Gendered political resources: The case of party office Articles
Overview
published in
- PARTY POLITICS Journal
publication date
- September 2018
start page
- 536
end page
- 548
issue
- 5
volume
- 24
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1354-0688
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1460-3683
abstract
- Party office is a crucial political resource for those seeking a political career. It provides advantageous access to the distribution of the patronage parties are entitled to in party government democracies. This article aims at measuring this comparative advantage while simultaneously investigating whether it benefits women and men equally in political recruitment processes. We concentrate on viable candidacy for parliamentary office, ministerial appointments, as well as post-ministerial offices in public and semi-public life that are also in the hands of political parties to distribute. Our cross-national analysis of advanced industrial democracies shows that men are much more likely than women to benefit from holding party office in their ascendant political careers, even when controlling for other political resources, sociodemographic factors and country-level variables. This suggests that party office is a gendered political resource and that gender power dynamics are deeply entrenched in political parties.
Classification
keywords
- political parties; party patronage; political recruitment; women's representation; gender power