| Publisher: Cogitatio
| ||||||||||
Similar Journals
|
Politics and Governance
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.372  Citation Impact (citeScore): 1 Number of Followers: 10  Open Access journalISSN (Print) 2183-2463 Published by Cogitatio  [4 journals]
|
- Women Opposition Leaders: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Agendas
Authors: Sarah C. Dingler, Ludger Helms, Henriette Müller
Pages: 080 - 84
Abstract: This thematic issue provides the first comprehensive overview of women opposition leaders and their performance. Setting the stage for a new research agenda, this editorial piece integrates theoretical and empirical insights at the intersection of three distinct research areas: political opposition, political leadership, and gender and politics. It discusses various notions of opposition leaders and identifies three main lines of inquiry: (a) career pathways and trajectories, (b) patterns of selection and de-selection, and (c) the actual and perceived performance of women’s oppositional leadership. Applying a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, this collection of original articles captures the diversity of women opposition leaders, their career trajectories, and their exercise of leadership across different political regimes and world regions.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6695
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- Parliamentary Women Opposition Leaders: A Comparative Assessment Across 28
OECD Countries
Authors: Sarah C. Dingler, Ludger Helms
Pages: 085 - 96
Abstract: While women have increasingly gained access to the position of opposition leader, we still know very little about their pathways to that office. Therefore, this article seeks to uncover the dynamics and patterns that distinguish the ascendency of women politicians to the office of opposition leader from a comparative perspective. In this article, opposition leaders are understood as the parliamentary party group leaders of the largest non-governing party in a given legislative assembly, which marks the closest equivalent to the Westminster understanding of leaders of the opposition that continues to dominate international notions of opposition leaders and oppositional leadership in parliamentary democracies. We draw on data from opposition leaders in 28 parliamentary democracies between 1996–2020 to identify opportunity structures that allow women opposition leaders to emerge across countries. In addition, we test how factors on the individual level (e.g., previous experience in party and parliament as well as in government) and at the party level (e.g., ideology) affect the likelihood that a parliamentary opposition leader is a woman. Our analyses demonstrate that the share of women in parliament significantly increases the likelihood that at least one of the parliamentary opposition leaders of the past 25 years was a woman. Moreover, opposition leaders in leftist parties are more likely to be women than their more rightist counterparts. Surprisingly, and contrary to our expectations, previous political experience does not shape the probability of women becoming opposition leaders. Thus, overall, the institutional and ideological contexts of selecting parliamentary opposition leaders seem to matter more than the experience and qualifications of individual candidates.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6176
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- Gender and Strategic Opposition Behavior: Patterns of Parliamentary
Oversight in Belgium
Authors: Benjamin de Vet, Robin Devroe
Pages: 097 - 107
Abstract: Studies on strategic parliamentary opposition often focus on broader behavioral patterns or party‐level variation. This article analyzes differences at the individual level, more notably between male and female opposition members of parliament. Using rational‐choice perspectives of opposition activity and theories of gendered political behavior, we hypothesize that female opposition members focus less on ideological conflicts (with or between coalition parties) and more on their party’s core issues. Furthermore, we expect them to more frequently target female ministers, in part because of the nature of their respective portfolios. Our analysis of all parliamentary questions tabled by opposition members in the Belgian Federal Parliament between 2007 and 2019 (N = 48,735) suggests that female members of parliament seem more likely to focus on issues that are salient to their party and less on conflictual matters between coalition partners. These results provide new empirical insights into strategic opposition behavior and gendered differences in the legislature.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6135
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s
Issues in the Italian Radical Right
Authors: Elisabetta De Giorgi, Alice Cavalieri, Francesca Feo
Pages: 108 - 118
Abstract: Under the motto “God, homeland, and family”—but also by stressing one further important marker of social identity, i.e., gender—Italian radical right party leader Giorgia Meloni multiplied her party seats in parliament from 2013 onwards. After the 2022 elections, she became the first woman prime minister in Italy. Starting from an overview of the figure of Giorgia Meloni as a radical right woman leader, we explore her and her party’s position on women-related issues and their relevance while exploring, in opposition, two different contexts: representative institutions and social media. To do that, we draw on parliamentary data—bills and parliamentary questions introduced in parliament by Fratelli d’Italia—and on Meloni’s public discourse—examined in an analysis of all the tweets posted by her official Twitter account, between 2013 and 2021. As expected, a low saliency of women’s issues appears in all the types of data examined, although some of them are more exposed to the shift in attention caused by the rise of related trend topics. Both Meloni and her party are strong supporters of the “natural family” and make use of women’s issues in claiming femonationalist arguments, especially on social media. However, Meloni and her party cannot be considered as fully “neo-traditional,” as are other similar parties in Europe, but rather as a combination of “neo-traditional” and “modern-traditional.”
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6042
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- The “Accidental Candidate” Versus Europe’s Longest Dictator:
Belarus’s Unfinished Revolution for Women
Authors: Farida Jalalzai, Steve Jurek
Pages: 119 - 129
Abstract: Women in Central and Eastern Europe have made gains as presidents and prime ministers. A notable exception to this is Belarus, where President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the longest dictator in Europe, has tightly clung to power since 1994. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya surprised many when she threw her hat in the ring for the 2020 presidential election. This article asks how Tsikhanouskaya arose as the 2020 opposition candidate and how gender shaped the campaign. Gender played a central role in her being able to stand in the election. Her husband had been a leading presidential candidate but was imprisoned by the regime. Like women who rose to executive leadership positions, Tsikhanouskaya ran in her husband’s place. Lukashenka permitted her candidacy because he did not see her as a political threat. Lukashenka regularly diminished her candidacy using sexist rhetoric. Tsikhanouskaya’s own campaign highlighted more traditionally feminine traits such as being a nurturer, unifier, and non-power seeking, and only being in politics by chance. Referring to herself as an “accidental candidate,” she made it clear that she sought to unify the Belarussian people against the dictatorship and would step aside after this was accomplished. As de facto opposition leader, she continues to highlight these more feminine qualities and craft a less threatening image.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6167
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- Gender and Opposition Leadership in the Pacific Islands
Authors: Kerryn Baker, Jack Corbett
Pages: 130 - 140
Abstract: Parliaments in the Pacific Islands are among the most male-dominated in the world. Yet despite the odds, there is a cohort of women who have been elected and won senior roles. This article adds to an emerging literature that examines the gendered pathways to political influence in the region by focusing on the hitherto overlooked role of the opposition leader. It uses a biographical approach to consider the pathways in and through this role by four women opposition leaders: Fiame Naomi Mata’afa (Samoa), Hilda Heine (Marshall Islands), Dame Carol Kidu (Papua New Guinea), and Ro Teimumu Kepa (Fiji). We parse out factors that explain the success of these leaders while also identifying barriers that have prevented their emergence in other Pacific states. We identify two main ways in which women politicians have used the position of leader of the opposition: first, the conventional understanding of the role as a path to power; and second, the less well-understood role of defending and protecting democratic norms and institutions. The latter can be interpreted as a version of the “glass cliff” phenomenon where women leaders assume key positions in times of crisis. Our findings thus highlight that while in the Pacific the role of leader of the opposition can be a path to power, the relatively few women leaders who have taken on this role have used it in diverse and varied ways.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6065
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- Political Pathways and Performance of Women Opposition Leaders in
Indonesia and South Korea
Authors: Nankyung Choi
Pages: 141 - 151
Abstract: While some world regions have seen women opposition leaders with no ties to political families rise to national leadership, in East Asia, women opposition leaders who ascend to national executive positions have been largely limited to the wives, daughters, or sisters of prominent male politicians. Locally, however, there have been some broadening and diversification of women who seek and win executive office through oppositional politics. Given the small number of women opposition leaders who have gained leadership positions in the government, this article develops an interpretive study of the relationship between becoming “critical actors” and doing “critical acts” as women opposition leaders. Using four illustrative cases of women who have pursued executive power through oppositional politics, this article questions whether and how the variation in women’s pathways affects their exercise of power in Indonesia and South Korea, two young though consolidating democracies in East Asia. Drawing on the biographies and policies of two presidents (Megawati Soekarnoputri and Park Geun-hye) and two mayors (Tri Rismaharini and Kim Soo-young) it shows that local women opposition leaders use their executive leadership to initiate and implement public policies, unlike their national counterparts whose pathways and performance are intertwined with family background. By doing so, the article sheds light on the complex nexus between political pathways and performance of women opposition leaders.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6151
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- The Instrumentalization of Women Opposition Leaders for Authoritarian
Regime Entrenchment: The Case of Uganda
Authors: Aili Mari Tripp
Pages: 152 - 163
Abstract: Electoral authoritarian regimes have sought to use a variety of tactics to remain in power even as they have opened themselves up to competition through multiparty elections. These tactics have included an array of measures targeting opposition women. They became significant in Africa after the 1990s as most countries adopted multiparty systems and ruling parties needed to maintain vote share. Ruling parties in African authoritarian countries strengthened their patronage networks by promoting women as leaders. At the same time, women in opposition parties have fared poorly compared to women in ruling parties and male opposition candidates. This has been the case even where one finds the special dispensation of a gender quota in the form of reserved seats. This article looks at how Uganda’s ruling party has used various tactics to advance women leaders, responding to pressures from both the women’s movement and international actors while seeking to ensure its continued dominance. It reveals an essential feature of authoritarianism in Africa today, namely the instrumental use of women leaders to entrench the ruling party in power.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6138
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
- Women Leading the Opposition: Gender and Rhetoric in the European
Parliament
Authors: Henriette Müller, Pamela Pansardi
Pages: 164 - 176
Abstract: The European Parliament (EP) is an intriguing arena to study the nexus between gender, speech-making, and leadership performance, as it simultaneously challenges and confirms gender-based hierarchies in legislative contexts. While the EP has a higher level of women’s representation than national parliaments, women’s access to top-level positions nonetheless remains limited. Yet the EP is a special case of a legislature. Lacking a right of initiative, it often acts collectively as an inter-institutional opposition to the EU core institutions. In this article, through a software-assisted analysis of EP debates following the president’s State of the Union Address, we investigate party group leaders’ evaluations of the Commission’s proposals and their charismatic rhetoric from a gender angle. Focusing on the three most recent legislatures (2009–2021), our analysis shows that while collective inter-institutional opposition is present in the EP, women leaders generally show higher levels of rhetorical skillfulness and voice either approval or opposition toward the Commission more emphatically than their male counterparts.
PubDate: 2023-02-22
DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i1.6172
Issue No: Vol. 11, No. 1 (2023)
