Female Mayors Research Articles

Does corruption hinder female political participation? Evidence from a measure against organized crime

Abstract This article analyzes the effect of anti-corruption measures on female political empowerment. We exploit a measure that prescribes the dissolution of city councils for mafia infiltration, leading to an exogenous decrease in the level of corruption within local government. We find that the percentage of female councilors and aldermen elected after compulsory administrations, as well as the probability of a female mayor, sharply increases relative to the control group; the effect of the measure is decreasing over time. The evidence suggests that the most likely mechanism mediating the result relies on the reduction in the voter bias against women as policymakers rather than the (self-)selection of women (JEL D72, D78, J16, J71, I38).

What's governance got to do with it? Examining the relationship between governance and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

Deforestation continues at rapid rates despite global conservation efforts. Evidence suggests that governance may play a critical role in influencing deforestation, and while a number of studies have demonstrated a clear relationship between national-level governance and deforestation, much remains to be known about the relative importance of subnational governance to deforestation outcomes. With a focus on the Brazilian Amazon, this study aims to understand the relationship between governance and deforestation at the municipal level. Drawing on the World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) as a guiding conceptual framework, and incorporating the additional dimension of environmental governance, we identified a wide array of publicly available data sources related to governance indicators that we used to select relevant governance variables. We compiled a dataset of 22 municipal-level governance variables covering the 2005-2018 period for 457 municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon. Using an econometric approach, we tested the relationship between governance variables and deforestation rates in a fixed-effects panel regression analysis. We found that municipalities with increasing numbers of agricultural companies tended to have higher rates of deforestation, municipalities with an environmental fund tended to have lower rates of deforestation, and municipalities that had previously elected a female mayor tended to have lower rates of deforestation. These results add to the wider conversation on the role of local-level governance, revealing that certain governance variables may contribute to halting deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

Las paradojas y transformaciones de la participación política en Bogotá: desafección política y participación en las elecciones de 2019

Con base en una encuesta de 2019 realizada por el Observatorio de Medios de la Universidad de La Sabana antes de las elecciones a la alcaldía de Bogotá, buscamos identificar la naturaleza y características de la transformación de la cultura política que condujo a la elección de Claudia López, la primera alcaldesa en el la historia de la ciudad, y su impacto en la afección/desafección política entre los votantes. Un electorado movilizado más por causas que por partidos parece romper con un escenario de desconfianza institucional y desinformación, generando resultados que muestran un cambio en el patrón de comportamiento electoral de los bogotanos.

Death in DC

The local political implication of Black maternal mortality raises questions about the extent to which city leaders, especially Black females, can influence policies to improve outcomes for Black expectant mothers. The case of Mayor Muriel Bowser, the second Black female mayor of Washington, DC, is examined to demonstrate the connection between intersectional identities and substantive representation through an examination of how she has attempted to reduce Black maternal mortality in the district. Data including press releases from her office, newsletters, accountability reports, and budget proposals are assessed. Other data including news reports from nonprofit organizations as well as local media are examined to provide a comprehensive understanding of how stakeholders in the community have reacted to actions taken by the Bowser administration. Currently serving her second term as mayor, Bowser has pursued actions that attempted to reduce this racial health disparity. Solutions pursued by Mayor Bowser have ranged from symbolic proclamations to substantive legislation as well as programs created through executive agencies as part of her administration. It is also worth noting that some of her actions appear to be in response to legislation approved by the city council. Bowser’s racial/ethnic, gender, and partisan identities strongly align with the actions she and her administration have taken to address Black maternal mortality in Washington, DC.

Women and local public finance

Does the gender of the mayor affect the size and composition of public expenditures and revenues? Using a sharp regression discontinuity design in close mixed gender races for the election of mayors in Italian municipalities in the period 2000–2015, we find no significant differences in policies implemented by male and female mayors. We explore whether the result masks heterogeneity by gender composition of the local government and by electoral rules according to which a mayor is elected. We find some evidence that female mayors devote a larger share of spending to the environment when there are more women in the municipal council, whereas they reduce the amount of resources going to social spending under the run-off relative to the single round system.

Can gender quotas break the glass ceiling? Evidence from Italian municipal elections

Do gender quotas promote the election of female mayors? I exploit the roll-out of three gender quota policies governing Italian municipal elections to answer this question. The quotas institute minimum legal levels of female representation in the lists of councilor candidates and in the municipal governments' executive bodies, but do not directly target mayoral positions. Therefore, their ability to promote female political leadership entirely depends on whether they induce a broader increase in female representation in municipal governments beyond that mechanically required by the law. Using event-study and regression discontinuity methods, I decompose the aggregate effects of the quotas into mechanical effects, driven by compliance with the law, and additional impacts, or “acceleration effects.” The reforms have increased the share of female politicians in the less senior government positions beyond the minimum legal level, but there is no evidence of effects on the mayoral position. I also find no evidence of effects on female mayoral candidacies or on electoral support for female mayoral candidates. I conclude that the acceleration effects produced by the quotas have been too weak to advance female political leadership in municipal governments.

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

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).

REFLECTIONS OF THE REPUBLIC GAINS ON MERSIN

After the victory, reforms were made in many areas in order to complete the social and political structures in Turkey and to reach the levels of the powerful states that are contemporary. The modernization model of the Republic of Turkey, which adopted the Kemalist thought system, covers all social, political, economic and cultural areas. In the practice that occurred the revolutions; every decision, every practice, every thought was handled on a national scale and considered as national solutions. Another feature of the reforms is that; it is inclusive of all parts of the country rather than being regional. Considering Anatolia as a whole, reforms in all cities were developed as the achievements of the republic. One of these cities was Mersin. Especially the practices of the reforms which are about in the field of education in Mersin, are at a level that can set an example for other provinces. In addition, the fact that the first female Mayor and educator Müfide İlhan, who represented the image of a modern Turkish woman in Mersin and also who was trying to be built together with the republic, shows an important step towards the achievements of the Republic. The aim of the study is to examine the reflections of the achievements of the "Modern Turkish Republic", which is being tried to be establish, in Mersin.

Researching SCSU's Hilton C. Buley Library's New Haven Mayoral Archives

Researching SCSU's Hilton C. Buley Library's New Haven Mayoral Archives

Are women mayors more effective in reducing the crime rate? Sharp regression discontinuity evidence from Peru

Did women mayors improve local security in their districts as compared to their male counterparts? Our analysis is focused on the impacts that women mayors had on the delinquency rate in Peru between 2015 and 2017. We apply sharp regression discontinuity (SRD) on official government data to estimate impacts. Despite the relatively small number of districts with female mayors, SRD passed all required assumptions and falsification tests. Our results indicate that female leadership in municipalities can reduce delinquency rate in 9 cases per 1,000 inhabitants in Peruvian districts, starting from the second year of the 4-year mandatory period. These findings complement those in recent literature that emphasize the role of women in public management.

Conflict and Gender Leadership: Female Mayors in Colombia

Are female-led communities differentially affected by conflict? In this paper, I examine this question in the context of the Colombian conflict between 1997 and 2015. I exploit close races for the mayor’s office and find that municipalities where a female mayor was (narrowly) elected experienced a decrease in guerrilla attacks. This effect amounts to 60% of the average incidence during the sample period, is robust to various specifications, and shows both persistence in time and spatial spillovers. I find that the drop is not driven by ideological factors and cannot be explained solely by the partisan affiliation of either the elected mayor or the runner-up. Instead, I show that these female politicians have a differential set of negotiation and executive skills. Finally, I use unique and novel data on the spatial distribution of guerrilla units and the gender of their leaders to show that the effect is stronger in municipalities under the influence of a female guerrilla commander.

Female politicians in municipal councils and fiscal performance

AbstractEmpirical research has tried to explain the effect of female politicians on various outcomes of political institutions. Few studies have focused on how the gender of politicians may affect institutional fiscal performance. Our research shows that both a female mayor, although with limited effect, and a greater share of female councillors worsen the fiscal performance of Spanish municipalities, which contrasts with the hypotheses raised, which were based on the mainstream of theoretical literature. Furthermore, right‐wing female councillors significantly increase the current budgetary imbalances, and female mayors with the same ideology seem to reduce the level of debt per capita.

Evolution gets personal Some Assembly Required Neil Shubin Pantheon, 2020. 288 pp.

Engaging anecdotes add intimacy to tales of Earth's 4 billion years of evolution

Do Female Leaders Promote 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.

Gender quotas and the selection of local politicians: Evidence from French municipal elections

Using data on the universe of elected politicians in French municipalities, this paper studies the impact of a gender quota law on the political representation of women and on the composition of municipal councils. The empirical strategy, a Difference-in-Discontinuities design, takes advantage of the fact that the policy applies to cities above a population threshold, and that this threshold has been modified over time. I find that the quota policy has a substantial impact on the share of female candidates and elected politicians, but fails to promote female mayors and list leaders, even in cities that have been exposed to the policy for 13 years. Women do not reach leadership positions because they are more likely to resign than male politicians. This higher propensity of women to leave politics is correlated with local gender norms concerning the place of women in society, and also varies with individual characteristics such as age and professional background. In a second part, I show that quotas have little effect on the composition of municipal councils in terms of socio-economic background, age, and political experience.

Gendered local politics: the barriers to women’s representation in Turkey

ABSTRACT Starting out from the argument that the political experience of women diverges at different levels of politics, this article aims to provide an understanding of the challenges faced by female mayors in local politics in Turkey. Nation-wide empirical data was gathered through in-depth interviews with 34 female mayors who were elected to office for the 2004–2009 and 2009–2014 terms. The framework analysis of the data reveals that the challenges in question stem from the cultural factors that reinforce the gendered local politics in Turkey. These barriers are embodied in the male-dominance of political seats, the hegemony of masculine discourse over political language, and the burden of traditional gendered roles on female mayors. The presence and authority of female mayors has come to be seen as a threat to existing political interests, with political language serving to devalue women, and to subordinate their demands to the agendas set by the male-dominated elite. The gendered responsibilities in the home have come to be associated with the political achievements of female mayors in Turkey, bolstering the gender bias in local politics, and thus preventing the elimination of distributive injustice and political inequality in democratic practice in Turkey regarding women’s identity and interests.

Women in Spanish Municipal Councils and Budgetary Policies

As men and women are sociologically different, scientific literature attempts to explain differences in public outcomes in terms of the gender of elected representatives. In the municipal sphere, few studies have analyzed the short- and long-run effects of the gender of the mayor and the councillors on global budgetary policy. Our research aims to fill this gap. One of our main findings is that a change from a male to a female mayor, or a change in the proportion of female councillors ideologically alienated from a female mayor, has a significant impact on budgetary policy. We have also verified that the presence of female politicians with a right-wing ideology on a municipal council leads the municipality to lower levels of current expenditure with respect to non-social spending in both the short and the long term.

Coproduction of Public Leadership: The Engagement of Mayors With Citizens, Managers and Politicians

This paper studies how mayors engage with citizens, managers and politicians to coproduce public leadership in the pursuit of several local governance processes: agenda setting; institutional decision making; public services design and delivery. We draw on an extensive survey with answers from 1,119 Italian directly elected Mayors. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and then clustering, we shed a light on the existence of four different clusters of engagement who coproduce different types of public leadership: political managerialism oriented leadership; multi-actor and participatory leadership; centralised leadership; conventional leadership. Our findings show that centralised leadership is the most popular cluster among the four; female mayors tend to enact a more multi-actor and participatory type of leadership; leadership in rural areas is more conventional. Interestingly, some mayors prefer to engage with politicians for issues related to public service design and delivery rather than with managers. We discuss how our findings advance public administration theory, specifically the literatures on public leadership and on the relationship between politics and administration.

Context Not Candidate Sex: A Case Study of Female Vote Choice for Mayor

It is expected that women who run for office will receive significantly more support from women relative to male voters. However, evidence for this gender affinity has been mixed. In fact, recent experimental studies, and elections, have not found it to exist for female candidates. To test the presence of gender affinity, we examine the case where voters have the opportunity to elect the first female mayor in a major US city. Using exit poll data, we find that women (and men) who cited gender as an important quality in choosing a candidate were significantly more likely to support the female candidate, but only a small portion of voters felt gender was the most important candidate quality. For the majority of women, we find that there were confounding factors, such as uncertainty of the female candidate’s leadership skills and issue positions, which prevented her from gaining the majority she needed to win.

Las presidentas municipales en México 2017, un panorama

In 2017 female mayors made up 14.2% (349) of all mayoral positions in the country, thanks to the gender equity principle incorporated into Mexican regulatory norms. On the one hand, arguably gradual progress has been made in terms of gender equity within the municipalities. However, hegemonic masculinity still has a strong presence at this level of government: for every female mayor governing, there are 6 male mayors. Based on a 10% sample of total women mayors in Mexico, and analyzing their profiles and professional trajectories, one thing becomes clear: these women continue to face a series of obstacles in obtaining and retaining their current positions. This is the result of a political culture that seems to seek to exclude women from the public sphere. We can also identify certain elements related to gender and political violence against women. In some cases, political violence can mean intimidation and threats, but it can also be as extreme as kidnappings and/or assassinations of family members. Women mayors know the main general problems within their own municipalities, but thanks to the institutional and legislative achievements the feminist movement wrought, these women can recognize much easier the core issues facing women. And while only half of these women, most of them manage to implement programs, protocols, rules, that attend to women’s needs directly.