Kimberly Cowell-Meyers

Sheer Numbers: Critical Representation Thresholds and Women's Political Representation

Studies of women in legislatures indicate that achieving a “critical mass” of women may have the effect of changing the legislative priorities of women, increasing the number of legislative initiatives dealing with women and the passage rate of such initiatives, and altering the legislative priorities of men. In the absence of a critical mass, “token” women may be so constrained by their minority status as to be unable to respond proactively to their environment. Popular wisdom suggests that a critical mass may be necessary for women to make a difference as women in a legislature. Yet, critical mass is both problematic and under-theorized in political science research. The critical mass threshold is debated, the mechanism of effect is unspecified, possible negative consequences are overlooked, and the potential for small numbers of elected women to effect political change on behalf of women is neglected. Beyond sheer numbers, what are the conditions that govern the ability of women legislators to make a difference? We argue that two major contextual factors beyond the sheer numbers are likely to govern the extent to which female legislators serve to represent women. Relying on the secondary literature, this article maps parliamentary and civil society contexts to sheer numbers of women to locate conditions in which female legislators are most likely to have policy successes. Karen Beckwith is the Flora Stone Mather Professor of Political Science at Case Western Research University and Editor, with Lisa Baldez, of Politics & Gender ( karen.beckwith@case.edu ). Her published work includes Womens Movements Facing the Reconfigured State (Cambridge 2003, with Lee Ann Banaszak and Dieter Rucht), Political Women and American Democracy (forthcoming, with Christina Wolbrecht and Lisa Baldez), and articles on gender and politics in the European Journal of Political Research , Politics & Society , and Signs , among others. Kimberly Cowell-Meyers is Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at American University ( kcowell@american.edu ). She is author of Religion and Politics: The Party Faithful in Ireland and Germany (Greenwood, 2002) and articles published in Women & Politics, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics , and Irish Political Studies among others. She has worked in the British Parliament and the United States Institute of Peace.

A Collarette on a Donkey: The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and the Limitations of Contagion Theory

When ideas or tactics catch on across parties in a multiparty system the process is termed contagion. Scholars have identified many examples of contagion, particularly dealing with gender quotas and the number of female candidates. The theory of contagion has, however, suffered from both narrow application and underdevelopment historically, particularly because the literature on contagion focuses exclusively on relations between parties. Yet the Northern Ireland Womens Coalition (NIWC), a tiny short-lived political party dedicated to ‘equitable and effective political participation’ for women, indicates that structural, historical and even international circumstances can facilitate or limit this process of transfer. Using the case study of the NIWC, which improved womens representation in nearly all the other political parties in the system, this article identifies six key variables that condition contagion. In addition, the article traces the NIWCs effects on multiple dimensions of womens representation, descriptive and substantive, in other parties. Considering the process of contagion more broadly enhances the theory but also may provide practical guidelines for expanding policy ideas related to womens representation, human or civil rights protections or environmental initiatives across political parties and across political systems.

The Social Movement as Political Party: The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and the Campaign for Inclusion

For about 10 years beginning in the mid 1990s, Northern Ireland had its own womens political party. The Northern Ireland Womens Coalition (NIWC) was created by members of the womens movement to achieve “equitable and effective political participation” for women. Despite being small, marginal and short-lived, the party increased access for women in nearly all the other political parties in the system. I connect the scholarship on social movements with that on political parties by examining the impact a social movement can have through the venue of its own political party. I argue three main points. First, the success of the NIWC means political parties may be an under-employed tactic in the repertoires of contention used by social movements. Second, the way the movement had an effect as a party is under-theorized in the literature on social movements because it requires consideration of party-system variables such as competition and issue-space. Third, as an identity-based movement, the womens movement in NI construed its goal of access differently than social-movement literature typically does. This under-utilized and under-theorized tactic of movement qua party delivered gains with the potential for long-term influence over policy and cultural values. In short, the movement-party may be an effective mechanism for changing the patterns of democratic representation of marginalized groups.

Gender, power, and peace: A preliminary look at women in the northern Ireland assembly

This study focuses on how women legislators can affect peace-building in transitional societies by examining the role of female Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Northern Ireland. Using interviews with 12 of the 14 women MLAs and 6 male pairmatches, this study assesses the women’s approach to politics, their perceptions of their roles, and the institutional challenges they face as representatives of women in a strongly traditional society. According to the perceptions of the women and men, much of the responsibility for the transition to peace appears to rest on the feminization of politics and on the female MLAs themselves. Yet, women do not constitute a critical mass in the Assembly and they are deeply divided by community, class, and attitudes about the viability of women’s organization that will shape their ability to cooperate with one another. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress. com>

Gender, Power, and Peace

Abstract This study focuses on how women legislators can affect peace-building in transitional societies by examining the role of female Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Northern Ireland. Using interviews with 12 of the 14 women MLAs and 6 male pair-matches, this study assesses the womens approach to politics, their perceptions of their roles, and the institutional challenges they face as representatives of women in a strongly traditional society. According to the perceptions of the women and men, much of the responsibility for the transition to peace appears to rest on the feminization of politics and on the female MLAs themselves. Yet, women do not constitute a critical mass in the Assembly and they are deeply divided by community, class, and attitudes about the viability of womens organization that will shape their ability to cooperate with one another.

Women in Northern Ireland politics: gender and the politics of peace-building in the new legislative assembly

Women constitute 14 per cent of the 108 member parliament in Northern Ireland, created in 1998 as an outgrowth of the peace process. Using data from 45 interviews with 27 Members of the Legislative Assembly in 2000 and 2001, this study analyses the role of women in the new Assembly by comparing the women to their male colleagues and considering what opportunities are available for men and women to have an effect on the evolution of this institution. Though the men and women are very similar in their interests and attitudes, important differences exist between them and the institutional opportunities offered them.

Women's Political Parties in Europe

In representative democracies, political parties organize the public will, giving expression to political differences in society (see Katz and Mair 1995; Klingemann, Hofferbert, and Budge 1994; Sartori 1967). Parties can also deepen democracy by broadening the connections between representatives and constituents, helping to hold political institutions accountable and increasing the participation of previously marginalized groups (see Costain 2005; Kitschelt 1993; Shugart 1994; Kittilson and Tate 2005; Young 2000).

The Contagion Effects of the Feminist Initiative in Sweden: Agenda-setting, Niche Parties and Mainstream Parties

As new parties have emerged in Europe on the left and the right, they have placed pressure on mainstream parties to adjust their issue positions and engage with new issues. This research note asks whether womens parties have the same effect. Analysing election manifestos of the mainstream parties in Sweden from 1991 to 2014, this article considers the extent to which the Swedish Feminist Initiative (F!) has influenced the attention parties pay to womens issues. The data indicate that a profound discursive change has occurred among these parties in Sweden around gender and womens roles in society, resulting in near consensus that gender inequality is a problem necessitating government action. There is gradual evolution for most of the period under study but a marked departure from past trends in 2014, coinciding with the emergence of F! as a contender for EU and parliamentary seats. Consistent with contagion theory, the concerns of women acquired urgency as F! grew more competitive. News coverage and public comment by political parties suggests that F! has had disproportionate influence, given its electoral support, on the issue agenda of the mainstream parties, pressuring them to ‘take up’ the issues of this niche party and engaging them in a competitive struggle to address womens issues in politics. The results indicate that we should look more closely at womens parties as a tactical choice of social movements to enhance womens representation and encourage public discourse about gender and power.

Measuring Women-Friendly Policy in the American States

Scholars and advocates frequently rank the American states in terms of the favorability of their policy positions on a range of issues, including “women-friendliness.” We examine if this is an identifiable dimension among 32 policies selected by womens interest organizations as important “women-friendly” planks and adopted by 50 states. We identify 8 policies that cohere empirically in the adoption pattern of states. Our list suggests that if women-friendly policy has a coherent theoretical meaning, its focus is on womens self-determination, and not on family and children, or even equity in the workplace.

A Review of: “Politics in Britain”

In Politics in Britain Bruce F. Norton has brought to bear decades of experience teaching American students about British politics. Norton thus approaches the subject with an eye to what would need to be explained to students coming from the American system such as policy-making in a parliamentary system, the role of class in British political attitudes and party politics, the composition and functions of strong political party organizations, and the role of pressure groups in a system far more corporatist than ours. The result is a text that is immensely useful for undergraduate courses in comparative politics and British politics. The book is highly readable; it is written without jargon and yet introduces the key terms necessary for studying the British system. It uses frequent, both contemporary and historical, examples to illustrate the system it describes. It considers the subject in thematic ways that will help students grasp the major concepts. For example, the chapter on history is organized around how the union came to be, not just in formal, institutional terms but in popular terms as well. The themes are fear, relief, and pride, which gave people common cause and facilitated nationbuilding. In this chapter Norton discusses the Protestant Ascendancy, the successive wars with France, economic interests in the expanding and developing market, the developing transportation and communications infrastructure, the monarch, and the suffrage as means of unification. The book is also very current, working in not only examples from contemporary politics but also, for instance, discussion of the evolution of popular attitudes towards government and the notion of class identity into the chapter on political culture and analysis of the functioning of the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales in the chapter on local governments. Overall, the organization of the writing is tight and directed towards answering principal questions about how the political system came to be and how it functions in the present. The book includes chapters on all the requisite subjects, including history, political culture, the constitution, parties, elections, interest groups, parliament and the executive, the judiciary, local government and the European Union, minus a chapter on the media, and possibly foreign policy or Britain in the world. Norton is judicious about the extras; the text has few of the distracting sidebars that often appear in