs to be remedied by institutional mechanisms (i.e., laws that require parties to alter their nomination procedures). As a consequence, gender quotas (at least those designed effectively) increase women’s numerical presence in legislatures. But they can also do more than this. By explicitly acknowledging the existence of gender discrimination, they may also legitimize the idea that women are needed in politics to be substantive representatives for women. In so doing, they may also legitimize the notion of women as a politically relevant collective. Gender quotas can then serve as a mobilizing force that encourages (and legitimates) female legislators’ actions in pursuit of women’s rights.

Conclusions

In this paper, I have argued that historical institutionalism is valuable for studying the role of female legislators in advancing women’s substantive representation because it encourages a broader conception of substantive representation, namely, one that includes both the actions of female legislators and the outcomes of those actions. Conceiving of substantive representation as encompassing both actions and outcomes allows for a fuller understanding of how the legislative environment is gendered in ways that either obstruct or facilitate the promotion of women’s rights. Moreover, an historical institutionalist framework for studying women’s substantive representation would abandon the search for a general theory in which specific variables are linked in a relationship believed to hold across space and time. Instead, an HI approach would seek a more contextualized and richly detailed account of how gender relations are inscribed in

27 institutions in ways that shape women’s preferences and actions in legislative bodies and how those actions produce (or fail to produce) their desired outcomes. Cross-national comparisons are useful to this task because they draw attention to the importance of factors that may not be obvious to those who study single cases. Although the evidence drawn from the contrasting cases of Argentina and Chile is still preliminary, and a fuller and more systematic examination of women’s actions and their outcomes remains to be done, I believe that the examples discussed above illustrate the value of an HI framework. By looking at informal institutions and norms, we can understand why patterns of bill introduction differ across the two countries, particularly why women in Chile’s congress have been less active in certain areas. On the other hand, the contrast in the organizational rules, and particularly, the role of policy gate-keepers in the two countries, provides insight into why there have been more policy successes in Chile than in Argentina, despite the greater legislative activity by women in the Argentine congress. The existence of SERNAM in Chile, combined with the executive’s greater agenda-setting powers means that, at least on issues where a cross-party consensus is possible, women’s rights issues can become legislative priorities. In sum, while the norms of consensus-seeking and conflict avoidance constrain the articulation of legislator preferences on potentially divisive issues, there are other organizational rules and institutional features that create opportunities for legislative success. In Argentina, in contrast, there are fewer constraints on female legislators to act on their preferences by introducing bills (even on controversial issues), but women’s lack of power in legislative institutions (i.e., they remain under-represented in committee and other leadership positions) and their lack of an influential ally in the executive means that their legislative initiatives face greater obstacles to success.

28

References Acker, Joan (1992). "Gendered Institutions: From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions." Contemporary Sociology 21(5): 565-569. Alemán, Eduardo (2006). "Policy Gatekeepers in Latin American Legislatures." Latin American Politics and Society 48(3): 125-155. Archenti, Nélida and Niki Johnson (2006). Engendering the Legislative Agenda with and without Quotas: A Comparative Study of Argentina and Uruguay. XX World Conference of the International Political Science Association. Fukuoka, Japan. Beckwith, Karen (2007). "Numbers and Newness: the Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Women." Canadian Journal of Political Science 40(1): 27-49. Beckwith, Karen and Kimberly Cowell-Meyers (2007). "Sheer Numbers: Critical Representation Thresholds and Women's Political Representation." Political Science and Politics 5(3): 553-565. Bratton, Kathleen A and Leonard P. Ray (2002). "Descriptive Representation, Policy Outcomes, and Municipal Day Care Coverage in Norway." American Journal of Political Science 46(2): 428-437. Bratton, Kathleen A. (2005). "Critical Mass Theory Revisited: The Behavior and Success of Token Women in State Legislatures." Politics and Gender 1(1): 97-125. Chama, Monica (2001). Las Mujeres y El Poder. Buenos Aires, Ciudad Argentina. Childs, Sarah (2004). New Labour's Women MPs: Women Representing Women. London and New York, Routledge. Childs, Sarah (2006). "The Complicated Relationship between Sex, Gender and the Substantive Representation of Women." European Journal of Women's Studies 13(1): 7-21. Childs, Sarah and Mona Lena Krook (2006). "Should Feminists Give Up on Critical Mass? A Contingent Yes." Politics and Gender 2(4): 522-530. Dahlerup, Drude (2006). "The Story of the Theory of Critical Mass." Politics and Gender 2(4): 511-522.

29 Dodson, Debra L. (2006). The Impact of Women in Congress. New York, Oxford University Press. Franceschet, Susan (2007). "The Politics of Domestic Violence in Latin America." Technical Working Paper TP--08001, Institute of Advanced Policy Research, University of Calgary, Canada. Franceschet, Susan (2008). "La Representación Política de Mujeres en un País sin Ley de Cuotas: el Caso de Chile." Mujeres y Política en América Latina. Sistemas Electorales y Cuotas de Género. N. Archenti and M. I. Tula (eds). Buenos Aires, Heliasta. Franceschet, Susan and Jennifer M. Piscopo (forthcoming). "Gender Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation: Lessons from Argentina." Politics and Gender. Goetz, Anne Marie (2003). "Women's Political Effectiveness: A Conceptual Framework." No Shortcuts to Power: African Women in Politics and Policymaking. A. M. Goetz and S. Hassim (eds). London & New York, Zed Books: 29-80. Grey, Sandra (2002). Does Size Matter? Critical Mass and New Zealand's Women MPs. Women, Politics, and Change. K. Ross. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 19-29. Haas, Liesl (2006). "The Rules of the Game: Feminist Policymaking in Chile." Revista Política 47. Hall, Peter and Rosemary CR Taylor (1996). "Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms." Political Studies 44: 936-957. Heath, Roseanna, Leslie Schwindt-Bayer and Michelle Taylor-Robinson (2005). "Women on the Sidelines: Women's Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures." American Journal of Political Science 49(2): 420-436. Helmke, Gretchen and and Steven Levitsky (2006). "Introduction." Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America. G. Helmke and S. Levitsky (eds). Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 1-30. Htun, Mala and Timothy J. Power (2006). "Gender, Parties, and Support for Equal Rights in the Brazilian Congress." Latin American Politics and Society 48(4): 83-104. Immergut, Ellen M. (1998). "The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism." Politics and Society 26(1): 5-34.

30 Jones, Mark (1997). "Legislator Gender and Legislator Policy Priorities in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the United States House of Representatives." Policy Studies Journal 25(4): 613-629. Jones, Mark P. (2002). "Explaining the High Level of Party Discipline in the Argentine Congress." Legislative Politics in Latin America. S. Morgenstern and. B. Nacife (eds). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 147-184. Jones, Mark P. (2004). The Recruitment and Selection of Legislative Candidates in Argentina. Pathways to Power: Political Recruitment and Democracy in Latin America, Wake Forest University. Kathlene, Lyn (1995). "Position Power versus Gender Power: Who Holds the Floor?" Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance. G. Duerst-Lahti and R. M. Kelly (eds). Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press: 167-193. Krook, Mona Lena (2005). Politicizing Representation: Campaigns for Gender Quotas Worldwide. Political Science, Columbia University. Ph.D. March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen (2005). Elaborating the 'New Institutionalism', Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. Marx, Jutta, Jutta Borner and Mariana Caminotti (2007). Las Legisladoras: Cupos de Género y Política en Argentina y Brasil. Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI. Norton, Noelle (1995). "Women, It's Not Enough to Be Elected: Committee Position Makes a Difference." Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance. G. Duerst-Lahti and R. M. Kelly (eds). Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press: 115-140. Piscopo, Jennifer M. (2006). Engineering Quotas in Latin America. CILAS Working Paper Series, #23. San Diego, Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, University of California. Reingold, Beth (1992). "Concepts of Representation Among Female and Male State Legislators." Legislative Studies Quarterly 17(4): 509-537. Reingold, Beth (2000). Representing Women: Sex, Gender, and Legislative Behavior in Arizona and California. Chapel Hill and London, University of North Carolina Press. Sanders, Elizabeth (2006) "Historical Institutionalism." The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. R.A.W. Rhoes, S. A. Binder, and B. Rockman (eds) Oxford University Press: 39-55.

31 Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A. (2006). "Still Supermadres? Gender and Policy Priorities of Latin American Legislators." American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 570-585. Siavelis, Peter (2006). "Accommodating Informal Institutions and Chilean Democracy." Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America. G. Helmke and S. Levitsky (eds). Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 33-55. Steinmo, Sven (forthcoming). Historical Institutionalism. Approaches in the Social Sciences. D. Della Porta and M. Keating (eds). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Steinmo, Sven, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth (eds) (1992). Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Swers, Michelle (2002). The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Swers, Michelle (2005). "Connecting Descriptive and Substantive Representation: an Analysis of Sex Differences in Cosponsorship Activity." Legislative Studies Quarterly 30(3): 407433. Tamerius, Karin L. (1995). "Sex, Gender, and Leadership in the Representation of Women." Gender, Power, Leadership, and Governance. G. Duerst-Lahti and R. M. Kelly (eds). Ann Arbour, University of Michigan Press: 93-112. Taylor-Robinson, Michelle and Roseanna Michelle Heath (2003). "Do Women Legislators Have Different Policy Priorities than their Male Colleagues? A Critical Test." Women & Politics 24(4): 77-101. Thelen, Kathleen (1999). "Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics" Annual Review of Political Science 2: 369-404. Thelen, Kathleen (2003) "How Institutions Evolve." Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer (eds). Cambridge University Press:. Thelen, Kathleen and Sven Steinmo (1992). "Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics." Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. S. Steinmo, K. Thelen, and F. Longstreth (eds). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 132. Tremblay, Manon (1998). "Do Female MPs Substantively Represent Women? A Study of Legislative Behaviour in Canada's 35th Parliament." Canadian Journal of Political Science 31(3): 435-465.

32 Tremblay, Manon and Rejean Pelletier (2000). "More Feminists or More Women? Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Women in the 1997 Canadian Federal Election." International Political Science Review 21(4): 381-405. Trimble, Linda (2006). "When do Women Count? Substantive Representation of Women in Canadian Legislatures." Representing Women in Parliament: a Comparative Study. M. Sawer, M. Tremblay, and L. Trimble (eds). London and New York, Routledge: 120-133. Vega, Arturo and Juanita M. Firestone (1995). "The Effects of Gender on Congressional Behavior and the Substantive Representation of Women." Legislative Studies Quarterly 20(2): 213-222. Vincent, Louise (2004). "Changing the Way Things Look without Changing the Way Things Are." Journal of Legislative Studies 10(1): 71-96. Wängerud, Lena (2005). Testing the Politics of Presence Empirically: the Case of Women's Representation in the Swedish Riksdag. 3rd ECPR Conference. Budapest, Hungary, 2005. Weeks, Gregory and Silvia Borzutzky (forthcoming). Introduction. The Bachelet Government: Conflict and Consensus in Post-Pinochet Chile. S. Borzutzky and G. Weeks (eds), University of Florida Press. Wolbrecht, Christina (2002). "Female Legislators and the Women's Rights Agenda: From Feminine Mystique to Feminist Era". Women Transforming Congress. C. S. Rosenthal (ed). Norman, Oklahoma, The University of Oklahoma Press: 170-197.

Suggest Documents