Do political institutions have gendered consequences for political engagement? I argue that gender-related policies and institutions are not only outcomes in the political process, but also carry important messages that shape our expectations about what women and men should be doing in the political arena. This policy feedback loop has implications for a wide array of political attitudes and activities—from attitudes towards gender roles in politics to running for elected office.
A comparative politics of gender presents new opportunities for theoretical and methodological innovations alike. Although scholars of comparative politics have focused a great deal of attention on political institutions, institutional research has often been conducted separately from research on political behavior. As an emerging framework, a comparative politics of gender is not entrenched in previous macro- and micro-level distinctions, and will yield the most fruitful research by integrating the major approaches of comparative politics. In this essay, I propose an integrated theoretical framework combining behavioral and institutional approaches, which will lead to a more complete understanding of how and why differences in political engagement among men and women varies cross-nationally and over time. Focusing on the ways in which gender is woven into political institutions and behaviors, and the interaction between the two, provides a common thread to bridge these two comparative literatures.
Explaining Gender Gaps in Political Engagement
Despite rising aggregate levels of education and paid-labor-force participation in industrialized democracies, differences among men and women in political engagement persist. For instance, gaps often emerge in campaign involvement, attempts to persuade others, and democratic satisfaction—even after controlling for socioeconomic status and age.Footnote 1 Participation gaps are greater in some countries than in others, and are especially pronounced at the highest echelons of political decision-making.Footnote 2 Adding to the puzzle, differences between men and women in political engagement also vary over time, often changing from one election to the next.Footnote 3 Similarly, shared attitudes towards the roles of men and women in politics vary greatly across nations and over time.Footnote 4
Past explanations for gender gaps in political engagement—increasing levels of education, income, social connections, and declining levels of religiosity—often place the onus for changes on women. In addition, we should ask how the political context influences differences between men and women in political engagement. While large-scale forces such as socioeconomic development and cultural and religious traditions play a role in shaping the broad contours of political engagement, they are less helpful in explaining why gaps widen or narrow at particular junctures in time.
A complementary and often overlooked causal mechanism for change lies in political institutions and policies, which can carry powerful cognitive cues to men and women alike about women's role in the political arena. Although several agents transmit ideational norms and values regarding gender roles, including women's movements and the media, institutions can also work to diffuse norms and values.
Political institutions lie at the macro-level of political analysis, and are sets of rules that shape human interaction.Footnote 5 Policies are one form of institutions, and this essay focuses on the policies, rules, and treaties that target gender equality, such as equal wages, equal employment opportunity, government provision of childcare, paid parental leave, and international treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). I argue that domestic and international policy choices can encourage or impede civic engagement among women and men.
Policy Feedback and Mass Attitudes and Behaviors
The importance of policy feedback is rooted in the rich body of literature termed “historical institutionalism.” The idea that previous policy choices and designs significantly impact future policy decisions has been examined, for example, in welfare policies in the US and Britain and social policy in the US.Footnote 6 Past studies establish that the mechanisms for policy feedback work at the individual-level, the group level, and as cognitive symbols to encourage psychological engagement.
The first mechanism centers on the resources of individual citizens. Policies often distribute benefits to particular people. For example, wage replacement confers income, and affirmative action in education confers information and skills. Thus, policies can increase or decrease any given individual's resources, and an individual's resources significantly influence one's ability and willingness to participate in politics.Footnote 7
Because policies target groups of people, policy consequences often draw individuals together based upon shared experience or benefits, creating or strengthening groups that seek to advance and protect their benefits.Footnote 8
In addition, policies generate cognitive effects, which affect both political elites and mass publics. Policies provide both concrete information and more subtle cues that help people make sense of the social and political landscape. New information may highlight new problems, or alter perspectives on long-standing problems. Policies affect the way citizens talk about social issues.Footnote 9 In addition, policies influence ideas about what issues government should address, and the priority that ought to be given to them, and the importance of the policy's target population to society.Footnote 10
Towards a Theory of Gender, Institutions, and Political Behaviors
In a process of feedback, gender-related policies shape political engagement among men and women. Figure 1 illustrates the analytical framework. In the following sections, I offer theoretical expectations for how gender-related policies can encourage or discourage political activity through three policy feedback mechanisms: (1) individual-level resources, (2) interest groups, and (3) psychological engagement in the political process.
Gender-related policies and political engagement
To begin, the gender power-balance initially shifted due to women's mass entrance into the paid workforce. Early gender-related policies exerted a feedback effect, directly improving women's resources and opportunities individually and as groups. Women have long lagged behind men in term of personal wealth, professional careers, and ties to interest groups. Resources gained through, for example, equal pay initiatives, improve women's capacities and time to follow politics. Further, by improving women's economic resources relative to men's, such initiatives make it more likely that potential female candidates will have the political resources to step forward and run for elected office.
At a second level, policy breakthroughs also draw women together as a group around common goals, such as equal employment opportunity. These shared interests generate support for women's movements and organized interest groups, which lobby to preserve the initial strides, and press for further gains. For example, in the case of the United States, the adoption of Title VII of the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and the subsequent establishment of the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1965, led activists to form the National Organization for Women (NOW), which quickly became the largest American women's organization.Footnote 11
Gender-related policies also shape attitudes towards women's roles in the political arena, and can alter women's psychological engagement with the political process and norms of political behavior. In her discussion of a comparative politics of gender in this symposium, Louise Chappell notes that gender operates as a process within institutions, and this process establishes norms, expectations, and a “logic of appropriateness” for gender in politics.
Policy adoption often changes common perceptions of the types of issues and policies that constitute grounds for political debate. For example, when an issue such as childcare provision is considered private, women's concerns for these issues are relegated to forums outside of government. In contrast, when women frame claims for childcare as collective problems, take them to public debate and the legislature, and achieve policy gains, the policy itself alters perceptions of appropriate roles for women in politics. Through this process, issues that have traditionally been perceived as women's individual problems translate into national policy choices. When one policy that targets women demonstrates that previously “private” issues can achieve the status of public problems, others may follow. Further, policy responsiveness signals that the established political channels offer an effective arena in which women activists can invest their political capital. In this way, women's and gender-related policies can serve as symbols to encourage women's engagement in politics.
Policies and Gender Messages
Both the consequences of gender-related policies and the ways that they are framed send messages to the electorate about men and women in politics. Framing stems from the way in which a “problem” is conceptualized, the assumptions behind it, the way it is discussed, and the array of possible solutions that are considered.Footnote 12 For example, policies framed in terms of gender equality signal to mass publics and political elites that the playing field is not even, and that steps must be taken to achieve equal opportunity and more egalitarian outcomes. Equality policies can also call for women's rights, often as a larger process of bolstering human rights.
A wide range of gender equality policies have been adopted in a number of countries, as Mala Htun and Laurel Weldon demonstrate in their contribution to this symposium. For example, in the US, the 1963 Equal Pay Act called for an end to discrimination based on sex. In many states, companies previously kept separate wage scales for men and women.Footnote 13 Employment policies may be adopted at the national or federal levels in some systems. In Canada, most jobs are covered by provincial law, yielding a variety of equal pay laws by region. Equal employment policies in the economic sphere may also provide a justification for greater equality in the political sphere. Party officials may find it difficult to argue for equality policies in employment and deny the need for similar policies in politics.Footnote 14
Institutions at the supranational level also work to diffuse ideas and norms of equality for women. One prominent example of a policy document that has gained attention worldwide is CEDAW, adopted by the United Nations in 1979. CEDAW is the main international legal document on women's rights.Footnote 15 CEDAW highlights pervasive gender inequalities, sends strong messages to political elites and mass publics about the importance of women's equality, and requests government action.Footnote 16 The diffusion of ideas of gender equality can lead to more egalitarian outcomes. Across 180 countries from 1975 to 2000, the adoption of CEDAW has been associated with meaningful improvements in women's life expectancy, literacy, participation in the economy, and in parliamentary office.Footnote 17
Institutions and policies framed as “women's policies,” target women as a group or the gendered division of labor in society. These policies are likely to have greater impact on women than on men. When these issues are introduced into the political discussion, and gain policy adoption, they ultimately expand understandings of what is considered political, transforming the political process.Footnote 18 While there is considerable debate over whether such policies empower women or serve to reify their subordinate position, the differential impact of such policies on women is the relevant question for this essay.
For example, childcare provision and maternity leave have often been neglected areas for public policy. Maternity/parental leave is granted by states in connection with the birth of a child. For some nations, this leave is restricted to mothers, but in most it has recently been extended to both parents. National maternity-leave policies have a long history, and early policies were often minimal, solely advocating a few weeks of unpaid leave immediately before and after birth. Since then, maternity-leave policies have been expanded. Like maternity leave, a separate childcare leave may be paid or unpaid. For example, Finland, France, Germany and Spain offer parents up to 156 weeks of leave. In contrast, Canada offers only 10 weeks of leave, and the US only 12 weeks of unpaid leave. In some cases longer leave time comes with a lower wage replacement level, or none at all. In other cases, generosity in time and pay increase together.Footnote 19
In addition to new policies expanding the domain of what is considered political, policy frames also have important consequences. As Htun and Weldon point out, maternity leave can be framed as a class-based or a gender-status policy. These alternative frames activate different interest groups to advocate for maternity leave, from trade unions to women's organizations, and project different ideas about the importance of gender equality.
Gender quotas are another prominent example of an institution that targets women as a group. Not only are gender quotas designed to enhance democratic inclusion, but they also call attention to women's status in the political arena relative to men's. Candidate gender quotas are often adopted by political parties to govern their own nomination procedures, and more recently have been adopted at the national level, compelling all parties in the system to select a particular proportion of women.Footnote 20 Worldwide, gender quotas are associated with higher numbers of women in political office.Footnote 21 In addition, quota policies may have an impact on the electorate more generally, altering mass attitudes towards the role of women in politics. Gender quotas reinforce the idea that women are under-represented in the political process, and that formal action is necessary to rectify this inequality. In this way, gender quotas signal that the political arena is a place for both men and women and may narrow gender differences in political participation.
Policy Change
Policies often change, through expansion or rollbacks, and these changes influence the dynamics of men's and women's political involvement. Andrea Campbell states that the “designs of policies—what they do, to whom they are targeted, how generous they are, and how they are administered—shape attitudes toward fellow citizens and the role of government, partisan and ideological orientations, and patterns of political participation.”Footnote 22 The degree of resources allocated to the implementation of a policy has consequences for the resources it distributes to individuals, the benefits some groups receive over others, and for the cognitive cues it sends to the public in general. The more expansive the gender-related policy, the stronger the signal that women are an integral part of the political process whose participation matters.
Changes also occur through policy implementation. For example, candidate gender-quota policies may send positive messages about encouraging women's participation in parliament, or they may convey a sense of empty promises. Quota policies can take a variety of forms, and some are backed up by serious sanctions, while others serve as mere window dressing. For example, consequent to the adoption of a national-candidate gender-quota law in Mexico in 2002, the percentage of women in parliament jumped seven percentage points to 23 percent in the 2003 election. In fact, some parties even surpassed the mandated 30 percent women candidates.Footnote 23 In contrast, the French quota policy requires that all parties nominate equal proportions of men and women candidates in their election lists. However, the first post-quota national elections of 2002 brought few gains: women still held only 12 percent of the seats in the French National Assembly. Due to a loophole, most parties violated either the spirit or the letter of the new law, nominating women to unwinnable seats, or simply ignoring the new law and accepting the financial penalty.Footnote 24
Political Engagement, Activity and Gender Differences
The messages that policies send to the electorate about gender in politics may influence various forms of political engagement. By raising the importance of gender equality to the national agenda, policy change may translate into more gender-egalitarian attitudes towards women's roles in the political arena and lead publics to expect a greater role for women as political activists and candidates for office. This may also increase women's sense of connection to the political system. A greater sense of inclusion may increase women's knowledge and interest in politics. We can expect greater discussion of politics among women when they perceive political issues as more relevant to their everyday lives. In addition, as more stereotypically “female” issues such as childcare and equal pay are emphasized alongside the stereotypically “male” issues of the economy and foreign policy, women may feel more confident about navigating the political landscape, and gender differences in political efficacy may narrow, and women's actual participation is likely to increase.
The cognitive effects of policies that target women or gender equality are most likely to have their greatest impact on the forms of participation that require the most time and energy—particularly running for office. The impact of the policy cues may impact women's candidacies at two levels. On the supply side, more qualified women will feel connected to politics, possessed of relevant political skills and perspectives, and thus encouraged to take the step to run for office. On the demand side, political and party elites who serve as gatekeepers for the recruitment and nomination of candidates for office may be more likely to encourage women as their perceptions of the need for women in politics and norms of gender equality grow.
Conclusions
A rich set of comparative studies asks how gender differences in politics affect public policy outcomes . This essay flips the question on its head to ask how policy outcomes influence gender differences in political engagement. I have argued that policies can send powerful messages that shape perceptions of the appropriate roles for women and men in the political sphere. Shifting attitudes towards gender in politics may have implications for norms of behavior in political participation. Certainly the relationship between policies and women's participation runs both ways, and this reciprocity must be taken into account in future research.
Studies of gender-related policy feedback must be both cross-national and longitudinal. Visible policies adopted during times of rapid changes in society are most likely to have dramatic effects on perceptions of politics. Static snapshots will be less useful because there are so many potentially confounding influences on attitudes.
Such a broad theoretical framework calls for both carefully selected in-depth cases and a large-n statistical analysis. Comparison of a few well-selected country case studies will allow for analysis over a longer period of time, and for a more nuanced understanding of the messages that particular policies send to the electorate. A large number of cases may allow for a wide variety of political contexts while also controlling for a host of potential influences on political engagement. Recent worldwide data collection efforts, such as the one by Mala Htun and Laurel Weldon or the Research Network on Gender and the State (RNGS) project, will be instrumental in providing comparative measures of policies. In addition, time-series cross-national indicators of a range of political attitudes and behaviors are necessary, and may be assembled from country-specific national election study series, or multi-nation survey projects such as the World Values Survey or the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Future research on policy feedback for political behavior will also have to consider that similarly designed policies may send different signals to different types of women. Specifically, younger women seem more likely to respond to inclusive policy messages because they have less experience with the political system, and their attitudes are still being formed.
While this essay has focused on the positive impact of gender policies for democratic inclusion, we must also consider the potential for a backlash. Just as the third wave of the women's movement ushered in a counter-movement designed to preserve traditional gender roles, so too can policies such as affirmative action reinvigorate opposition to social change and egalitarianism. For example, strong opposition to gender quota policies may lead to negative images of “quota women” as undeserving or unqualified. Such images of women in politics could actually depress psychological engagement and participation, especially among women in the electorate.
In conclusion, examining the effects of policy feedback on political engagement allows for the integration of the political institutional and behavioral approaches in comparative politics. Further, a focus on gender taps the most fundamental concerns of political science—power relations—and shines a light on political dynamics that can work either to reinforce distributions of power or to foster changes that expand the political process.
