This thesis represents a systematic examination of the potential sites of resistance to women’s political participation at various stages of the individual’s political career: on the campaign trail, at the ballot box, and in the legislature with respect to promotion prospects. This research has implications for the effectiveness of the existing quota measure in Ireland not only in terms of the number of women who
39 are successfully elected to Dáil Éireann (descriptive representation) but also in terms of the likely impact of those women who are elected in terms of their legislative outputs (substantive representation). In addition it contributes to existing research on the topic of women in political life by generating new insights on the position of women in Irish politics.
Chapter Two investigates whether candidate experiences on the 2014 Irish local election were gendered. Using data from the 2014 Local Election Candidate Study we tested for gender differences in the extent to which candidates felt comfortable engaging in a range of campaign activities (dealing with party officials, dealing with the press, meeting constituents, engaging in a negative campaign, and soliciting donations). If women reported feeling generally less comfortable than men engaging in these activities, we expected this to be an indication of sources of resistance to their candidacies. In addition, the chapter tests whether women are more likely than men to hold erroneous expectations about how challenging the campaign environment will be. If women who are well-placed to mount a political campaign expect campaigning for office to be more difficult than it actually is, we should expect this to deter them from running. The analysis finds no evidence for gendered campaign experiences at the 2014 local elections. These results also hold at the 2016 general election.
Chapter Three employs a survey experiment to test for the presence of voter bias among members of the electorate using a sample of undergraduate students. Existing evidence from the Irish context indicates that the electorate is not biased against women candidates (McElroy & Marsh, 2010; 2011) but these studies employ ballot data and aggregate results which do not allow us to adequately address the issue of differential candidate quality. Both direct voter bias (reduced likelihood of voting for the candidate) and indirect voter bias (differential evaluations of competence across issue areas that are gendered female, male, and neutral) are tested for. In order to reduce the artificiality which is a feature of such studies, the experiment was conducted in the run up to the 2016 general election. No evidence is found for direct voter bias among participants, and what evidence there is for indirect voter bias is very limited. Women are not rated as less qualified in general, or less competent on issue areas that are gendered male. Nor are they rated as more competent on issue areas that are typically seen as feminine. However, they are rated as less competent in dealing with the sole gender-neutral issue area, improving road quality in the constituency. The implications of this finding are discussed with reference to Lawless’ (2004) work on the importance of context in the activation of gender stereotypes.
Chapter Four investigates whether parties demonstrate a tendency to marginalize women even after they have been successfully elected to Dáil Éireann. It tests whether promotion prospects are gendered using data gathered on legislators elected to that representative body between 1977 and
40 2016. The chapter finds that contrary to expectations women are not excluded from positions of influence where they can be expected to have an impact on legislation as well as their parties’ policy positions (spokesperson roles, and junior and cabinet ministries). In fact, women are more likely to be promoted in general, and are more likely to be promoted to higher levels (controlling for relevant factors). In addition, using survival analysis, we find that being a woman accelerates promotion by party leaders. On the whole, the analysis in this chapter suggests that women enjoy enhanced prospects for promotion relative to their male colleagues.
The final substantive chapter, Chapter Five, examines the content of the promotions that women are more likely to get. While excluding women from promotion opportunities is a highly visible way of marginalizing them, allocating them to certain kinds of portfolios is a more subtle way of circumscribing any impact that they might have over legislative output and policy. We test whether women are more likely to be allocated to portfolios relating to stereotypical views of women as mothers and care-givers (e.g. health, social welfare, education etc.) and less likely to be allocated to the types of portfolios that are typically viewed as men’s area of competence (e.g. enterprise, trade and employment, and finance and expenditure). We find on the whole that women are not less likely to be allocated to so-called masculine issue areas, but they are substantially more likely to be allocated portfolios relating to caring roles. This indicates that to a limited extent within Dáil Éireann portfolio allocation takes place along gendered lines.
41
Chapter Two: On the campaign trail: are candidate experiences
gendered?
Abstract
Research concerned with the causes of women’s underrepresentation in political life identifies a variety of actors that constitute important barriers to entry (political parties, the electorate, the media etc.). Electoral campaigns are interesting in that they necessitate interaction with these actors as part of the quest to gain elected office. For women, this can mean confronting sources of hostility to their candidacy which in turn distinguishes their campaign experience from that of their male counterparts. Using data from the 2014 Local Election Candidate Study this paper tests whether candidate experiences of various campaign activities (dealing with party officials, dealing with the press, meeting constituents etc.) is gendered. Prior research finds that women are more likely to doubt their ability to engage in campaigning, thus identifying gendered perceptions on the part of women who are well-placed to run for office as a further barrier to their candidacies. In line with this work the paper tests whether women are more likely to expect running for office to be more challenging that it actually is. We find no evidence for a gendered political campaign experience for local election candidates in Ireland. These findings are replicated at the national level with data from the 2016 general election campaign.