Women’s Participation in the Local Government as Voters, Candidates and Mayors in the North East Region of Romania

Andreea-Daniela Fedor,Corneliu Iațu

doi:10.4236/ojps.2022.121007

Abstract

Most of the studies focus on the high representation of women in politics such as in Parliament, Government or Euro Parliament, while little attention is given to the local government despite its importance within the national politic system. Therefore, the aim of this research is to better analyze, observe and understand the dynamics of women’s participation at the electoral process in the local government as candidates and winners, but also as voters in the North East Region of Development of Romania. The focus is on the progress made or not toward gender equality in political decision making in the 32 years of democracy. More precisely, how substantial are the changes, after 7 elections, regarding the number of women that chose to run for elections, to what extent were they voted and how high is the success rate of success when compared to the male-candidates. The methodology consists in descriptive analysis of the political representativity, depending on the identified evolution trends, correlated with the Regions of Romania and political parties. To carry out this study, quantitative and qualitative methods were combined. The analyzed data for the local election from 1996 to 2020 focus on the studied area-North East Region which has the highest level of female mayors when compared with the others. The results show an under-representation of women in local government with a percentage of 6.34% female mayors, 1 percentage higher than at national level (5.33%). Moreover, 84.20% of administrative units have never had a female mayor. Also, the women’s rates of success are lower (15.28% in 2020) when compared to their male counterparts (22.26%) (ROAEP).

Highlights

Most of the studies focus on the high representation of women in politics such as in Parliament, Government or Euro Parliament, while little attention is given to the local government despite its importance within the national politic system
The results show an under-representation of women in local government with a percentage of 6.34% female mayors, 1 percentage higher than at national level (5.33%)
Despite the fact that women represent 50% of the Romanian population (INS), at local level there are around only 5.33% female mayors (ROAEP), a percentage that places our country at the bottom in the EU and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) ranking

Summary

Introduction

Despite the fact that women represent 50% of the Romanian population (INS), at local level there are around only 5.33% female mayors (ROAEP), a percentage that places our country at the bottom in the EU and Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) ranking. The transition from a non-democratic political regime to a democratic one was marked by a severe economic, social and political crisis (Gârboni, 2014) that caused an unprecedented instability in Romania (Massino & Popa, 2015) followed by a wave of emigration to Europe that diminished the population (Dumitriu et al, 2013; INS) Given this context, the women’s involvement within politics did not represent a priority even if the democratic road on which the Central and Eastern European countries stepped on was supposed to take them to freedom, civil liberty and prosperity which implied a higher number of women in decision making, too

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Results