Women and Politics at the 2011 Political Studies Association Conference
61st Political Studies Association Annual Conference
Transforming Politics: New Synergies
19 – 21 April 2011
Novotel London West
Women and Politics: One Day Workshop
April 18th (Times and room loaction to be announced)
Rationale: The Women and Politics PSA Workshop is intended to be a scholarly resource for those researching questions that focus particular attention on the role of women in politics, political life and political behaviour. The aim is to bring together specialists in this area to exchange information on the most current research, to provide support and constructive feedback on works in progress, and to encourage cross-fertilisation of ideas and findings.
Session 1 theme: Gendered Representation
Frances Millard, Marina Popescu and Gabor Toka, University of Essex
Title: Should women push for fewer women candidates? Preference voting systems and gender representation
Abstract: Employing a unique dataset of all individual candidates in all Czech, Estonian, Polish and Slovak post-communist elections, we contradict the assumptions behind previous research, namely that voters are less likely to choose women candidates than parties. In multivariate models controlling for electoral system characteristics and list order effects, gender appears as a relevant cue that is likely to increase candidates’ individual/preference vote share.
Joanna Legg, University of Bath
Title: A new brush sweeps clean? The substantive representation of women in ‘new’ institutions in Wales and Tuscany
Abstract: Using comparative empirical data from two case studies, the Tuscan Regional Council and the National Assembly for Wales, this paper seeks to critically assess these narratives from a gender perspective, exploring the involvement of third sector women’s organisations in the substantive representation of women in ‘new’ sub-national institutions within the EU. Using sociological institutional approaches for the analysis and evidence from documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews and observation, the paper traces and compares policy development in the area of violence against women to assess whether and how the informal norms and discursive structures prevalent among third sector women’s organisations converge or diverge with those of the regional political institutions.
Rainbow Murray, Queen Mary, and Réjane Sénac-Slawinski, CNRS-Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
Title: The Representation of Whom – and What? Self-perceptions of French MPs of their roles as representatives
Abstract: This paper draws on the preliminary results of interviews with about 150 French MPs (using a paired sample of men and women from a range of parties). The MPs are asked to define how they conceive their roles as representatives – for example, whether their priority is to represent the nation, their party, their constituency, and/or any descriptive groups to which they belong. The findings will help to illuminate how gender quotas shape electoral democracy by influencing the interplay between descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation.
Session 2 theme: Studying Women
Emily Harmer: Loughborough University
Title: “She’s just a sort of bigoted woman”: News Coverage of women in the British General Election 2010.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the way that women were constructed in six national daily newspapers during the 2010 general election campaign. The paper demonstrates that despite the usual media speculation about the importance of women voters in the election before the campaign officially started; women and their political priorities were largely absent from the newspaper coverage.
Peter Allen, Birkbeck College
Title: Local patterns of gendered political recruitment- how does the political activity of local authority councillors affect their political ambition?
Abstract: This paper will ask why more women do not make the step from local council positions to the UK parliament, a question acknowledged but not investigated in existing work but one that is essential to a reassessment of the supply and demand model generally used to explain the under-representation of women in parliaments. Utilising original data, the paper will show that certain types of council work have differential and gendered outcomes in terms political ambition.
Dr Hande Eslen-Ziya, Bahcesehir University and/ or Dr Umut Korkut, Glasgow Caledonian University
Title: Politicized Women in Turkey
Abstract: Republicanism has been the form of political religion in Turkey since its establishment where the Turkish nation and the Republic assume the character of a sacred entity. The new interpretations of modernization do not necessarily support the dominant political religion in Turkey. Gender policy is a crucial area to study how modernization and republicanism clash and reconcile with each other. This article comprehensively examines how, very recently, the demands of gender rights activists have clashed and reconciled with republicanism.
Kristi Winters, Birkbeck College
Title: When ‘gender’ is statistically significant: Why we can’t believe our man/woman measures in statistical analysis.
Abstract: This paper advances the following arguments: 1) statistical analyses based upon categorising participants as male or female produce results that are conceptually unclear and therefore empirically imprecise; 2) the causal mechanisms at work when the sex/gender variable is statistically significant is unclear and under-theorised; 3) exploratory empirical research indicates the inclusion of both gendered personality traits and a sex variable has a complex effect on the statistical significance of the sex variable, therefore inclusion of gendered personality trait measures are important to gain a better understanding from where variation comes.
Women and Politics: Panels
HOW TO JOIN
Our group is open to anyone interested in gender and politics, as well as to women political scientists. If you wish to join us, or renew your membership, please complete the 2011 Membership Form. Please make cheques payable to ‘PSA Women and Politics Group’ and return to Dr. Rainbow Murray, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS. The form includes an optional discounted subscription rate to the journal ‘Gender and Politics’ - great for keeping up on the latest developments in the area!
We are always keen to further promote research in our field so if you have an idea for a seminar or conference – however small or big – that you would like to organise (or would like help with organising), please contact Rainbow Murray or Kristi Winters.
Mailing List
Information about events, calls for papers, prizes, conferences and so on of relevance to our filed are periodically sent out to our members via Jisc-mail (click to join).
