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Westminster Women: the Politics of Presence

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  • Joni Lovenduski
  • Pippa Norris

Abstract

The entry of the 1997 cohort of Labour women into public life offers a test case of whether, and under what conditions, women politicians have the capacity to ‘make a substantive difference’. We outlines the theory of the politics of presence and discuss how to operationalise this in a testable model. We, use the British Representation Study survey of 1,000 national politicians (including parliamentary candidates and elected Members of Parliament) conducted in the 2001 general election. The analysis centres on the impact of gender on five scales measuring attitudes and values on issues that commonly divide British party politics. Once we control for party, there are no significant differences among women and men politicians across the value scales concerning the free market economy, Europe, and moral traditionalism. Yet on the values most directly related to women's interests – namely the affirmative action and the gender equality scales – women and men politicians differ significantly within each party, even after controlling for other common social background variables that explain attitudes, such as their age, education, and income. The conclusion considers why these findings matter for the composition of parliament, the public policy agenda and for women's roles as political leaders.

Suggested Citation

  • Joni Lovenduski & Pippa Norris, 2003. "Westminster Women: the Politics of Presence," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51(1), pages 84-102, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:51:y:2003:i:1:p:84-102
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9248.00414
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    1. Kathlene, Lyn, 1994. "Power and Influence in State Legislative Policymaking: The Interaction of Gender and Position in Committee Hearing Debates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 560-576, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sue Durbin & Margaret Page & Sylvia Walby & Vanessa Puig-Barrachina & Marisol E. Ruiz & María del Mar García-Calvente & Davide Malmusi & Esther Sánchez & Lluís Camprubí & Carles Muntaner & Imma Cortès, 2017. "How to Resist Austerity: the Case of the Gender Budgeting Strategy in Andalusia," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 34-55, January.
    2. Ozdamar, Oznur, 2017. "Gendered economic policy making: The case of public expenditures on family allowances," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-28.
    3. Norris, Pippa & Krook, Mona Lena, 2009. "One of Us: Multilevel Models Examining the Impact of Descriptive Representation on Civic Engagement," Scholarly Articles 4448881, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Shouzhi Xia, 2023. "Female members of parliament, right-wing parties, and the inclusiveness of immigration policy: evidence from 26 European countries," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(4), pages 689-707, December.
    5. Bravo-Ortega, Claudio & Eterovic, Nicolas & Paredes, Valentina, 2020. "Female participation in parliament. Are we ever going to converge to Scandinavia?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(2).
    6. Claudia Landwehr & Armin Schäfer, 2024. "Who wants descriptive representation, and why?," Working Papers 2407, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    7. Andrea Guariso & Bert Ingelaere & Marijke Verpoorten, 2018. "When Ethnicity Beats Gender: Quotas and Political Representation in Rwanda and Burundi," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(6), pages 1361-1391, November.
    8. Vivek Pandey & Ankita Rathi & Deepak Kumar, 2023. "Governance response during COVID‐19 and political affirmative action: Evidence from local governments in India," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(2), pages 185-195, May.
    9. Jake Dabang Dan-Azumi & Caroline Asan, 2021. "Women and Legislative Representation in Nigeria’s National Assembly: A Detailed Appraisal of the 8th Assembly (2015-2019)," Journal of Public Administration and Governance, Macrothink Institute, vol. 11(2), pages 86109-86109, December.
    10. Blome, Agnes & Fuchs, Gesine, 2017. "Macht und substantielle Repräsentation von Frauen," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 55-69.
    11. Barbara Vis & Sjoerd Stolwijk, 2021. "Conducting quantitative studies with the participation of political elites: best practices for designing the study and soliciting the participation of political elites," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1281-1317, August.
    12. Audinga Baltrunaite & Alessandra Casarico & Paola Profeta, 2014. "Spill-over Effects of Affirmative Action: Political Representation and the Power of the Elderly," CESifo Working Paper Series 4955, CESifo.
    13. Ascensión Andina-Díaz & Paula Penalva & M. Socorro Puy, 2020. "Women’s Preferences for Social Spending: Theory and Evidence from Spanish Political Representatives," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 235(4), pages 119-151, December.
    14. Sarah Childs & Julie Withey, 2004. "Women Representatives Acting for Women: Sex and the Signing of Early Day Motions in the 1997 British Parliament," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(3), pages 552-564, October.

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