Number Of Women In Parliament Research Articles

The Political Development of Women in Albania

The issue of women’s representation and participation in politics and decision-making is not anymore an unknown or un-discussed issue in Albanian. This paper attempts to investigate the conceptual and material bases of women’s participation in the politics in Albania. It will be bringing facts and arguments regarding the participation of women not only in political life and decision making but also is going to investigate in detail in membership of political parties. Further investigation will be on how much weight women have on media coverage of different aspects of their life. Politic cannot be done properly, if the vision and the concepts of the woman’s in general would not be brought up by their women representatives in the political arena. Despite the increase number of women in parliament, many advocate that the women until now had been only a decoration on the back ground of the political life and these needed to be changed. It seems that this change now taking place in Albania that would take some time. The study tries to provide information and analyses on this regard. Then the paper reaches a conclusion that there is still a long way to go in Albania for convincing more women to participate in politics, because without of them the politic would not be addressing whole problems of the country. Key words Politic, Women, Participation, Parliament, Parties, Election

Seats for the 51 %: Beyond the Business Case for Corporate Board Quotas in Jamaica

There is no shortage of Jamaican women with relatively high educational levels, extensive workforce experience, and strong records of community service. In spite of this, few Jamaican women are found among top government and business leaders. In response, Jamaica's 51 % Coalition has proposed using gender quotas to increase the number of Jamaican women in Parliament and on public and private sector boards of directors. My focus in this article is the private sector. I evaluate both the desirability of Jamaican corporate gender quotas and the merits of using “Business Case” arguments to promote Jamaican quotas. Advocates of political gender quotas justify them on grounds of women's rights and representative democracy. Proponents of corporate gender quotas, on the other hand, tend to promulgate Business Case arguments, which promote gender equity as a way to boost corporate efficiency and profitability. I conclude that Jamaican gender quotas deserve recognition as one potential strategy among many required to build a gender-just and prosperous economy. The Business Case is a powerful strategic resource for the 51 % Coalition but the Coalition should not exaggerate potential efficiency gains from gender-diverse boards. Furthermore, quota advocates must deploy the Business Case carefully to avoid the pitfalls of instrumentalism, essentialism, and depoliticization that are often associated with these arguments.

Political Engineering for Women in Indonesian Governance

The rising number of women in parliament is a vital entry point to involve more women politics. This factor opens discourse, engagement and active participation that can elevate women’s political bargain in negotiation room. It is in the long run will affect the embodiment of critical mass which is believed to increase factor of women’s representation in policies decision. Mainstreaming gender in governance shall be supported by political engineering, institutional setting, roles of the game, and an open and democratic system. Democratic political setting is the pre-requisite to create equal representation and participation for women and other minorities group in governance politics.

Still a ‘Male Business’? Explaining Women’s Presence in Executive Office

This article aims to account for cross-national and over-time variation in women’s participation in cabinets. Specifically, it focuses on some key political factors which have not been tested yet, such as the effectiveness of party gender quotas. Previous literature has mainly centred on structural variables, such as the degree of democratisation and economic development. Using an original longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 23 advanced industrial democracies, this article provides new evidence that some important political factors should be considered. It finds that countries with a specialist system have a higher percentage of women in cabinet than generalist systems, left-wing parties in government appoint more women, women are more likely to receive a ministerial post when the governing party has adopted gender quotas, and an increasing number of women in parliament boosts women in cabinet. Furthermore, the article shows that these political variables perform differently through time, and that political factors have become more relevant in recent decades.

Examining the Relationship of Corruption with Economic Growth, Poverty and Gender Inequality Albanian Case

This thesis examines the relationship of corruption with economic growth, poverty and gender inequality in Albania. Albania is a developing country with a GDP growth rate of 1.6% (World Bank, 2012) and income inequality is a serious problem that government has to deal with. Regarding gender discrimination a lot of progress is made. The current government counts six female ministers in its body. Corruption in Albania is a widespread phenomenon and is found almost in every sector of life. TI CPI index ranks Albania in the 116 place out of 177 countries observed. To study this relationship a multiple regression analysis is conducted. Data for this analysis correspond to years 2000 to 2012 and is accessed from World Bank database. in this analysis CC from World Bank is the dependent variable, while FDI, GDP growth rate, GNI per Capita, Unemployment Rate, Proportion of Women in Parliamentary Positions and Women's share in Labor Force Participation Rate are the explanatory variables. The first two variables are used as indicators of economic growth. GNI per capita and Unemployment rate account for poverty, while the last two variables account for gender inequality. The results have shown that when the level of FDIs in Albania is increased government performance in control of corruption is improved. From the analysis it is understood that a decrease in unemployment rate would increase government performance in control of corruption. The results of the analysis showed that when unemployment rate increase, CC decreases. Regarding the link of corruption with GDP growth rate and GNI per capita, an inverse relationship is observed. With an increase in either GDP growth rate or GNI per capita, CC will decrease. Even the relationship with number of women in parliament and their share in labor force participation rate with corruption resulted to be negative. An increase in either proportion of women in parliamentary positions or share of them in labor force participation rate has shown to worsen government performance in control of corruption.

Migration-Induced Women's Empowerment: The Case of Turkey

Migration not only contributes to development through financial remittances, but also through flows of knowledge and through the diffusion of social, cultural and political norms and values. In fact, these more intangible contributions are more appreciated during economic and financial crises, as financial remittances become unstable or decrease in those circumstances. This paper, therefore, addresses the effect of migration on women’s empowerment in Turkey. The number of women in parliament in Turkey is chosen as a gauge of women’s empowerment and is explained by the emigration rate, the relative education of women to men, and a measure of democracy. Utilization of data over six decades from 1960 until 2011 gives the possibility that these series can be spuriously correlated. Therefore, the paper addresses the issue of spurious correlation in an analytical way. Spurious correlation is the risk of linking the share of women in parliament, for example, to the emigration rate when in fact there is no association. This study adopts the bounds testing procedure as a method to determine and to avoid spurious correlation. The results of bounds testing gives clear-cut evidence that women’s empowerment, the share of women in parliament in the present context, is related to the emigration rate, the relative education of women and to a measure of democracy. The bounds-testing procedure is replicated for emigration flows by destination country groups such as European and other core OECD countries, Arab countries, and Russia and CIS (Commonwealth Independent States) countries. Again, it is found that the share of women in parliament is related to the country groups with the largest effect in European and core OECD countries. The results are robust for the inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees in the emigration data. These results have important policy implications for sending as well as for destination countries, implications which are discussed in the paper.

Women changing policy outcomes: Learning from pro-women legislation in the Ugandan Parliament

Synopsis Since the 1990s there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of women in parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the literature finds little evidence that increased women's representation has had significant effects on policy outcomes. Uganda has been a pioneer in increasing the number of women legislators. Legislative outcomes were poor from 1996 to 2006, but several pro-women laws were passed in the 2006–2011 multiparty period. Legislative developments since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in Uganda suggest that women have made use of restricted political space to advance their concerns. The new multiparty dispensation, however, does not seem to have been a significant factor. While the increased number of women in Parliament has contributed to pro-women policies, other important factors include the role of the women's caucus in Parliament, the support of male legislators, and relationships between female legislators and actors in civil society and the aid community.

Efektivitas Pemberlakuan Electoral Quota dalam Undang-Undang Nomor 12 Tahun 2003 tentang Pemilihan Umum dalam Meningkatkan Jumlah Perempuan di Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Republik Indonesia Periode 2004-2009

In Indonesia, women’s participation, particularly in parliament, has been intensively discussed in 2002. The extensive discussions continued in 2003 especially after the enactment of General Election Law. The enactment of this law is significant since it contained a provision regarding thirty percent quota for women, a provision which never appeared in the previous legislation. This provision is intended to increase the number of women in the legislature. This is based on the fact that in Indonesia the number of women is higher than that of men. The lack of women in parliament is perhaps one of the causes why issues about women rarely became a priority in government policy making. The significant number of women in parliament could be a way to articulate women’s interests in government policy making. This paper will specifically examine the implementation of ‘thirty percent quotas for women’ to increase the number of women in the Indonesian parliament. It argues that even though there is an effort to increase the number of women in parliament through electoral quotas, such an effort is not sufficient to increase the number of women in parliament. Electoral quotas may gain better result if it combines with the change of political culture and the change of government policy. In doing so, other actors such as political parties and the government should be involved. Political parties and the government should be more gender sensitive (women friendly) in policy making.

Women's Representation around the World: The Importance of Women's Participation in the Workforce

Aside from the commonsensical conclusion that institutions (e.g. quota rules) boost womens parliamentary representation, there is little consensus in the academic literature on the relative and absolute impact other economic, cultural or societal factors have on the number of women in parliament. One variable that is particularly debated in the literature is womens labour force participation. The indicators reported impact ranges from substantively positive to nil to even slightly negative. In this article we aim to resolve these controversies. Our pooled time series analysis—based on the largest possible data set, namely all countries for which the data are available from 1995 to 2010—indicates that the number of women in the workforce strongly influences womens parliamentary representation.

MAK BEDAH GOES SHOPPING FOR A REAL CANDIDATE IN MALAYSIA'S 2008 GENERAL ELECTIONS

On the eve of the campaign period of Malaysia's general elections in 2008, the plans of the Women's Candidacy Initiative (WCI) to increase the number of independent women in Parliament were thrown into disarray when their candidate was forced to withdraw at short notice. Rather than abandon their participation in those elections, WCI went through a creative moment during which they developed an innovative voter-education campaign revolving around the fictional character of Mak Bedah (Aunty Bedah). This campaign sought to draw attention to the issues that WCI felt were important, such as women's poor representation in Parliament. Through a novel and playful campaign, WCI made public a number of candidates' views on issues important to WCI, and succeeded in attracting significant media attention. The creativity exhibited in the development and deployment of this campaign is analysed in this article in the light of literature pertaining to the public sphere. I argue that when considering such interventions in the public sphere, we should not give undue emphasis to the content of discourses deployed but rather see discourses as a means by which ends are achieved. Using WCI's Mak Bedah campaign, I demonstrate how political demands, as much if not more so than discursive logic, may result in given movements gaining broad political traction.

El camino hacia el empoderamiento político de las mujeres

Este artículo comienza presentando la situación actual y las tendencias de la presencia de la mujer en puestos de responsabilidad política en parlamentos tanto internacionales y nacional y autonómicos de España. En concreto, se estudia el caso del Principado de Asturias en donde, además de comprobar el considerable incremento del número de mujeres en el parlamento, nos detenemos en dos aspectos problemáticos para la consecución del empoderamiento femenino. Nos vamos a referir a éste como un proceso que va más allá del acceso de las mujeres a puestos de toma de decisiones, significa, además, que las mujeres sean conscientes de sus capacidades, habilidades y competencia para influir en el ámbito político. Por esta razón, se ha considerado interesante valorar, por un lado, la dificultad tanto estructural como emocional que sostienen las mujeres debido a "la triple jornada laboral", lo que limita la igualdad de acceso a este mundo, y por otro, la influencia negativa que los estereotipos ejercen sobre las mujeres, moderando el proceso de autopercepción, autoestima y competencia en el desempeño del rol político. Se presume que ambos planteamientos explicarán de alguna forma el fenómeno de avance lento en el proceso de empoderamiento de las mujeres. Para ello se utilizan, por un lado, datos cuantitativos sobre presencia en puestos políticos, y, por otro, grupos de discusión, formados por diferentes miembros de partidos políticos y personas que ocupan cargos de responsabilidad a nivel parlamentario, gubernamental y administrativo en el Principado de Asturias

Introduction: Quotas - Add Women and Stir?

Quotas have become increasingly popular as a fast track option for securing enhanced political representation largely because of their proven impact on increasing the number of women in parliament. As more countries have adopted one form or another of the quota, it is now timely to reflect on what the implications have been for transforming gender relations and the nature of politics at large. This introduction examines from the country case studies presented in this IDS Bulletin , the insight offered into the dynamics of motorways and pathways of increasing women's decision‐making power (with or without a quota) and the underlying assumptions about gender, power and politics as well as the policy issues for consideration.

Women and the 2007 federal election

For the first time in more than twenty years, the Australian Labor Party went to the 2007 election without a women's policy. Campaign advisers believed that any suggestion of feminism would damage its chances of wooing back blue-collar voters. Feminists had to take it on trust that the women on the Labor front bench would result in renewed progress towards women-friendly policy. The Coalition had a women's policy but suffered from the effective campaigns on the deleterious effects of their WorkChoices on low-paid women workers. While there was a record number of women in parliament and in Cabinet following the election, the relatively low number of women fielded by the Coalition kept Australia well down on the international league table for representation of women in national parliaments.

Varannan damernas väg till riksdagen. En romantisk historia

This article explores the impact of a romantic discourse in Swedish gender politics and more so; a heteroromantic discourse on closeness and passion between men and women. This is done through a close reading of the Swedish debate on “varannan damernas”, a quota measure to increase the number of women in parliament. The article argues that part of what turned this into a gender political success-story is the heteroromantic framing together with an adoption of ideals of cooperation inside the existing parties. The change in status is marked by a shift in terminology from ‘quotas’ to ‘varannan damernas’ (‘every other women’). In its earlier usage the expression refers to a phrase from the dance halls in which women were allowed to ask men up for every other dance. The metaphor thereby brings the question of women’s political presence into the intimate sphere and turns the previously conflictual framing of enforced legislated gender quota into a dance that symbolically guarantees both parts free will. The discursive embedding of visions and strategies is decisive in order to make gender equality an intelligible target for political action and change. With the counter-case of a women’s party, the article claims that the acceptance of certain gender equality solutions is not only due to a strong women’s movement or a general public interest in gender related matters. It is foremost a question of how claims and strategies are made intelligible and how they are incorporated into normative ideals of Swedish politics (mutual agreements and block-politics) and gender equality (cooperation between men and women). Thereby the case demonstrates that visions of emancipation are structured within relations of power. Gender politics can be described as a striving for gender equality, but is also a struggle over the classifications and legitimacy of certain world views as well as over material resources.

Women in the Legislatures and Executives of the World: Knocking at the Highest Glass Ceiling

This article reports the results of a survey of women in legislatures and executives around the world as they were constituted in 1998 (N = 180). The chief hypotheses regarding the factors hindering or facilitating women's access to political representation were tested by multivariate regression models. The regression models juxtaposed a cocktail of institutional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic variables with the following dependent variables: (1) the percentage of MPs who are women and (2) the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women.A number, although not all, of the cited hypotheses were statistically confirmed and more finely quantified. The socioeconomic development of women in society has an effect on the number of women in parliament but not in the cabinet. A country's length of experience with multipartyism and women's enfranchisement correlates with both the legislative and the executive percentage. Certain electoral systems are more women friendly than others. The ideological nature of the party system affects the number of women elected and chosen for cabinet posts. And last, the state's dominant religion, taken as a proxy for culture, also statistically relates to the number of women who will make it to high political office. However, other long-held hypotheses were not proved. The degree of democracy is not a good indicator of the percentage of women who will make it into the legislature or the cabinet, nor is the dichotomy between a presidential or parliamentary system.