SOUNDING BOARD is an outlet for opinions on good and crazy things going on at home (wherever I may be). All are welcome. You are not expected to bring anything except your common sense & sense of humor.
'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
-Robert X. Cringely (from geek wisdom)
SOUNDING BOARD
Monday, June 30, 2003
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On women and parliamentary politics
There are now, more than ever, a lot of efforts on increasing women’s political participation, particularly in decision-making positions. I find it intellectually amusing to find a few good (and short!) papers asking the most basic yet important questions on the topic. One of these papers has been written by Sandra Grey (Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University). Ms. Grey’s paper focuses on the ‘critical mass’ argument that claims that ‘women will only impact upon political decisions once they achieve a critical mass within legislative bodies’ (Grey, S. 2001. WOMEN AND PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS: Does Size Matter? Critical Mass and Women MP in New Zealand House of Representatives. Paper for the 51st Political Studies Association Conference, 10-12 April 2001, Manchester, United Kingdom [online]. Available at: http://www.psa.ac.uk/cps/2001/Grey%20Sandra.pdf [Accessed 27 June 2003].). She tested the argument through a case study on New Zealand House of Representatives.
In answering the question (Does size matter?), Ms. Grey has this to say:
‘In the New Zealand case there was evidence of increased feminization of the political agenda at a time when the gender balance in the House of representatives rose to almost reach Kanter’s skewed ratio of 15:85. Female politicians were more actively involved in debates on child care and parental leave and spoke more proudly of their gender and their intent to represent women as a group once they reached 14.4 per cent of the seats in the New Zealand parliament…. It seems that in order to impact upon the New Zealand parliamentary agenda and the parts of the political culture centred on self-perception, size does matter….While women had made significant advancements since 1975 in terms of overall parliamentary representation in New Zealand, until the 1999 election the number of females in cabinet (the powerhouse for policy making) was marginal. Even in 1996, only one woman sat in cabinet. There was evidence that low proportions of women in Government ranks prevented women impacting on public policy’.
The paper notes the importance of the concept of critical mass in terms of women’s political participation. Ms. Grey also emphasizes in the end that ‘…what we should talk about is different critical masses – dependent on what we want to achieve through group representation.’
It should be interesting to test the robustness of the findings in other country's context. And perhaps to complete the picture, in addition to the critical mass argument, we should consider the impact of interest group politics on the critical mass of women in decision-making positions. Operationally, the critical mass argument is very much linked to interest groups’ influence in decision-making. It is necessary to integrate the interplay of critical mass in government and outside of government (interest groups) and how such interaction influences the policy agenda – of women in position, and of those in power in general.
posted by Allan at 11:53 AM (GMT+8)
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