Gender equality is central to the protection of human rights and the functioning of democracy. It cannot be right that the experiences, skills and concerns of women are not fully represented or reflected in decision making about the laws and functioning of the societies in which they live. The regional study on women’s political representation in the Eastern Partnership countries was commissioned in response to the key objectives of the Council of Europe and the European Commission to address the lack of women’s political representation at national and local level in these countries. Researchers based in each of the countries have contributed qualitative information on both the situation of women and on the experiences of women who have stood for elected office. While the legal basis for equality of women and men exists in all the countries in question, the reality is quite different. Stereotypical views and assumptions about the roles of women in society affect how women step forward as candidates, and whether they are selected and elected. The Council of Europe is convinced that this study, by providing examples of good practice and evidence-based, practical recommendations, will help to address the current imbalance of women holding elected office and, by doing so, will enhance democracy and human rights in the countries of the Eastern Partnership.

As the number of women candidates for office in the U.S. increases each election cycle, scholars are confronted with questions about the impact of their sex on their chances for success. Chief among these questions involves the influence of gender stereotypes on the decisions voters make in elections in which women run against men. While previous research has claimed that gender stereotypes undermine women's chances of success, Kathleen Dolan, through an original national survey of over 3000 adults, turns this conventional wisdom on its head. She demonstrates that voters do hold gendered attitudes, both positive and negative, about women candidates, but that these attitudes are not related to the political decisions they make. Instead, in deciding for whom to vote, people are influenced by traditional political forces, like political party and incumbency, regardless of the sex of the candidates. In the end, When Does Gender Matter? shows that women candidates win as often as do men and that partisan concerns trump gender every time.

As the number of women in the U.S. Senate grows, so does the number of citizens represented by women senators. At the same time, gender remains a key factor in senators’ communications to constituents as well as in news media portrayals of senators. Focusing on 32 male and female senators during the 2006 congressional election year, Kim L. Fridkin and Patrick J. Kenney examine in detail senators’ official websites, several thousand press releases and local news stories, and surveys of 18,000 citizens to discern constituents’ attitudes about their senators. The authors conclude that gender role expectations and stereotypes do indeed constrain representational and campaign messages and influence news coverage of both candidates and elected senators. Further, while citizens appear to be less influenced by entrenched stereotypes, they pay more attention to female senators’ messages and become more knowledgeable about them, in comparison to male senators.

The Gendered Effects of Electoral Institutions argues that in most countries women continue to lag behind men in an array of political orientations and activities. Understanding this, and why some countries have been more successful than others in decreasing gender gaps, is imperative for producing stronger and more representative democracies.

We study how electoral systems affect the presence of women in politics using a model in which both voters and parties might have a gender bias. We apply the model to Spanish municipal elections, in which national law mandates that municipalities follow one of two different electoral systems: a closed-list system in which voters pick one party-list, or an open-list system, in which voters pick individual candidates. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the closed-list system increases the share of women among candidates and councilors by 2.5 percentage points, and the share of women among mayors by 4.3 percentage points. Our model explains these results as mostly driven by voter bias against women. We provide evidence that supports the mechanism of the model. In particular, we show that, when two councilors almost tied in general-election votes, the one with “one more vote” is substantially more likely to be appointed mayor, but this does not happen when the most voted was female and the second was male, suggesting the presence of some voter bias. We also show that, in a subsample of municipalities with low bias -- proxied by having had a female mayor in the past -- the difference between the two electoral systems disappears.

This book offers an analysis of how women's participation is conducted in Mexico´s political sphere. Federalization and decentralization processes can have a significant impact on women’s participation and discrimination. By questioning the form in which a democratic state is built (that is, the degree of (de)centralization) the book looks to a set of forms and processes affecting women’s political life. A decentralized form of state-government implies three levels of government in which women (or any other group of people) can have active participation: central-federal government, state-regional-province government, and local (municipalities) government. This book offers an analysis of how gender discrimination operates in a different way in each of these levels of government and the corresponding political activity. Policies that fight against gender discrimination and promote women's participation, in both administration and political parties, do not always operate cooperatively, and often exist in contradiction with each other.