1. law, govt and politics
2. government
3. parliament

Advancing Women in Leadership Vol. 35, pp. 82-97, 2015
Available online at http://advancingwomen.com/awl/awl_wordpress/
ISSN 1093-7099
Full Length Research Paper
Big Jumps in Women’s Presence in Parliaments: Are These Sufficient for
Improving Beliefs in Women’s Ability to Govern?
Amy C. Alexander (Ph.D.)
Amy Alexander: Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg, email: [email protected]
Accepted September 29, 2014
In this article, I examine whether sudden, big jumps in women’s presence in parliament are sufficient for improving beliefs in
women’s ability to govern in the two cases with pre and posttest data: Iraq and Spain. I explain why big jumps lend themselves
to tests of sufficiency, defend the theory confirming advantages of this analytic approach and discuss the advantages of the Iraqi
and Spanish comparison. The Iraqi and Spanish tests of sufficiency include pre and posttest models of the effect of the big jump
using ordinal regression analysis. The analyses are run over 5026 Iraqi respondents and 2411 Spanish respondents to surveys
administered before and after the big jumps. The analysis confirms that big jumps are sufficient for improvement of beliefs in
women’s ability to govern in Iraq and Spain.
Keywords: Women, descriptive representation, symbolic representation
Introduction
Since the mid-1990s, across the globe, quota legislation has
fostered a breakthrough pattern in women’s representation. Upon
adopting quotas for women in national parliaments, more than
twenty countries have made a historic leap, establishing what has
been termed the “big jump pattern” (Paxton and Hughes 2013:
75)1. These countries have seen exceptional spikes in women’s
representation with an average increase of 16 percent in women’s
presence in parliaments from one or two elections to the next2.
This spike is unmatched, for instance, among countries with the
most consistent improvements in women’s presence over the last
50 years3.
This article builds on the symbolic effects literature with a
unique test of big jumps on beliefs in women’s ability to govern.
For the first time, I subject the relationship between change in
women’s presence in parliament and change in beliefs in
women’s ability to govern to a test of sufficiency. Tests of
sufficiency assume that “when a sufficient cause is present, the
outcome will always also be present” (Mahoney 2000: 392). I
evaluate whether an increase in beliefs in women’s ability to
govern is present after a big jump in two key cases for which the
pre and posttest attitudinal data from thousands of individuals
are available: Iraq and Spain4.
This focus has three benefits. First, more cross-national,
longitudinal evidence is needed to confirm the effect of change
in women’s presence on beliefs in women’s ability to
govern. Second, the big jump pattern has key methodological
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
advantages. In this pattern there is a powerful increase in what
was in some cases stagnate or in other cases slow, sequential
growth in women’s descriptive representation from one or few
elections to the next in the same country. Thus, we are in a
unique position to ‘naturally’ isolate the effect of the jump on
the belief in women’s ability to govern and conduct a sufficiency
test through longitudinal within case comparisons across several
thousand individuals.
Third, this article’s focus has important policy implications.
Confirming this sufficiency test across any cases with the big
jump pattern is valuable for international and national
policymakers interested in improving women’s political
leadership. The big jump pattern is largely driven by the
adoption of policies that aggressively, effectively target gender
gaps in parliaments. Indeed, several big jump countries have
seen the adoption of female quota legislation prior to their jumps.
Thus, the question of whether big jumps are sufficient for
improvements in beliefs in women’s ability to govern forms part
of a broader line of research that tries to understand the effects
of women’s quota legislation on a variety of forms of political
representation (descriptive, symbolic, substantive).
I analyze the Iraqi and Spanish cases with multivariate models
run on the responses of 5026 Iraqis and 2411 Spaniards to
surveys administered over the two points in time: pre and post
jump. Before turning to the analysis, I discuss the symbolic
representation literature, introduce theories that rival symbolic
82
representation as an explanation of beliefs concerning women’s
ability to govern, and describe my sample, data, methods and
results.
The Literature Review
The Symbolic Effects of Women’s Presence in Parliaments
A key mode of gender socialization is role-modeling. According
to Bussy and Bandura (1999: 685), “A great deal of genderlinked behavior is exemplified by models in one’s immediate
environment such as parents and peers, and significant persons
in social, educational and occupational contexts.” Male and
female role models send powerful signals on what is possible
given one’s gender. Depending on the gender equality or
inequality in modeled behaviors, individuals develop weaker or
stronger sex-typed expectations that govern their perception of
their ability to perform those behaviors. In cases of gender
inequality, a sheer lack of role models perpetuates a vicious,
supportive exchange between sexist beliefs and inequality in role
models that maintains or even strengthens the discouragement of
one of the genders from participation.
One extremely visible, powerful behavior that has operated in
this fashion to the exclusion of women in every country in the
world is governing. For this reason, women and politics scholars
focus their attention on the importance of increasing female role
models in political leadership (Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 1995;
Sapiro 1981; Williams 1998; Young 2000). An increase in the
sheer number of female representatives –what is referred to in
the literature as ‘descriptive representation’ –can create “a social
meaning of ability to rule for members of a group in historical
contexts where that ability has been seriously questioned”
(Mansbridge 1999: 2). This sort of inclusion is necessary “for
reversing previous histories of exclusion and the way these
constituted certain kinds of people as less suited to govern than
the rest” (Phillips 1995: 40). Indeed, the literature agrees that
women’s historical exclusion from positions of political
representation and their continuing underrepresentation make
them and their male counterparts susceptible to the belief in
women’s inferiority in governing in every country in the world.
By fostering greater gender equality among those who achieve
and model positions of governance, descriptive representation
challenges the notion that women are unfit to govern and begins
reversing the norm of politics as a man’s game. ‘Cues’ in the
political environment that support these psychological barriers
begin to change (Atkeson 2003; Hansen 1997).
If men react to these gains egocentrically, viewing the gains as a
threat to their own groups’ political success, then support for
women’s ability to govern will improve only or considerably
more among women. However, there is no reason to assume that
men will not react to the change from a sociotropic perspective.
According to Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler (2005: 412), “While
egocentric models reflect the traditional belief that individuals
operate “selfishly” and are motivated largely by individual selfinterest, sociotropic models assume a more “enlightened” selfinterest in which individuals recognize that their personal
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
fortunes depend on the fortunes of the group.” Sociotropically,
men could see these improvements as indicative of gains in the
democratic quality of their political systems, signaling a system
of more fair political competition not only for women, but for all
members of society. In this case, men’s support of women’s
leadership would also grow with increases in women’s
descriptive representation.
There is convincing evidence both from research on the United
States and a handful of comparative studies that increases in
women’s presence in political office strengthen women’s
involvement in politics5. To the contrary, the evidence that this
equally strengthens both women and men’s political
involvement is more limited (see, however, Schwindt-Bayer and
Mishler 2005). However, beyond measures of political
involvement, when it comes to whether gains in women’s
descriptive representation improve the belief in women’s ability
to govern, there is serious neglect in the existing literature. In
fact, Alexander (2012) conducts the only comparative,
longitudinal analysis of the relationship between women’s
presence in parliaments and the belief in women’s ability to
govern and finds that an increase in the percentage of women in
parliament contributes to an increase in women’s beliefs in
women’s ability to govern. There is no indication that men
change positively. Ultimately, the analyses show that the most
accurate portrayal of the relationship between women’s presence
in parliament and women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern
is a virtuous cycle of mutually reinforcing changes in women’s
empowerment as political leaders.
Through a different, but complimentary methodological strategy,
I take advantage of the natural discontinuities behind the big
jump pattern in women’s leadership presence and build on
Alexander’s (2012) research. I examine whether the sudden, big
jumps in women’s presence in parliament in Iraq and Spain are
sufficient conditions for significant gains in beliefs in women’s
ability to govern. I test the following hypotheses in the analysis
of these cases:
H1, Women’s Improvement Thesis: In Iraq and Spain, there
is an increase in women’s beliefs in women’s ability to
govern in the female big jump sample when compared to the
female pretest sample.
H2, Impacting Women Thesis: Women are significantly
more supportive of women’s ability to govern than men in
the big jump sample when compared to the pretest sample.
H3, The Sociotropic Thesis: Both women and men are
significantly more supportive of women’s ability to govern
in the big jump sample when compared to the pretest sample.
Rival Explanations
In addition to the big jump, it is possible that country-level
changes in development, religiosity, democratization and
conflict may occur and also affect beliefs in women’s ability to
govern. Yet, with this study’s limit to just two cases, we cannot
effectively rule these changes out if we focus on the country-
83
level. An alternative strategy, however, is to consider the
individual-level mechanisms through which competing countrylevel changes exert their effects on beliefs in women’s ability to
govern. This is a workable strategy, because country-level
change in attitudes ultimately operates through change in an
individual’s resources or experiences. Thus, I tailor the
following review of change in countries’ level of development,
religiosity, democratization and conflict to this micro-based
strategy.
Development. The level of societal development in a country is
strongly linked to gender equality values, including support for
women’s political leadership (Alexander and Welzel 2011a;
Inglehart and Norris 2003: 127-146). In their groundbreaking
book, Inglehart and Norris conclude that “egalitarian attitudes
toward women in office are more widespread in postindustrial
societies, reflecting broad patterns of socioeconomic
development and cultural modernization” (144). Societal
modernization, particularly forms that improve equality of
opportunity in human capabilities (see Nussbaum 2000; Sen
1999), erodes conditions and traditional authority structures that
perpetuate women’s public exclusion. As a major consequence,
there is growth in the public’s support for women’s political
involvement and leadership. Thus, in less developed
democracies, with agrarian and industrial economies, the level of
societal development creates a cultural barrier to the
development of gender egalitarian orientations and the practice
of gender equality. The belief in women’s ability to govern and
gender equality in women’s recruitment and presence in national
parliaments are among these views and practices (Inglehart and
Norris 2003).
Increases in the level of a countries’ development bring about
these positive changes in attitudes towards gender equality by
improving individuals’ cognitive and material resources. This
improves individuals’ autonomy and increases support for
equality and diversity (Alexander and Welzel 2011a; Inglehart
and Norris 2003; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Welzel 2013).
Thus, from this perspective, resources and values are key
individual-level mechanisms through which gains in societal
levels of development improve support for female leaders.
Charting individual gains in resources is straightforward.
Typically, scholars consider individuals’ level of education and
employment status. We can therefore turn to the variation in
educational level and employment status at the individual level
as a micro-based strategy for ensuring that any post jump gains
in support for women’s leadership are not driven by
development as opposed to the increase in women’s presence in
parliaments.
As opposed to access to resources, charting value change is
trickier. One frequently used strategy is to proxy age as an
individual-level instrument for evaluating value change. Young
people are more likely to absorb the positive experiential change
driven by societal development and, consequently, make greater
leaps in the development of progressive values (Inglehart and
Norris 2003; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Welzel 2013). In this
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
case, we can use information on individuals’ age to be sure that
the reasons for improvement in support for women leaders is not
simply that development drove positive changes in young adults’
values.
Religious beliefs. Religion is a primary agent of gender role
socialization in every society in the world (Franzmann 2000;
Inglehart and Norris 2003). Religious organizations from all
religious faiths support traditional and subordinate roles for
women (Alexander and Welzel 2011b; Inglehart and Norris
2003). And, indeed, cross-national studies link religious beliefs
to fewer women in parliaments (Kenworthy and Malami 1999;
Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Paxton and Hughes 2013).
Unlike societal development, religious belief is not a countrylevel measure. When presented as such, this is based on an
aggregation and summary of the attitudes and/or behaviors of
individuals throughout a given country. Thus, evaluating change
in religiosity within countries at the individual-level is a
straightforward way to deal with a larger secularization trend
that may compete with the big jump.
Level of democracy. Through the provision of political liberties
and civil rights, democracy enhances political participation and
social representation. The impartial institutionalization of these
liberties and rights establishes norms that support human
autonomy and tolerance of social diversity. This creates a
political climate conducive to gender egalitarian attitudes and
women’s formal representation. Thus, many of the crossnational studies in the literature include a measure of countries’
level of democracy in the analysis of the importance of symbolic
representation for women (see, for instance, Karp and Banducci
2008; Norris and Krook 2009).
Like societal development, democratic institutionalization is a
country-level attribute. Yet, insofar as democratic
institutionalization affects attitudes related to gender equality the
effect will be indirect, through an internalization of democratic
norms. Hence, evaluating individual support of democracy
creates another micro-based strategy for isolating the effect of
the big jump from other competing country-level changes.
Conflict. There is some evidence that civil conflict politicizes
women and mobilizes them to support more women in positions
of political leadership (Hughes 2009). Iraq is investigated over a
period of conflict from 2004-2006, and research notes this
conflict’s role in mobilizing women’s groups in support of the
quota policy that led to the big jump in Iraq (Dahlerup and
Nordlund 2004; Krook, O’Brien and Swip 2010). These scholars
are clear on the role of women’s organizations in mobilizing the
policy adoption, but tests to determine whether this as opposed
to the big jump was a catalyst for increased support of women’s
ability to govern in the general population is not tested.
Value research has, however, looked at the impact of the Iraqi
conflict over this period on the general population’s support for
women’s ability to govern (Inglehart, Moaddel and Tessler
2006). These researchers saw the conflict as a key test of the
xenophobic, discriminatory value implications of experiences
84
with extraordinarily high levels of existential insecurity.
Working with Iraqi public opinion data from the World Values
Surveys, Inglehart et al. (2006: 495) note that over the period
that Iraq sees the jump, “the Iraqi public has the highest level of
xenophobia found in any of the 85 societies for which data are
available” and confirm a consequent “strong tendency to reject
other out-groups, such as women and homosexuals.”
I consider both perspectives on the conflict in Iraq and support
for women’s ability to govern plausible and supported by
convincing evidence. On the one hand, evidence suggests that
the case of Iraq is a bad case for testing the effect of the big
jump given the conflict; if conflict mobilizes support for female
leaders, I run the risk of selecting on the dependent variable with
the Iraqi case. On the other hand, evidence suggests that the case
of Iraq is a critical case for testing the effect of the big jump
since the conflict’s effect on the general Iraqi public suggests
that we are least likely to see an improvement in the tested
outcomes.
To speak to one or the other perspective in literature, I apply
Hughes’ (2009) theoretical work on the role of conflict in behind
female mobilization and support for women’s leadership in the
analysis of Iraq. Hughes (2009) see conflict as leading to
positive outcomes for female leadership when 1) conflict is
transformative of the political structure and exposes individuals
to alternative, less traditional models of leadership; 2) conflict
increases individuals’ links to supportive international
organizations; and 3) conflict confronts traditional gender roles
in a way that is broadly transformative of female inclusion
across various public roles. Following these theoretical
possibilities, I look at whether there is increased rejection of
religious authorities as leaders from the pre to the posttest
sample. In addition, I look at whether there is increased
confidence in the United Nations among Iraqis from the pre to
the posttest sample. Finally, I look at whether there is change in
support for female university education from pre to the posttest
sample.
Sample, Data and Methods
Sample: Big Jumps and the Cases of Iraq and Spain
What constitutes a big jump in women’s presence in
parliaments? Working with Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
data on the percentage of women in parliaments spanning from
1945 to 2005, Paxton and Hughes (2013: 70-80) identify five
historical patterns of representation that depict the pace of
change in women’s parliamentary representation in countries
throughout the world. These are: 1) big jumps, 2) increasing, 3)
low increasing, 4) plateau and 5) flat6.
Countries in the big jump category “experience extremely large
gains in women’s representation in short periods of time”
(Paxton and Hughes 2013: 75). In fact, the average gain of all
big jump cases from the beginning to the end of their big jumps
is 16 percent (see Appendix A). As highlighted earlier, even in
comparison to the pattern of the highest achievers in North
Western Europe, temporally speaking, these spikes are
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
exceptional. On average, the high achievers in North Western
Europe took a slow but steady 40 years to reach their first 15
percent (from 1945-1985), and, in sync with gains in women’s
educational attainment and labor force entry, another average 10
years to reach their first 30 percent (Paxton and Hughes 2013:
73). This perspective on countries’ historical trajectories in
change in women’s presence in parliaments powerfully supports
“big jumps” as key anomalies.
Yet, the evidence of big jump discontinuity is not just temporal;
after the jump, these cases are typically outliers when compared
to the overall inclusion of women in parliaments in their regions.
For instance, after their jumps, the Iraqi and Spanish average is
over 20 percent higher than the average percentage of women in
parliaments in their regions (see Appendix B). Importantly, these
within region comparisons hold other antecedents such as
culture and development at a similar level, further evidencing
the big jump as a significant accelerant.
Thus, the big jump pattern is uniquely exploitable for the
purposes of establishing sufficiency for improvement in
women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern. The pattern
entails an atypical acceleration by patterns of time and space in
women’s presence in parliaments. These turning points, through
disruptions, anomalies or discontinuities, are considered key
phenomena for exploiting natural variation to improve causal
inference (Dunning 2008, 2010; Grzymala-Busse 2011: 1287;
Sekhon 2009).
The Iraqi and Spanish samples.
Due to current mass survey data availability, just the cases of
Iraq and Spain allow a pre and posttest of the effect of the jump
on women’s ability to govern. Appendix A shows the universe
of big jump cases and the limits of available public opinion data
for a pre and posttest. As for big jump cases in addition to Iraq
and Spain, either these countries were not surveyed during the
wave before or after the big jump or the question on women’s
acceptability as political leaders was not asked in the survey
before or after the big jump7.
There are nevertheless reasons to consider Iraq and Spain a good
pair for testing the theory. According to Table 1, Iraq and Spain
vary culturally. Iraq is predominately Muslim and Spain is
predominantly Roman Catholic. They also vary in their level of
human development. Compared on two commonly used
measures of development, the United Nation’s Development
Program’s Gender Inequality Index8 and Human Development
Index9, Iraq has a significantly higher level of gender inequality
and lower level of human development. The table also compares
Iraq and Spain on their level of democratic institutionalization.
Using Freedom House’s Freedom Rating measure, we see that
democratic institutionalization is significantly lower in Iraq
compared to Spain. Finally, Iraq is in a grave state of existential
insecurity due to the US-Iraq war over the big jump period while
existential security is high in Spain. This is evident through the
comparison of male and female adult mortality rates.
85
Table 1: Differences in Iraqi and Spanish Country
Characteristics
Average Over the Big Jump
Periods
Iraq 20042006
Spain 1995-2005
Country Characteristics
Cultural Characteristics
Religion
Development
Characteristics
Gender Inequality Index
97 percent
Muslim
99 percent
Roman Catholic
.50
.12
.60
.86
5.83
1.25
0 (best) – 1 (worst)
Human Development
Index
1 (best) – 0 (worst)
Democratic
Institutionalization
Political Rights and Civil
Liberties (Freedom House)
1 (best) – 7 (worst)
women parliamentarians dropped only slightly to 25 percent
(Inter-Parliamentary Union, Elections Archive 2012). Thus, over
one election cycle from the pre-conflict election of the Iraqi
Council of Representatives in 2000 to the post-conflict Iraqi
Council of Representatives (officially established in December
of 2005) there was a gain of 18 percent of women in Iraq’s
national parliament. Based on this sudden gain, Paxton and
Hughes (2013: 76) classify Iraq as falling into the big jump
pattern of representation.
The big jump in Spain. The Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party
(PSOE) has played the largest role in the big jump in women’s
presence in parliaments in Spain (Threlfall 2007; Valiente 2007).
Women’s rise in parliament started with the PSOE’s adoption of
a 25 percent quota for women in 1988. Over the following
decade, the importance of women’s inclusion diffused across the
Spanish party system and culminated in impressive party-wide
gains in the 2004 elections (Threlfall 2007: 1076; Valienta 2007:
131). The significant gains over such a short period have been
described by Valiente (2007: 129) as remarkable and Threlfall
(2007: 1068) as “the biggest surge in female participation in
parliament and of all Western democracies since the 1970s.”
And, indeed, Paxton and Hughes (2013: 76) identify Spain as a
big jump country, noting in particular the period between 1996
and 2004 as the big jump period. Over the 1996, 2000 and 2004
elections women’s presence grew from 16 percent to 36 percent
after the 2004 election. Thus, Spain saw an increase of 20
percent women in parliaments.
Data
Existential Security
Mortality Rate Adult
Males
218 per 1,000
135 per 1,000
Mortality Rate Adult
Females
117 per 1,000
55 per 1,000
Note: Sources include the CIA World Factobook, United
Nation’s Development Program’s Gender Inequality Index and
Human Development Index, Freedom House’s Freedom Rating
and Indexmundi.10
The big jump in Iraq. The jump in women’s parliamentary
representation in Iraq happened over one election cycle. In 2000,
the last election before the US invasion in 2003, just 7.2 percent
of women was elected to the Council of Representatives. The
next election, in January of 2005, established the Transitional
National Assembly where women captured 31 percent of the
seats.
According to Coleman (2006: 4) “in the run-up to the January
2005 elections, political parties were required to field electoral
slates on which every third candidate was a woman.” As a result,
87 women won seats in the interim national assembly, making
up 31 percent of the total seats (Brown and Romano 2006: 63).
Through the transition phase from the Transitional National
Assembly (established January 2005) to the Council of
Representatives (established December 2005) the percentage of
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Core variables. Change in the belief in women’s ability to
govern is measured with World Values Survey (henceforth WVS)
data. Respondents are asked the following question: “For the
following statement I read out, can you tell me how strongly you
agree or disagree. Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or
strongly disagree?” Response categories range from 1 (strongly
agree) – 4 (strongly disagree). Then the item reads: “On the
whole men make better political leaders than women do”11. Thus,
for each respondent, a higher score indicates greater
disagreement with the statement that men make better political
leaders than women and, thus, greater support for women’s
ability to govern. This is widely used as a measure of individuals’
beliefs in women’s ability to govern (Alexander 2012; Inglehart
and Norris 2003; Paxton and Hughes 2013; Paxton and
Kunovich 2003).
The time period that covers the change in attitudes is chosen so
the earlier measure of attitudes (the pretest group) is before the
country’s ‘big jump’ and the later measure of attitudes (the
posttest group) is after the country’s big jump12. I look at change
from wave 4 to 5 for Iraq and 3 to 5 for Spain (See footnote 12).
Data to determine whether respondents have been treated with
the big jump or not are based on Paxton and Hughes’ (2013: 7080) classification of IPU archival data on women in the lower
house of national parliament. For both countries the population
is surveyed before and after the big jump (see footnote 12 and
86
Appendix A). Thus, the big jump is instrumented by survey
wave. All respondents surveyed after the big jump are given a 1,
since they have been exposed to the increase in women in
parliaments, and all respondents surveyed before the big jump a
0.
Measuring individual-level mechanisms of confounding
country-level changes. The following country-level changes
potentially co-occur with the jump in women’s presence in
parliament and confound its effect on the observed outcomes:
societal development, secularization, democratic
institutionalization, and, in the case of Iraq, conflict.
To establish that one of these country-level changes is not
driving the relationship between the big jump and change in
beliefs in women’s ability to govern, I measure the individuallevel mechanisms through which the country-level variables are
expected to exert their effects.
The literature identifies resources and age as key individuallevel mechanisms of growth in societal development. Resources
are measured by the level of education and experience in the
labor force. Age is measured as years since birth. All
measurement is based on data from the respective waves of the
WVS. Education is measured by whether respondents’ have a
university education (scored 1) or not (scored 0). Labor force
participation is measured by whether respondents have ever been
employed (scored 1) or not (scored 0). Age is measured based on
respondents’ answer to the question of which year they were
born.
Secularization is measured by respondents’ level of religiosity.
This is based on answers to the question, “how important is God
in your life,” 1 (not at all important) – 10 (very important). This
measure is widely used by the literature as a measure of
religiosity (Alexander and Welzel 2011b; Inglehart and Welzel
2005; Norris and Inglehart 2004)
Democratic institutionalization operates individually through the
internalization of democratic norms. I measure this
internalization through respondents’ rating of a democratic
political system as 1 (very good) – 4 (very bad). Several studies
use this measure as a measure of support for democracy (Dalton
1999; Klingemann 1999; Norris 2006)
All variables for controlling for the possibility that conflict
increased support for women’s ability to govern in Iraq are also
measured with WVS data. To measure exposure to more modern,
less patriarchal alternatives to political leadership, I use data on
respondents’ answers to the question of whether they 1(agree
strongly) – 5 (strongly disagree) that it is better if more people
with strong religious beliefs hold public office13. This indicator
has not been used in prior research to predict support for
women’s ability to govern. Thus, as a validity check, I looked at
the strength and direction of the bivariate correlation between
support for religious leaders and support for women leaders
across the time pooled Iraqi dataset. The two correlate
significantly with a coefficient of .15 at the p≤.001 level. Thus,
Iraqis who disagree that it is better if more people with strong
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
religious beliefs hold public office are more likely to disagree
that men make better political leaders than women. This lends
evidence to the assumption that this data measures individual
support for modern less, patriarchal support for political leaders.
To measure increased confidence in the United Nations, I use
data from respondents’ answers to the question of whether they
have 1 (a great deal) – 4 (none at all) confidence in the United
Nations. This indicator has also not been used in prior research
to predict support for women’s ability to govern. Therefore, I
also looked at the strength and direction of the bivariate
correlation between this and support for female leaders across
the polled Iraqi sample. Again, we see empirical validation. The
two correlate significantly with a coefficient of .17 at the p≤.001
level. Those with more confidence in the UN are more likely to
disagree that men make better political leaders than women.
Finally, to measure support for female education, I use data from
respondents’ answers to the question of whether they 1 (strongly
agree) – 4 (strongly disagree) that a boy has more right to a
university education than a girl. Support for female university
education has been correlated widely with support for women’s
ability to govern in the literature (Inglehart and Norris 2003). In
fact, this is such a strong correlate that it often has been included
along with support for women’s ability to govern in a gender
egalitarian values index first introduced by Inglehart and Norris
(2003).
Methods
As a first methodological strategy, I evaluate if there is a
significant gain in support in women’s ability to govern among
women in the big jump sample compared to women in the
pretest sample. Based on both theory and the comparative
evidence, at the very least, we would expect the big jump to
improve women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern. I
conduct this comparison with the female dataset from each
country.
Second, testing the possibility for a more general influence, I
evaluate if women are significantly more supportive than men of
women’s ability to govern in the big jump sample compared to
the pretest sample. This comparison is run across the pooled
female and male dataset for each country.
In both analyses, I control the influence of the big jump on
support for the individual-level mechanisms with ordinal
regression analysis. Ordinal regression is appropriate for
modeling the ordinality in the outcome variable. Respondents
were given just four ordinally ranked answer categories for
response to the statement that men make better political leaders
than women do14.
As a final step, I test whether my outcomes do not occur across a
set of “never treat” countries (Sekhon 2009: 494-502): China,
India, South Korea and Turkey. These countries have a flat
pattern of change in women’s presence in parliaments up
through the big jump period and data is available for a similar
attitudinal test across time points. I evaluate whether there is
87
change in my outcomes over the same time points that test the
effect of the big jump. I conduct the comparison across the
pooled female and male dataset.
Table 2: Ordinal Regressions Testing the Women’s Improvement Thesis
Results
DV: Disagreement Men Make Better Political Leaders
Among Women
Evaluating The Women’s Improvement Thesis, H1
Strongly Agree -­‐ Strongly Disagree Men Make Be4er Poli6cal Leaders The Women’s Improvement Thesis expects a significantly greater
positive change in women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern
when comparing the pretest female sample to the big jump
female sample in Iraq and Spain. As a first basic step, we can
evaluate whether women are significantly more supportive in the
sample that has experienced the big jump compared to those in
the pretest sample.
Figure 1: Change in Women's Beliefs in Women's Ability to Govern 3.5 3,37*** 3.4 3.3 3.2 3,00*** 3.1 3.02 3 2.9 2.77 2.8 2.7 2.6 2.5 2.4 Iraqi 2.3 Women, N 2.2 = 2487 2.1 Iraqi Men, 2 N = 2379 1.9 1.8 Spanish 1.7 Women, N 1.6 1,49** = 1149 1.43 1.5 1.41 1,37 Spanish 1.4 Men, N = 1.3 1107 1.2 1.1 1 Pretest Sample Big Jump Sample Figure 1 displays these results. In both countries, women’s support
of women’s ability to govern improves from the pretest sample to
the big jump sample. In addition, the increase is significant. When I
correlate being a respondent from the big jump sample with support
for women’s ability to govern the correlation is positive and
significant across both countries.15
With the Women’s Improvement Thesis confirmed through this basic
step, we can move forward to see if the results hold under more
sophisticated controls and modeling. We identified several key
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Model 1: Iraq
Model 2: Spain
IVs
Coeff.
SE
Odds
Ratio
Coeff.
SE
Odds
Ratio
Big Jump
Sample
.33*
.14
1.40
.84***
.13
2.32
University
Edu
.33
.20
1.40
.18
.21
1.20
Employed
.11
.18
1.12
.34**
.14
1.40
Age
-.01**
.00
.99
-.01***
.00
.99
Religiosity
-.14
.11
.87
-.98***
.22
.38
Most Support
Democracy
-.20
.32
.83
.24
.56
1.27
Most Reject
Religious
Leaders
1.38***
.26
3.98
Most
Confidence
UN
.33
.24
1.40
Most Support
Female
Education
.85
.19
2.34
Chi-Square
Model Fit
156.9***
172.35***
Nagelkerke
R2
.12
.17
N
1446
1226
Note: *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. The analysis is based on Ordinal
Regression. Coefficients are logits. Odds ratios are calculated by taking the
exponent of the logits. Threshold coefficients reported below. These
coefficients represent the intercepts, specifically the point in terms of a
logit, where respondents might be predicted into the higher categories of
the dependent variable. For the ordinal, categorical controls (support for
democracy) I report only the coefficients for the most supportive response
category.
Threshold 1
.61
1.14
1.84
-4.09***
.49
.02
Threshold 2
1.94
1.14
6.96
-2.32***
.47
.10
Threshold 3
3.46***
1.14
31.8
-.28
.47
.76
individual-level controls based on the literature. All are included in
the multivariate models.
Table 2 displays the results of the two ordinal regression models for
Iraq and Spain. In both models, women in the big jump sample are
significantly more supportive of women’s ability to govern.
According to the Odds Ratio (OR), women in the big jump sample
88
are 1.40 times more likely to support women’s ability to govern in
Iraq and 2.32 times more likely in Spain.
This concludes the tests of the Women’s Improvement Thesis. All
tests confirm the expected outcomes. Under key controls, women’s
support for women’s ability to govern improves with their experience
of the big jump in women’s presence in parliament. We can now
evaluate whether experience with the big jump more strongly
improves women’s support when compared to men.
Evaluating the Impacting Women Thesis, H2 and the
Sociotropic Thesis, H3
The Impacting Women Thesis expects women to be significantly
more supportive of women’s ability to govern than men in the big
jump sample when compared to the control sample. To the contrary,
the Sociotropic Thesis expects a general improvement among both
women and men. Before moving to the multivariate analysis, I refer
back to Figure 1 focusing this time on the simple comparisons of
female and male means in the pretest and big jump samples. This
gives us a basic look at whether women are more supportive and
further apart than men in the big jump sample in both countries.
Under these simple comparisons, for both Iraq and Spain, there is a
larger more significant difference between women and men in the big
jump sample. This is a simple confirmation of the Impacting Women
Thesis. We now examine whether the results hold with multivariate
analysis.
To test whether the big jump has a stronger effect on women, I model
the big jump interacted with female and run ordinal regressions to
explain support across the pre and posttest, male and female, samples
for each case. I control the effect of the big jump interacted with
female for the theoretically relevant individual-level variables.
Table 3 presents these results. The Iraqi model confirms the
Impacting Women Thesis, while the Spanish model confirms the
Sociotropic Thesis. In the Iraqi model, the big jump interacted with
female is positive and significant. According to the OR, women in
the big jump sample are 1.88 times more supportive of women’s
ability to govern when compared to men in the big jump sample.
Thus, for Iraq, the interaction that is displayed graphically in Figure
2 holds under the individual-level controls.
This is not the case for Spain. In the Spanish model, the big jump
interacted with female is not significant, but the main effect of the
big jump is positive and highly significant. Thus the evidence tells us
that exposure to the big jump in women’s presence in parliament
positively improves both women and men’s support of women’s
ability to govern. According to the OR, respondents in the big jump
sample are 1.98 times more supportive of women’s ability to govern.
In this case, we have evidence to confirm the Sociotropic Thesis in
Spain.
This finding makes an important contribution to what was found in
Alexander’s (2012) research and has implications for future research.
Alexander (2012:456) found that “change in the percentage of
women in parliament improves women’s beliefs, but not men’s
beliefs, in women’s ability to govern.” The finding here of a
significant impact on men in Spain but not in Iraq suggests that the
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Table 3: Ordinal Regressions Testing the Impacting Women Thesis and
Sociotropic Thesis
DV: Disagreement Men Make Better Political Leaders
(Female and Male Dataset)
Model 1: Iraq
Model 2: Spain
IVs
Coeff..
SE
Odds
Coeff.
SE
Odds
Ratio
Ratio
Big Jump
-..33**
.12
.72
.68***
.12
1.98
Sample
Female
-.02
.13
.81
.79***
.12
2.20
Big Jump *
Female
.63***
.16
1.88
.16
.16
1.17
University Edu
.02
.12
1.02
.40*
.14
1.49
Employed
.16
.10
1.17
.31***
.09
1.36
Age
-.00
.00
1.00
-.01***
.00
.99
Religiosity
-.20***
.05
.82
-.88***
.13
.42
Most Support
Democracy
.13
.26
1.14
.33
.34
1.30
Most Reject
Religious
Leaders
1.44***
.18
4.22
-
-
-
Most
Confidence UN
.58***
.17
1.79
-
-
-
Most Support
Female
Education
1.14***
.13
3.13
-
-
-
Chi-Square
Model Fit
436.82***
317.05***
Nagelkerke R2
.15
.15
N
3259
2411
Note: *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. The analysis is based on Ordinal
Regression. Coefficients are logits. Odds ratios are calculated by taking the
exponent of the logits. Threshold coefficients reported below. These
coefficients represent the intercepts, specifically the point in terms of a logit,
where respondents might be predicted into the higher categories of the
dependent variable. For the ordinal, categorical controls (support for
democracy) I report only the coefficients for the most supportive response
category.
Threshold 1
.99
.58
2.69 -2.58***
.36
.08
Threshold 2
2.40***
.58
Threshold 3
3.94***
.59
11.0
2
45.1
6
-.74*
.35
.48
1.29***
.35
3.63
effect of change in women’s presence in parliaments on men’s
beliefs is conditional. Given the differences between Spain and Iraq,
89
we can speculate that this may be conditional on countries’ cultural
climate, level of development, level of democracy or level of
existential security. This is a question for future research.
Test of No Change across the “Never Treat” Cases
Figure 2: Change in Women and Men's Average Support for Women's Ability to Govern across the "Never Treat" Countries (China, India, South Korea and Turkey) Stongly Agree -­‐ Strongly Disagree Men Make Be4er Poli6cal Leaders 2.90 As a final test, we must treat seriously the possibility of a “regression
to the mean” effect. To rule this out, there should be no change in
support for women’s ability to govern across the same time points as
the pretest/big jump time points in a set of countries that did not
experience a big jump in women’s presence in parliament. Taken
together, our “never treat” sample includes China, India, South Korea
and Turkey. All of these countries have a flat pattern of change in
women’s presence in parliament over the time period examined in
this study.
Figure 2 displays these results. Across the three sets of time points,
the change in beliefs in women’s ability to govern whether among
men or women is small and insignificant. This establishes that the
“never treat” countries do not improve.
With the “never treat” test confirmed, we can conclude that the big
jump in women’s presence in parliament in Iraq and Spain is
sufficient for improving women’s beliefs in women’s ability to
govern. In addition, in Spain, women’s support not only grows in the
big jump sample, but men also become more supportive.
2.70 Conclusion
2.47 2.47 2.46 2.50 2.46 2.43 2.43 2.30 2.29 2.23 2.29 2.28 2.28 2.23 2.10 Earlier Time Point 1.90 Later Time Point 1.70 The cases of Iraq and Spain present a new opportunity for evaluating
whether big jumps in women’s presence in parliaments are sufficient
for improvement in beliefs in women’s ability to govern. Tests of
both cases show that the big jump is sufficient for improvement
among women. Men also improve in Spain but not Iraq.
While this is an important addition to the evidence base confirming
the symbolic effects of descriptive representation, future research
must do more. These cases are in the top half of the big jump
distribution. To improve, future research must ‘travel’ the test of
sufficiency down the ladder of quota induced gains in women’s
descriptive representation. Perhaps, at one level, the sufficiency test
is negative and it is necessary to consider accommodating
mechanisms, such as a concurrent bottom-up strategy in women’s
education or employment. Such assessment would require more
complex, interactive modeling strategies that reveal which policies
we must bundle with quotas to change public support of women as
political leaders.
Similarly, we also need to ‘travel’ the test of sufficiency across the
additional categories of attitudinal and behavioral effects that
women’s presence in positions of political power might confer to
women citizens. Future research must also examine the sufficiency of
big jumps for improvement in women’s political engagement and
participation.
1.50 References
Note: Bars represent the average support for women’s ability to govern
based on respondent’s answers to the question, “How strongly do you
agree or disagree with the following statement: Men make better
political leaders than women do.” Response categories range from 1
(strongly agree) – 4 (strongly disagree). The source of the data is the
World Values Surveys. Total number of respondents for Wave 3: 6168,
for Wave 4: 7041, and for Wave 5: 5874. Waves/Time points cover the
big jump time periods in the tests of Iraq and Spain.
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Abbott, A. (2001). Time matters. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Alexander, A. C. (2012). Change in women’s descriptive
representation and the belief in women’s ability to govern: a
virtuous cycle. Politics and Gender 8: 1-28.
Alexander, A. C., & Welzel, C. (2011a). Empowering women.
European Sociological Review 27: 364-384.
90
__________________________.(2011b). Islam and patriarchy.
International Review of Sociology 21: 249-276.
Franzmann, M. (2000). Women and religion. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Atkeson, L. R. (2003). Not all cues are created equal. The Journal of
Politics 65 (4): 1040-1061.
Grzymala-Busse, A.. (2011). Time will tell? Temporality and the
analysis of causal mechanisms and processes. Comparative
Political Studies 44: 1267-1297.
Atkeson, L. R. & Carrillo, N. (2007). More is better. Politics and
Gender 3 (1): 79-101.
Barnes, T. & Burchard, S. (2010). The impact of descriptive
representation on women’s political participation in SubSaharan Africa. APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper.
Hakim, C. (2000). Work-lifestyle choices in the 21st century. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Hansen, S. (1997). Talking about politics. Journal of Politics 59
(February): 73-103.
Burn, S. (2005). Women across cultures, 2nd Ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
High-Pippert, A. & Comer, J. (1998). “Female Empowerment.”
Women and Politics 19 (4):53-66.
Burns, N., Schlozman, K., & Verba, S. (2001). The private roots of
public action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hughes, M. (2009). Armed conflict, international linkages and
women’s parliamentary representation in developing nations.
Social Problems 56: 174-204.
Burrell, B. (1994). A woman’s place is in the house. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Bussy, K., & Bandura, A. (1999). Social cognitive theory of gender
development and differentiation. Psychological Review 106:
676-713.
Carroll, S. J. (1985). Women as candidates in American politics.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Coleman, I. (2006). Women, Islam and the new Iraq. Foreign Affairs
January/February.
Dahlerup, D. (ed.), (2006). Women, quotas and politics. London:
Routledge.
Dahlerup, D., & Freidenvall, L. (2005). Quotas as a ‘fast track’to
equal representation for women: why Scandinavia is no
longer the model. International Feminist Journal of Politics,
7(1), 26-48.
Dahlerup, D., & Nordlund, A. (2004). Gender quotas: a key to
equality? A case study of Iraq and Afghanistan. European
Political Science summer: 2004.
Dalton, R. (1999). Political support in advanced industrial societies.
In Critical Citizens, Pippa Norris (ed.). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dalton, R., Van Sickle, A., & Weldon, S. (2009). The individualinstitutional nexus of protest behavior.” British Journal of
Political Science 40: 51-73.
Desposato, S. & Norrander, B. (2009). The gender gap in Latin
America. British Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 141162.
Dolan, K. (2006). Symbolic mobilization? American Politics
Research 34 (6): 687-704.
Dunning, T. (2008). Improving causal inference: the strengths and
limitations of natural experiments.” Political Research
Quarterly 61: 282-293.
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Ingelhart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R., Moaddel, M. & Tessler, M., (2006). Xenophobia and
in-group solidarity in Iraq: a natural experiment on the
impact of insecurity. Perspectives on Politics 4: 495-505.
Inglehart, R. & Norris, P. (2003). Rising tide. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Inglehart, R. & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change
and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Inter Parliamentary Union (2013). Archive for the Percentage of
Women in Parliament. http://www.ipu.org/wmne/world.htm
Johnson, D., Kabuchu, H. & Kayonga, S. V. (2003). Women in
Ugandan local government. Gender and Development 11 (3):
8-18.
Karp, J. & Banducci, S. (2008). “When politics is not just a man’s
game.” Electoral Studies 27 (1): 105-115.
Kenworthy, L. & Malami, M. (1999). Gender inequality in political
representation. Social Forces 78 (1): 235-268.
Kittilson, M. C. (2005). In support of gender quotas. Politics and
Gender 1(4): 638-644.
Kittilson, M. C. & Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie. (2010). “Engaging
citizens.” Journal of Politics 72 (4): 990-1002.
Klingemann, H.D. (1999). Mapping political support in the 1990s: a
global analysis. In Critical Citizens, Pippa Norris (ed.).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Koch, J. (1997). Candidate gender and women’s psychological
engagement in politics. American Politics Quarterly 25
(January): 118-33.
Krook, M. L., O’Brien, D. Z. & Swip, K. (2010). Military invasion
and women’s political representation. International
Feminist Journal of Politics 12: 66-79.
91
Lawless, J. (2004). Politics of presence? Political Research
Quarterly 57(1): 81-99.
Mahoney, J. (2000). Strategies of causal inference in small-N
analysis. Sociological Methods and Research 28: 387-424.
Mansbridge, J. (1999). Should blacks represent blacks and women
represent women? Journal of Politics 61(3): 628-57.
Matland, R. (2002). Enhancing women’s political participation:
Legislative recruitment and electoral systems.” In Women in
parliament: Beyond the numbers, ed. A. Karam. Stockholm,
Sweden: IDEA. 65-90.
Norris, P. (2006). Support for democratic governance:
Multidimensional concept and survey measures.” Paper
prepared for the LAPOP-UNDP Workshop, Center for the
Americas at Vanderbuilt, Nashville, May 5-6th.
___________. (1993). conclusions: Comparing legislative
recruitment.” In Gender and party politics, eds. Joni
Lovenduski and Pippa Norris. Newberry Park, CA: Sage.
309-330.
Norris, P. and Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Norris, P. and Krook, M. L. (2009). “One of us.” Paper presented at
the American Political Science Association’s Annual
Meeting, 2009.
Norris, P., Lovenduski, J., and Campbell, R. (2004). Research report.
London: The Electoral Commission (UK).
Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development: The
capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Paxton, P. & Hughes, M. (2013). Women, politics and power, 2nd
Edition. London: Pine Forge Press.
Paxton, P., Hughes, M., & Green, J. (2006). The international
women’s movement and women’s political representation,
1893-2003. American Sociological Review 71(6): 898.
Sapiro, V. & Connover, P. (1997). The variable gender bias of
electoral politics. British Journal of Political Science 27 (4):
497-523.
Sanbonmatsu, K. (2003). Gender-related political knowledge and the
descriptive representation of women. Political Behavior 25
(4): 367-388.
Sekhon, J. (2009). Opiates for the matches: Matching methods for
causal inference. Annual Review of Political Science 12:
487-508.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Schwindt-Bayer, L. and Mishler, B. (2005). An integrated model of
women’s representation. Journal of Politics 67: 407-428.
ThrelFall, M. (2007). Explaining gender parity representation in
Spain: The internal dynamics of parties. West European
Politics 30: 1068-1095.
Tripp, A. M. & Kang, A. (2008). The Global Impact of Quotas.
Comparative Political Studies 41: 338-361.
Tripp, A. M., Konaté, D., & Lowe-Morna, C. (2006). Sub-Saharan
Africa. In Women, Quotas and Politics, ed. Drude Dahlerup.
London: Routledge.
United Nations Development Program (2008). Human Development
Reports. http://www.undp.org/
Valiente, C. (2007). Women in Parliament: The Effectiveness of
Quotas. In Women and Legislative Representation. Manon
Tremblay (ed.). New York: Palgrave.
_____________. (2008). How Spanish Women Gained Thirty-Six
Percent of Parliamentary Seats? Paper Presented Midwest
Political Science Association’s Meeting, April 3-6.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K. & Brady, H. (1995). Voice and equality
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Paxton, P. & Kunovich, S. (2003). Women’s political presence.
Social Forces 82 (1): 87-114.
Wide, J. (2002). Women’s political representation around the globe.
Paper for Presentation at the Commonwealth Conference on
Educational Administration and Management. Umea,
Sweden, September 23-25.
Phillips, A. (1995). The politics of presence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Williams, M. S. (1998). Voice, trust and memory. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Reingold, B. & Harrell, J. (2009). The impact of descriptive
representation on women’s political engagement: Does
party matter?” Political Research Quarterly 63 (2): 280-294.
Wolbrecht, C. and Campbell, D. E. (2007). Leading by example.
American Journal of Political Science 51(4): 921-939.
Sapiro, V. (1981). When are interests interesting? American Political
Science Review 75 (3): 701-716.
Young, I. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Wolchick, S. & Meyer, A. eds. (1985). Women, state and party in
Eastern Europe. Durham: Duke University Press.
92
Appendix A: Attitudinal Data Availability
Country
Big Jump
Election
Period
Gain in the
Percentage
of Women
in
Parliament
Comparative
Public Opinion
Databases
Consulted
Pre-Election
Attitudinal Data
Availability
Post-Election
Attitudinal Data
Availability
Years and
Elections
between Pre-Test
Data and the Big
Jump
Years and
Elections
between Posttest
Data and the Big
Jump
Senegal*
2012
25
Afrobarometer
None
Afrobarometer
2013
NA
NA
Nicaragua*
2011
21.74
Latino
Latino
barometer 2006
None, but could
become
available with
Latino
barometer 2012
NA
NA
Barometer
Kyrgyzstan
20062007
25.6
World Values
Survey and
Asia
barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Algeria
20112012
23.4
World Values
Survey and
Arab
barometer
Arab barometer
2009,2010
None but could
become
available with
3rd wave Arab
barometer
NA
NA
Andorra
20042005
14.3
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
None
World Values
Survey 2005
NA
NA
Iraq
2005
18
World Values
Survey and
Arab
Barometer
World Values
Survey 2004
World Values
Survey 2006
1 year
1 year
No elections
No elections
South Africa
1994
22
World Values
Survey and
Afro
Barometer
None
World Values
Survey 1996
NA
NA
Rwanda
20022003
23.1
World Values
Survey and
Afro
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Pakistan
19992002
18.8
World Values
Survey and
Asia
Barometer
World Values
Survey 1997
and 2001
None
NA
NA
Monaco
19971998
16.6
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
None
None
NA
NA
Argentina
1993 1995
20.2
World Values
Survey and
Latino
None
World Values
Survey 1999,
2006
NA
NA
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
93
Barometer
Costa Rica
20012002
15.8
World Values
Survey and
Latino
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Spain
1996,
2000,
2004
20
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
World Values
Survey 1995
World Values
Survey 2005
1 year before the
start of the big
jump cycle
1 year after the
big jump cycle
19971998
13.7
World Values
Survey and
Latino
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
13.4
World Values
Survey,
Eastern and
Central
Barometer and
Asia
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Ecuador
Turkmenistan
19931994
No elections
Australia
19931998
12.8
World Values
Survey
None
World Values
Survey 2005
NA
NA
Rwanda
19961997
12.8
World Values
Survey and
Afro
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Croatia
19972000
13.6
(19.9%)
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
World Values
Survey 1996
None
NA
NA
Laos
19961997
11.8
World Values
Survey and
Asia
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Singapore
20002001
11.7
World Values
Survey and
Asia
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Tunisia
20032004
11.3
World Values
Survey and
Arab
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Namibia
19931994
11.2
World Values
Survey and
Afro
Barometer
None
None
NA
NA
Belgium
19981999
10.6
World Values
Survey and
European
None
None
NA
NA
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
94
Values Survey
Macedonia
19982006
20
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
World Values
Survey 1998
None
NA
NA
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
20012002
9.6
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
World Values
Survey 1998
None
NA
NA
United
Kingdom
19961997
8.7
World Values
Survey and
European
Values Survey
None
1998 World
Values Survey
NA
NA
Sources: Paxton and Hughes 2013: 76, Inter Parliamentary Union’s Parline Database 2013, http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp,
and various comparative public opinion surveys. The question on women’s acceptability as political leaders is asked by the World Values
Surveys in wave 3, wave 4, and wave 5. In terms of Barometers, it is asked by the Afrobarometer in round 3 (2005-2006) and round 5 (20112012). The question is asked by the Arabbarometer in wave 1 (2009), wave 2 (2010) and, since the data is not released, it is unclear whether
this is asked in wave 3 (2013-14). The question is asked by the Latinobarometer in 2004 and 2009. This question is not asked in the
Eurobarometers (a full text search of the terms “women and leaders” turned up no hits through Eurobarometer question and variable retrieval
http://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer-data-service/topics-trends/question-retrieval/). The question is also not asked in the Central and Eastern
European Barometers, the Asiabarometer or the European Values Study. Countries with an asterisk (*) were added as big jump cases by
author’s own research.
Appendix B: Percent of Women in Parliament in Iraq and Spain After their Big Jumps Compared to their
Regional Averages
Country (date) and Percentage of
Women in Parliament After the Big
Jump
Region (date) and Percentage of
Women in Parliament
Difference in Percentage
between Big Jump Country and
Regional Average
Iraq (2005) 31.6
Arab States (2005) 6.7
24.9
Spain (2004) 36
Europe excluding the Nordic
Countries (2004) 15.6
20.4
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
95
1
In addition to being called big jump cases, these cases have also
been categorized as examples of the ‘fast-track’ to women’s
representation and contrasted with the ‘incremental-track’ more
characteristic of trajectories in north Western Europe (Dahlerup
and Friedenval 2005).
2
See Appendix A for a list of big jump countries and data on their
increases in women’s presence in parliaments.
3
These cases include: Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands,
Norway and Sweden, see Paxton and Hughes (2013:73).
4
A review of all relevant comparative public opinion surveys
shows that while over twenty countries have been classified as big
jump countries, the pre and posttest attitudinal data that match the
big jump periods are only available for Iraq and Spain. This is
discussed in more detail in the section on sample selection (see
page 85; see also Appendix A).
5
Studies on the US evaluate the impact of increases of women in
legislatures on women and girl’s political discussion and political
activity (Wolbrecht and Campbell 2008), women’s political
engagement and activity (Atkeson 2003; Burns et al. 2001;
Hansen 1997; High-Pippert and Comer 1998; Koch 1997; Norris
and Krook 2009; Reingold and Harrell 2009; Sapiro and Conover
1997), women’s entry into the political arena (Carroll 1985),
women’s campaign volunteerism and women’s turnout (Norris,
Lovenduski and Campbell 2004). The studies tend to show that
women are more knowledgeable, engaged and participatory when
they see women running for and occupying public office. There
are, however, a few important exceptions. Kittilson and
Schwindt-Bayer’s (2010) comparative research on the gendered
effects of political structures does not confirm a consistent,
positive effect of women’s presence in parliaments on the gender
gap in political engagement or participation. In their research
women’s presence in parliaments is modeled as one possible
mechanism through which inclusive political structures plausibly
have an indirect influence. Lawless (2004) examines pooled
National Election Studies (NES) data from 1980-1998 and finds
that while women represented by women in Congress offer more
positive evaluations of their members of Congress, the evidence
does not extend to support additional symbolic effects on
women’s political attitudes and behaviors. In addition, Dolan
(2006) examines NES data from 1990-2004 and finds little
evidence that women candidates have an influence on voter
attitudes and behaviors.
In the comparative literature, women’s presence in parliaments is
shown to positively influence women’s political engagement,
political interest and participation. Importantly, these findings
hold across samples of culturally and developmentally diverse
nations under control for countries’ level of development and
democracy (Barnes and Burchard 2010; Desposato and Norrander
2008; Norris and Krook 2009).
6
Countries with an increasing pattern reflect a slow, truly
reciprocal pattern of change in women’s presence in parliaments
and women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern, which
plausibly follows patterns of societal development and
modernization. Examples of countries that follow this pattern are
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
Denmark, Germany and Canada (Paxton and Hughes 2013: 73).
These cases are poor candidates for a test of sufficiency because
of the difficulty separating earlier changes from later changes as
well as the processes of societal development.
Low increasing countries have probably seen too little
improvement over the time period for there to be an observable
effect on women’s beliefs in women’s ability to govern.
Moreover, the gains are slow and sequential, making it more
difficult to isolate the change in women’s presence in parliaments
from other covariates. Examples of countries that follow this
pattern are Brazil, Chile and France (Paxton and Hughes 2013:
78).
In contrast, plateau countries climbed rather abruptly to a level of
women’s descriptive representation –some a rather exceptionally
high level-, maintained that level over a longer period and then
saw an abrupt drop. The countries that fall into this category are
the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe as
well as countries that are not formerly communist but had Leftist
authoritarian governments. Examples include Hungary, Romania
and Poland (Paxton and Hughes 2013: 79). On its face, this
pattern looks promising because it also follows abrupt, nonsequential developments in women’s representation. Yet, there is
a problem. The pattern clearly overlaps, nearly perfectly, with the
emergence, persistence and fall of a sociopolitical regime whose
doctrine emphasized gender equality in public roles. Thus, as with
the increasing pattern, this pattern fails to escape the problem of
confoundedness.
Flat countries have seen no change in women’s parliamentary
presence since 1945. These are the opposite of big jump countries
and therefore, clearly, control cases - they lack the treatment all
together, making them good examples of never-treat units. It is
from this category of countries that I draw my sample of “never
treat” cases: China, India, South Korea and Turkey. All of these
countries have a flat pattern of change in women’s presence in
parliaments from 1945 through the periods covered by the big
jumps. They are also the only flat countries for which data on my
outcomes are available over all big jump periods.
7
Two additional cases to Iraq and Spain may become available
for subjecting the theory of symbolic representation to new tests
of sufficiency: Algeria and Nicaragua (see Appendix A). This
depends on whether the questionnaires of the newest waves of the
Arab and Latino barometers include the question on women’s
acceptability as political leaders in their surveys of these
countries, which at the time of writing, is not yet clear.
8
The United Nation Development Program’s Gender Inequality
Index captures the loss of female achievement in society due to
gender inequality the dimensions of reproductive health,
empowerment, and labor market participation. The measure
ranges from 0 (no inequality) to 1.0 (total inequality).
9
The United Nation Development Program’s Human
Development Index captures the level of development by
assessing education, life expectancy wealth and standard of
living. Countries are measured on a scale of 0 (low human
development) to 1.0 (high human development).
96
10
Data on religion for Iraq and Spain come from the CIA World
Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/. Data for development related gender inequality and
human development and the mortality rate for Iraq come from the
United Nation Development Program’s Human Development
Data for Arab States, http://www.arabhdr.org/data/profiles/IRQ.aspx, The Iraqi Gender Inequality Index
data are based on the only data available: 2005. The Iraqi HDI
data and mortality rate data are based on the 2005/2006 average.
Data is not available for 2004. The Spanish gender and human
development data come from the United Nation’s Development
Program https://data.undp.org/dataset/Human-DevelopmentIndex-HDI-value/8ruz-shxu. The Spanish Gender Inequality
Index data are also based on the 2005 data due to data availability.
The Spanish HDI data are based on the 2000/2005 average. Data
are not available for 1996-1999 or 2001-2004. The Iraqi
democratic rights data are based on the Freedom House’s
Freedom Rating in the reports from 2004-2006,
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2005/iraq.
The Spanish democratic rights data are based on the Freedom
House’s Freedom Rating for 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and
2005. The data for 1996-1998 and 2000 are not available,
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2005/spain.
The Spanish mortality rate data was retrieved from
http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/spain/mortality-rate.
11
A description of the surveys, variables and sampling procedures
per wave per country can be found at
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
12
For Iraq, the earlier measure of women in parliament is based
on the election of members to the lower house in 2000. The
earlier (wave 4) measure of attitudes is based on data from 2004.
The later measure of women in parliament is based on the
election of members to the lower house in 2005. The later (wave
5) measure of attitudes is based on data from 2006. For Spain, the
earlier measure of women in parliament is based on the election
of members to the lower house in 1993. The earlier (wave 3)
measure of attitudes is based on data from 1995. The later
measure of women in parliament is based on the election of
members to the lower house in 2004. The later (wave 5) measure
of attitudes is based on data from 2007.
13
An even stronger question for gauging whether the conflict
modernized Iraqis views of political leadership was asked in
Wave 5 but not Wave 4 so it cannot be included in the
regressions. Respondents were asked whether it is 1 (very good) –
4 (very bad) to have an Islamic government where religious
authorities have absolute power. This positively, significantly
correlates with the indicator I use at a .61 across 2034 Iraqi
respondents surveyed in the fifth wave. This is a powerful
correlation at the individual level and, therefore, a good validity
check.
14
For categorical variables (dichotomous and ordinal) entered
into the ordinal regression model, the category with the lowest
value is chosen by default as the reference category. In this case, I
rescaled all dichotomous and categorical independent variables so
Advancing Women in Leadership
2015
Volume 35
that the appropriate reference category would be selected for
results to reflect the theoretically expected direction. For example,
the big jump variable was rescaled so that respondents in the big
jump sample were scored 0 and respondents in the pretest sample
were scored 1.
15
Due to the scale-level of the two variables this is based on
Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients.
97