Female Mayors Research Articles

A “Promise to Preserve Proper Decorum”: Organized Dancers, Filipino Patrons, and the Politics of Night Work in 1920s Seattle

Abstract In 1920s Seattle, dance halls charging ten cents per dance became the focus of debate. Tracing the dance workers’ self-representations and labor organizing in a city increasingly hostile to interracial social spaces, this paper evaluates how gender, race, labor organizing, and politics intersected in unprecedented ways in Seattle’s nightlife. In a decade of tepid labor organizing and in a sexual labor sector where unions were extremely rare, female dancers in Seattle unionized. Moreover, they did so in what became under Mayor Betha Knight Landes (1926–1928) the first major American city to have a female mayor. The Women Dancing Entertainers’ Union’s (WDEU) tactics of emphasizing the respectability of their profession enjoyed initial successes, yet faltered when dance hall critics increasingly constructed the presence of interracial couples as a sign of immorality. The closure in 1929 of numerous ten-cent halls south of Yesler Way reflects how Anti-Asian prejudice entered into regulation of the city’s nightlife, adversely impacting dance hall workers, women in politics, and minoritized men. The WDEU’s insistence that they were upstanding workers and economic providers nonetheless provides a powerful corrective to contemporaries’ and, until recently, historians’ tendency to overlook sexual sector night labor.

Citizens’ Free Access to Information. The Case of Local Institutions from Rural Areas of the North-Western Region from Romania

This study examines the extent to which local authorities in rural North-West Romania adhere to the requirements set forth in Law no. 544 of 2001, which mandates the ex officio public information disclosure online. The findings suggest a relatively low level of transparency, with notable discrepancies observed across communes. While larger communes exhibited slightly elevated levels of compliance, population size exerted a limited influence on transparency. Additionally, the study revealed no statistically significant correlation between the gender of mayors and transparency. This may be attributed to the limited representation of female mayors in the sample. Similarly, while the presence of businesses demonstrated some influence on transparency, it was not a robust predictor. These findings underscore the necessity for more robust enforcement mechanisms, including penalties for non-compliance, to guarantee compliance with transparency laws. Furthermore, the study highlights the necessity of considering a broader array of factors, including local governance practices, institutional capacity, and citizen engagement, when evaluating transparency outcomes. It would be beneficial for future research to expand to other regions and consider a longitudinal approach to monitor changes over time. The study underscores the pivotal role of transparency in cultivating public trust, curbing corruption, and strengthening democratic governance.

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors. Edited by Sharon D. Wright Austin. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023. 332p. $115.50 cloth, $39.95 paper.

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors. Edited by Sharon D. Wright Austin. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023. 332p. $115.50 cloth, $39.95 paper.

WOMEN's REPRESENTATION IN LOCAL POLITICS OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: WOMEN MAYORS IN MODERN ROMANIA

The article attempts to analyze examples of women's representation in local Romanian politics and its role in the modern politics of the country. The author draws attention to the socio-demographic characteristics of female mayors of large Romanian cities in the last decade, and to the role of gender quotas in achieving gender equality in the political sphere of the country. The author uses printed publications, data from the websites of city halls, and official reports to analyze the social portraits of female mayors. The author comes to the conclusion that for more than a hundred years of the presence of Romanian women in local politics, their number in modern Romania is small compared to the European background. Female representation is gradually expanding, but it is difficult to conclude that there is a strong trend. The author reveals the image of a female mayor as a professional politician with a long political career, and a successful career and a high level of education preceding the entry into politics, a socially approved family model, and having support in the form of a party behind her. However, at the same time we note that the cases of female city mayors are an exception against the backdrop of extensive male representation.

Does the gender dissimilarity of female mayors with their political government team affect municipalities’ budgets? Evidence from Spain

ABSTRACT Recent research has considered whether the growing presence of women in political institutions has affected public budgets. This study takes a different gender perspective. The aim is to assess how gender dissimilarity between female mayors and their government teams can affect municipal budgetary policies. We use data from Spanish municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants in the period from 2004 to 2018, a dynamic regression model and take into account the possible moderating effect of ideology. Our main findings are that gender dissimilarity of female mayors increased current social spending and reduced nonsocial spending in line with female gender preferences, while it decreased tax revenues. However, when we analyze only the years of economic growth, we observe that the gender dissimilarity of female mayors increased tax revenue in accordance with their gender preferences. We also see that the interaction between right-wing ideology and the dissimilarity of female mayors substantially and significantly accentuated the decrease in nonsocial spending. We confirm our findings in different population segments.

No Space for Female Mayors in Romania: Incumbents’ Degree of Re-Election and the Impact on Future Candidates

It is expected that the number of elected female mayors in local government will increase globally, yet no major progress has been registered lately despite the increased focus on the topic. At the European level, no country exceeds 40% female mayors or other leaders of the municipal council (or equivalent), with the highest descriptive representation of 39.1% in Iceland. Following the 2020 elections in Romania, only around 5% of mayors were female with a strong over-representation of male mayors. The current study aims to analyze the male–female distribution of mayors, the degree of re-election, the relationship between the number of candidates and re-election of incumbents, and how these factors impact female political representation at the local level in Romania. Thus, we argue that a high degree of re-election of incumbents may be a barrier to women’s access to the position of mayor. In addition, it is important to determine whether female incumbents are as successful as their male counterparts in being re-elected. While there is an extensive body of literature on incumbency that covers a range of topics, there is a gap in the literature regarding the proposed subject. The present research aims to fill the gap and contribute to a better understanding of the political representation of women in Eastern Europe. We utilized a dataset of Romanian elections from 2008 to 2020 to test our hypotheses. Our findings indicate that during the studied period, more than 95% of mayors were male, the re-election was a frequent occurrence in Romania with a percentage ranging from 70.82% (2008–2012) to 72% (2012–2016 and 2016–2020), and female incumbents were just as likely to be re-elected as their male counterparts.

New municipalism and feminist leadership after the Indignados: The political aesthetics of truth in Ada Colau for Mayor (Faus 2016)

In this article, I reflect on the intersection between feminism and documentary art as truth-telling by focusing on Alcaldessa ( Ada Colau for Mayor), the most relevant documentary of the long-term collaboration between the film-maker Pau Faus and Ada Colau, the first female mayor of Barcelona (2015–2023). My argument is critical of a reductionist interpretation which portrays Alcaldessa as a personalist postfeminist documentary overly fixated on ‘biography rather than policy’. In contrast, I posit that Faus’ documentary, delving into Colau’s initial electoral campaign (2014–2015), offers valuable insights into pivotal aspects of an underexamined political vision that merges the principles of new municipalism with a focus on the ‘common people’ ( gent comú) and feminism. Furthermore, the documentary sheds light on unreconciled dilemmas inherent in the lived new politics and feminist leadership, issues that often remain concealed within the ideological trappings of political manifestos and programmes.

Gender Representation and Policy Implementation: Is it Women or the Left Wing that Increases the Childcare Supply?

Abstract This study investigates the impact of the accumulation of gender representation during the policy implementation stage on the childcare supply expansion. Previous studies faced two key issues: first, they primarily focused on the impact of gender representation during the policy introduction stage, and second, they often lacked sensitivity in distinguishing whether the outcome was driven by partisanship or gender. Using the city-level dataset from western Germany, this study argues that although the effect of female mayors is model dependent, a 10 percentage point increase in the average share of women city councils leads to an increase in the childcare expansion by about 2.5 percentage points. Notably, regardless of left-wing/right-wing positions, women councilors expanded the childcare supply.

Hidden environmental costs of economic ambitions: An empirical study of pollution emissions in the wake of growth targets

The extant body of academic literature has thoroughly examined the influence of political promotion institutions on various aspects of economic growth and corporate behavior. However, there remains a gap in the understanding the extent and mechanisms through which the establishment of economic growth targets influences firms' pollution emissions. Addressing this gap, we construct datasets that encapsulate both micro-level and macro-level perspectives to examine the impact of economic growth targets on corporate pollution. We find that an increase in economic growth targets leads to a significant rise in pollution emissions from industrial firms. To address potential endogeneity issues, we employ various strategies, and our results remain robust across these different approaches. We then estimate the heterogeneous impact of economic growth targets and demonstrate that the positive effect of these targets on pollution emissions tends to be less pronounced for firms situated in cities governed by female mayors. Conversely, the effect appears more pronounced for firms located in the western region, those operating in cities led by older mayors, and those in cities where mayors have lower levels of education. Finally, we explore potential mechanisms through which economic growth targets impact corporate pollution. Our results show that at the firm level, a higher economic growth target primarily leads to increased pollution emissions from enterprises by reducing firms' investment in pollution control. At the city level, an elevation in economic growth targets predominantly results in escalated enterprise-related pollution, chiefly due to its hindrance of urban green innovation, reduction in fiscal allocations for science and technology, and a decrease in educational fiscal outlays. These empirical findings strongly advocate for the implementation of measures aimed at dissuading prefecture-level city governments from formulating excessively ambitious economic growth targets, as a viable strategy for mitigating pollution stemming from manufacturing firms in developing nations. In view of this, our research is conducive to advancing the process of building a sustainable development path in China and providing reliable solutions to global ecological challenges.

Does Gender Explain the Indebtedness Levels of Local Governments?

In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of research analyzing the role of women in public management. This study contributes to this line of research by examining the influence women have on municipal public debt. To this aim, we use a sample of 141 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2008–2020. The empirical results suggest that municipalities that are leaded by a female mayor tend to show lower levels of public debt. In addition, empirical results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between the proportion of female councilors and the level of public debt. This means that the higher the proportion of female councilors, the lower the level of indebtedness, but this positive effect appears only if the number of female councilors is relatively high.

Kinship ties and female political participation: The case of Philippine mayors

Recent years have seen improvements in gender representation in the political sphere. One important contributor is the female politicians’ kinship ties to incumbent or previous politicians. There are concerns, however, that such improvements are merely nominal. I quantify the extent to which female politicians with kinship ties are more likely to serve as placeholders. I utilize the transitory nature of term limits among local Philippine officials and focus on Philippine mayors and their kinship ties to their predecessors. Using the universe of mayors that followed term-limited incumbents from 2004 to 2013, I find that female mayors are less likely to stand for reelection after one term than males. Further investigation reveals that the gender gap is primarily explained by the gap among mayors with kinship ties to their predecessors. The estimated gender gap is more than one-fourth of the average likelihood of running for reelection in the sample. I also find that the predecessors of female mayors with kinship ties are more likely to run for mayor after their gap term and win. The results are consistent with political clans disproportionately using their female members as placeholders. In addition, female incumbents with kinship ties are more likely to exit politics after one term than their male counterparts. This result suggests that the political participation of female kins of term-limited mayors is more transitory than males.

Fighting violence against women: The role of female political representation

We investigate the effect of women’s political leadership in local government on domestic violence against women. Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare Brazilian municipalities where a female candidate barely won to those where a female candidate barely lost mayoral elections. We find that the presence of a female mayor leads to a 50% average reduction in both the homicide rate and violence against women over a four-year term. These results are not attributable to pre-existing municipal characteristics or other observable mayor attributes. Collectively, our findings offer compelling evidence that women in office play a significant role in effectively addressing violence against women.

Financial Health of Local Governments: A Gender Approach

Abstract In recent years, public sector research has developed a line related to women’s participation in government and its effect on public finances. In this vein, this article attempts to empirically analyze the effect women’s presence in local governments has on municipal financial health. For that, we use a sample of the 140 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants during the period 2008–2018 and we create four indicators that refer to cash, budgetary and service-level solvency, as well as a global index that represents the municipal financial health. Our empirical results show that municipalities with a female mayor and with higher percentages of women in the council tend to have higher levels of these ratios. This supports the view that the entrance of women into the traditionally male-dominated public sphere could benefit governments’ financial health.

Promising a Greener Paris: Anne Hidalgo’s Framing of Environmental Issues in Her Mayoral Campaigns

ABSTRACT Mayors are increasingly tackling environmental issues. To enact demonstrable change, however, mayors first need to be elected – leading one to question: How can a candidate create cohesive messaging on environmental issues and win? By content analyzing Anne Hidalgo’s successful 2014 and 2020 mayoral elections in Paris, this study seeks to illuminate potential environmental communication strategies for future candidates. Results revealed Hidalgo favored traditional environmental frames over alternate frames, treatment recommendations over blame attributions, and ecological solidarity frames. Further, Hidalgo employed gender adaptive strategies moving between elections, which enabled her to navigate gendered expectations in becoming Paris’s first female mayor.

Female presence in local government and cost efficiency: the case of Italian municipalities

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how female presence in political institutions influences local governments’ cost efficiency, implementing a one-stage stochastic frontier model, based on a panel of Italian municipalities, with municipal fixed effects. The empirical results provide significant evidence for the presence of a gender effect in politics: higher efficiency is observed in municipalities with a female mayor and a greater presence of women in their councils. Further, the gender effect is confirmed taking into account the regional perspective, that is, the historic North–South Italian dualism, and performing several robustness checks. The empirical results support the usefulness of policies aimed at favouring female empowerment and at promoting gender equality in politics.

The influence of women’s representation on social spending in local government

ABSTRACT Compared to men, women tend to prioritize social services, which are usually the responsibility of local government. Female political representation often serves not only as an indicator for descriptive gender equality but also as a common policy instrument for substantive female representation. Yet, empirical evidence of female political representation’s influence on promoting female voters’ priorities is inconclusive. Examining the correlation between the percent of female politicians in Israeli local government and social spending from local government sources over nine budget years, this study shows that only education spending is influenced by female political representation and only when combined with a female mayor. Our main contribution is in showing that female representation in the local council on its own, without the representation of a female mayor, is insufficient for promoting female voters’ priorities.

Who promotes gender-sensitive policies?

We study whether female-headed local governments in Spain are more likely to engage in gender sensitive policies such as long-term care support, pre-schooling, or work and family-life balancing services. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design estimated on the set of mixed electoral races, we find no evidence of female mayors being more likely to implement these policies at the local level. We do find evidence of differences between parties in the probability of implementing these policies, suggesting that the gender of the politician is less important than their partisan or ideological position when it comes to these policy levers. We interpret these results through a model of political selection in which strong parties can impose their agendas on candidates despite primitive differences in policy preferences across genders.

Miami-Dade County: On the Forefront of Preservation Solutions

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, the first female mayor of Miami Dade County, describes her administration's efforts to help communities become more climate resilient, to address issues of affordable housing amid immense development, and support small business development through the work of historic preservation

Do female officials promote local eco-innovation? The moderating role of public pressure.

Based on upper echelons theory, feminist caring theory, and social role theory, we analyzed the intrinsic relationship between female officials and local eco-innovation and the moderating role of public pressure. A panel data set of 281 cities in China from 2003 to 2017 was selected as the research sample. The results showed thatfemale municipal secretaries had a positive effect on incremental eco-innovation; female mayors had a positive effect on both radical and incremental eco-innovation; and the impact of female officials on eco-innovation varied across regions. Based on these findings, we propose that local governments should strengthen the evaluation system for officials, increase the participation rate of female officials in politics, and broaden the path of environmental monitoring for the general public.

Is Hamtramck Still Polish? Examining the Rise of Bangladeshi Visibility and Political Participation in Hamtramck

Abstract Hamtramck, known for its Polish, Catholic, working-class roots, has transmuted its Old World charm into a Small World appeal. With less than 7 percent of residents claiming Polish roots, how does the city's Polish history continue to provide an uninterrupted space for ethnic political participation? Hamtramck has become a port for more detailed explorations of the relationship between local governance and cultural self-determination and interrogations of the role of race, nationalism, citizenship, and belonging. This article explores the ascension of Bangladeshi visibility in a city experiencing tumultuous flux in population and culture. This article describes the Bangladeshi experience between the election of the first Polish female mayor in 2005 and the election of Hamtramck's first Muslim mayor in 2022 in terms of Bangladeshis’ political participation and how their contributions led to a renarrativization of the city.