Diversity in National Legislatures Around the World

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Sociology Compass 7/1 (2013): 23 33, 10.1111/soc4.12010 Diversity in National Legislatures Around the World Melanie M. Hughes* Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh Abstract Men from majority racial, ethnic, and religious groups continue to dominate electoral politics in most countries. At the same time, national legislatures are becoming more diverse. Cross-national research on inequality in national politics focuses most often on women, but occasionally addresses the political representation of other marginalized groups. This review brings together these distinct areas of research cross-national studies on the representation of women and minority groups in national legislatures to think about diversity in politics in a broader way. Such an approach suggests future studies should: (i) acknowledge important differences among women; (ii) focus on more than one type of minority group at a time; and (iii) explicitly examine variation in the overrepresentation of majority men as political elites. Introduction National legislatures provide a useful laboratory for the study of diversity in politics around the world. Of the more than 190 countries in the world today, almost all elect a body of legislators designed to represent the people. Historically, legislatures were not expected to look like the people they represented (Phillips 1995; Pitkin [1967], 1972; Young 1990). In recent decades, however, notions of representation have changed. Social structures that shape a person s identity, like gender, ethnicity, and religion, are thought to influence the political interests and priorities of politicians and ultimately how they legislate (Paxton and Hughes 2007). But even if diversity does not affect which laws are proposed or passed, the inclusiveness of political bodies is an important component of democracy (Dahl 1985; Coppedge et al. 2011). Including marginalized groups in representative institutions may reduce political alienation (Bieber 2004; Farrell and Scully 2007) and can contribute to political or social stability (Cederman et al. 2010; Reynolds 2006; Van Cott 2005; Wucherpfennig et al. 2012). Furthermore, who is represented in national legislatures sends powerful messages about who is fit to rule (Mansbridge 1999). Thus, including members of marginalized groups in visible positions of power may have broad societal effects. In recent decades, women and members of racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups have increasingly won seats in national legislatures around the world. However, diversity in national legislatures has advanced at an uneven rate across groups and across societies (Hughes 2011; Ruedin 2009). In Rwanda, for example, women hold 56 percent of seats in the national legislature, whereas in Saudi Arabia, women are completely excluded from national politics. In 2001, indigenous, racial, and ethnic minority groups held more than one quarter of seats in the national legislatures of Singapore and Fiji. Around the same time, Argentina, France, and Portugal had no minority representatives. What explains the degree of diversity in national legislatures in a country? This is not a question easily answered, as diversity is typically not examined for more than one type of ª 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

24 Diversity in National Legislatures group at a time. Some scholars of politics focus on gender inequality, whereas others focus on inequalities by race, ethnicity, or religion. In this review, I will discuss crossnational research on the legislative representation of women and minority groups together. I propose that evaluating legislative diversity along more than one dimension of inequality at a time is a useful exercise. Looking at the legislature using a broad and inclusive lens advances our understanding of inequality in politics and suggests new avenues for research. To be clear, I do not suggest here that all politically marginalized groups are the same or that they should be analyzed together in unreflective ways. I begin by focusing on women s representation, arguably the most developed subfield of cross-national research on diversity in national legislatures. 1 After outlining existing empirical work in this area, I explain how exploring differences by race, ethnicity, and religion could improve our understanding of women s political representation. Then, I turn to cross-national research on race, ethnicity and religion in national legislatures, a new but promising area of scholarship. I suggest that researchers should consider more than one type of minority status at a time. Finally, I advance the argument that researchers concerned with inequality or diversity in politics should try to explain variation in the overrepresentation of majority men in politics. Women in national legislatures worldwide Women s share of seats in national legislatures is a widely used indicator of women s status and power. For example, the United Nations (UN) uses data on women s representation in national legislatures to measure women in political decision-making, one of six areas of UN concern involving gender (United Nations 2012b). The UN also incorporates women s legislative representation into the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII), measures of gender equality by country (UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) 2012a,b). Women s representation in national legislatures is also being used as an indicator of progress towards the Millenium Development Goal of promoting gender equality and empowering women (United Nations 2012a). So, how do countries measure up? Today, women hold less than 20 percent of the seats in national legislatures, on average, worldwide (IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) 2012). Although this level of women s political representation is much higher than just a few decades ago, gender inequality in politics remains more pronounced than in other domains such as education or the labor force (Dorius and Firebaugh 2010). In only two countries in the world are women represented at levels equal to or higher than men: Rwanda and Andorra. Twenty-five other countries have at least 30 percent women in their national legislature (including Sweden, South Africa, Nicaragua, Belgium, and Nepal), compared to 45 countries with less than 10 percent women (including Hungary, Brazil, Ghana, Kuwait, and Haiti). Countries like China, Bangladesh, and the United States fall in between these extremes. Why are women well represented in some national legislatures but not so well represented in others? Scholars have been studying variation in women s legislative representation for decades. The first studies focused mostly on Western Europe and other advanced industrialized democracies (Norris 1985, 1997; Rule 1987). Electoral systems quickly emerged as an important explanation for differences in women s legislative outcomes. For instance, in 1987, in a study of 23 advanced industrialized democracies, Wilma Rule found that a country having a party-list proportional representation electoral system was by far the strongest predictor of women s legislative success. In countries with such a

Diversity in National Legislatures 25 system, voters cast a ballot for parties rather than individual candidates, producing incentives for parties to generate balanced lists of candidates with both men and women. If one party begins including women as candidates, other parties also tend to include women candidates to stay competitive (Matland and Studlar 1996). The next wave of gender and politics research embraced a more diverse group of countries in all parts of the globe (Paxton 1997; Kenworthy and Malami 1999; Reynolds 1999; Siaroff 2000; Studlar and McAllister 2002; Inglehart and Norris 2003; Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Kunovich and Paxton 2005; Gray et al. 2006; Paxton, Hughes, and Green 2006; Hughes 2007; Paxton et al. 2010). Researchers identified a broad range of political, social structural, and cultural factors that enhance or limit women s political representation on a global scale, including electoral rules, party ideology, democratization, gender ideology, and pressure from international and domestic women s movements. Gender and politics scholars also began to document a new force for change in politics around the world: gender quotas (Dahlerup 2006; Htun 2004; Krook 2009; Krook and O Brien 2010; Paxton et al. 2010; Tremblay 2008; Tripp and Kang 2008). 2 Gender quotas are laws or policies that require a certain share of candidates or legislators to be women. More than 100 countries in the world now have adopted some form of gender quota in politics (International IDEA 2012). One puzzling set of findings in cross-national research has been inconsistent results regarding the importance of women s empowerment outside of politics (Paxton, Kunovich and Hughes 2007). Although we generally expect women to perform better in politics in countries that have more educated women and more women in the workforce, cross-national research has not always found this to be the case. Generally, however, increasing women s labor force participation is more often found to improve women s legislative representation than increasing women s educational outcomes (e.g. Gray et al. 2006; Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Rule 1987). This is an area in which global research may be less helpful, as the types of education and work experiences that typically lead to careers in politics may vary from one country to the next (Paxton et al. 2007). At the same time that global research on women in national legislatures was on the rise, a third set of studies began to question whether the mechanisms that increase women s representation are indeed the same for all women. Authors sought to contextualize global research by looking for mechanisms of change specific to certain levels of economic development (Hughes 2009; Matland 1998; Viterna et al. 2008) or specific to certain geographic regions such as sub-saharan Africa (Bauer and Britton 2006; Yoon 2001, 2004), Eastern Europe (Matland and Montgomery 2003; Rueschemeyer and Wolchik 2009), North Africa (Ross 2008), and Latin America (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor- Robinson 2005; Schwindt-Bayer 2010, 2011). This line of research raised important questions about the ability of global research on women to explain outcomes for all women. For example, Richard Matland (1998) found that electoral systems were not an important predictor of women s legislative outcomes in less economically developed democracies. Arguably, one of the next steps for research on gender and politics is to question the category of women in a different way to consider the extent to which women of different racial, ethnic, and religious groups are gaining entry into politics, but still in a broad, comparative way. Scholarship has investigated the political representation of African American women and Latinas in the U.S. and visible minority women in Canada (Barrett 1997; Black 2000; Fraga et al. 2008; Montoya et al. 2000; Philpot and Walton 2007; Scola 2006; Smooth 2008; Takash 1997). Yet, cross-national studies on minority

26 Diversity in National Legislatures women in national legislatures are just beginning to appear (Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2011; Holmsten et al. 2010; Hughes 2011). Why is it important to consider how women s political representation varies by race, ethnicity, and religion at a global level? Women vary in ways that have profound effects on individual power (Bacchi 1996; Collins 2000; Mohanty 1995). By focusing on women as a group, we may overlook the different outcomes of women marginalized by minority status. That is, we might miss miss even greater levels of underrepresentation by some groups of women around the world. Focusing explicitly on minority women s legislative representation globally is thus an important topic for future research. Ignoring how women differ may also mean we incorrectly judge why women are represented at higher levels in some countries than in others. To illustrate this point, consider the cases of Romania and the United States. In 2004, the United States elected more women to its national legislature than Romania: 15 percent to 11 percent (IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) 2012). We could try to explain this difference using explanations about women s status as a group in the two countries. Yet, at least some of the difference in women s legislative representation in Romania and the U.S. can be explained by the varied performance of minority women. In Romania, ethnic minority representatives elected in 2004 were almost all men. If ethnic minority women in Romania had been elected at rates similar to that of Black women in the United States, both countries would have elected 15 percent women to the national legislature that year. 3 Comparing the cases of Romania and the U.S. demonstrates that ignoring the ways in which gender intersects with race, ethnicity, and religion may lead to incorrect inferences as to why one country includes more women in politics than another. That is, gender alone may not best explain why women are underrepresented in a given country. Women can face obstacles to power because of their status as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities or because of their combined status as minority women. Acknowledging differences among women may therefore help us to better understand when, where, and how gender contributes to inequality in representative institutions. Racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in national legislatures worldwide Unlike research on women in politics, cross-national research on the legislative outcomes of racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups is just getting started. Cross-national research on minorities faces numerous challenges not faced by research on women: (i) it is not always easy to define which groups in a country are minorities ; (ii) groups vary in size from one country to the next and change in size over time; and (iii) data on minority representation are sometimes difficult to collect. Despite these obstacles, comparative political studies involving race, ethnicity, and or religion are increasing (Bird et al. 2011; Klausen 2005; Koopmans and Statham 2000; Norris 2004; Reynolds 2006; Rule and Zimmerman 1994; Sinno 2009; Tossutti 2002; Weller and Nobbs 2010; Wimmer et al. 2009), including a handful of studies that analyze minority representation in national legislatures (Bird 2005; Bird et al. 2011; Friedman 2005; Ruedin 2009; Sinno 2009). Minority groups typically have some representation in national legislatures. In the first large cross-national study of ethnic minority representation, Didier Ruedin (2009) found that circa 2006, at least one member of an ethnic minority group was present in 75 percent of freely elected national legislatures, and many countries elected relatively high shares of ethnic representatives. Muslim minorities are also increasingly gaining representation in national legislatures, represented in more than half of Western countries with a population share of at least 0.5 percent Muslims (Sinno 2009). However, studies also

Diversity in National Legislatures 27 document continuing underrepresentation of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. For example, in 2006, Muslims were only about one quarter of the way towards proportional representation in the West (0.73 percent of seats in national legislatures vs. 2.97 percent of the population) (Sinno 2009). Cross-national studies can invalidate long-standing claims about conditions favorable to the election of minority groups. Take, for example, scholarship on electoral system effects. As with research on women, scholarship emphasizes the role of electoral systems in shaping minority access to political power (Bird 2005; Bochsler 2010; Lijphart 1986; Moser 2008; Norris 2004; Reynolds 2006; Rule and Zimmerman 1994). Some research argues representatives of minority cultures or groups are more likely to be elected in party-list PR systems (Bird 2005; Reynolds et al. 2005). However, Ruedin (2009) found electoral systems did not play an important role in predicting minority representation across countries. One limitation of new cross-national research on minorities, however, is that researchers tend to focus on one type of group, for example, ethnic groups, immigrants, or religious minorities. Although group-specific research is important for identifying group-specific mechanisms of advancement or exclusion, some identity categories may be more politically salient in certain contexts. For example, Ethiopia organizes its political system around ethnicity, whereas Lebanon uses religion to distribute legislative seats. To understand minority representation globally, should we not consider these and other dimensions of identity? One alternative approach to single-group research would be to start with the most salient social cleavages (e.g. racial ethnic, religious, linguistic) in a given context and then consider what other important groups or divisions are being missed. A single-minded focus on one type of group also leaves a broad range of important questions unanswered. Which types of groups are underrepresented the most in global politics? How do ethnicity and religion interact to influence a group s political power? Obtaining more comprehensive data on multiple types of social cleavages across countries would help researchers answer these important questions. Focusing on overrepresentation to understand underrepresentation Scholars who focus on diversity in politics often argue that much of the mainstream literature ignores the specific interests and outcomes of women and minority groups (e.g. Phillips 1995; Young 1990). Political processes are discussed too generally, as if politics operates similarly for all members of society. Systems of stratification such as race, gender, and class are too often ignored. By studying the underrepresentation of women and or minority groups, diversity scholars challenge this work, showing that politics operates differently for women and men, for majority and minority groups, and for minority women compared to all other groups. To explain the enduring political underrepresentation of women and minority groups, researchers characteristically explore factors that enable or constrain the political opportunities of those groups. For example, research on women in politics regularly examines explanations for gender inequality that focus on women, such as women s lower levels of political ambition (Fox and Lawless 2010) or public attitudes that women do not make good politicians (Paxton and Kunovich 2003). Similarly, scholarship on minority groups argues that group-specific factors for example, an ethnic group s collective identity, capacity to politically mobilize, and the responsiveness of the system to their demands should explain differences in the political outcomes of minority groups (Bird 2005).

28 Diversity in National Legislatures Such singular attention to factors specific to underrepresented groups has its limitations. Rarely do scholars concerned with the underrepresentation of women or minority groups critically evaluate the overrepresentation of majority men. I suggest we should be asking, where and when are majority men holding on to power to the greatest degree, and how are they doing so? When does it serve the interests of majority men to include more members of underrepresented groups, and which majority men benefit? By ignoring variation in the political representation of majority men, researchers may be missing political, social, and cultural mechanisms that uphold or challenge majority men s dominance. This is not to say that scholars who focus on underrepresented groups never consider the interests of those who are overrepresented. Indeed, historical research on women s suffrage has asked why all male legislatures would pass laws allowing women to vote (e.g. McCammon and Campbell 2001). Similarly, gender quota research has questioned why legislatures dominated by men would pass laws that necessarily remove some of those very men from power (e.g. Krook 2009). Diversity scholars have also occasionally investigated mechanisms that enhance legislative turnover or unsettle the existing political order such as redistricting, term limits, or even armed conflict (Hughes 2007, 2009; Schwindt- Bayer 2005). Still, majority men s overrepresentation in the political elite is often assumed, rather than subjected to empirical examination (Murray 2012). Focusing only on group-specific explanations for inequality may contribute to erroneous assumptions about the causes of continuing power differentials and the processes that generate change. If every society had an ample supply of qualified women and minority candidates with the resources to run successful campaigns, would an equitable division of political power necessarily follow? For change to occur, must we first change the racist and sexist beliefs in society that generate an uneven playing field on which women and minority candidates must compete? Certainly, unequal status, unequal resources, and persistent discrimination against women and minority groups partly explain the current distribution of political power globally. Yet, the continued dominance of majority men may have just as much to do with inertia or the active maintenance of the status quo than with group-specific mechanisms of exclusion (Hughes and Paxton 2008). Sociologists have much to offer this line of inquiry. Indeed, studies of political elites have a long and distinguished history in sociology (Domhoff 2002; Mills 1956). We can also draw from the expanding research in gender studies on masculinity in politics (Messner 2007), and research in race studies on whiteness in politics (Feagan 2012; Winant 1997). In the future, sociologists should also try to explain the degree of majority men s overrepresentation across countries. Putting the focus on majority men s rule may also generate new hypotheses for empirical research. For example, we can ask if, when, and the extent to which majority women s and minority men s underrepresentation in politics are related. Group-based explanations might suggest that majority women and minority men s representation are likely unrelated they should be influenced by distinct, group-specific factors. Existing research might also suggest that increased political representation of women and minority groups may proceed in tandem, as civil rights and feminist movements have often drawn from one another (Evans 1979; Freeman 1973). Alternatively, focusing on majority men s dominance suggests something altogether different that majority women s and minority men s success may be inversely related. If we assume those in power hope to hold on to power, sharing power with women may decrease willingness to share with minority groups and vice versa. That is, majority women s and minority men s political representation may be negatively related precisely because of the difficulties of wresting power from

Diversity in National Legislatures 29 majority men. Overall, however, research has yet to examine if or how majority women and minority men s legislative representation are related. 4 Conclusion Today, it is generally recognized that men from majority groups continue to dominate electoral politics in most countries in the world. We understand some of what keeps majority men in power, and we also understand some of the mechanisms that promote the legislative representation of women and members of racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups. Overall, however, a broader perspective is needed as scholarship moves forward. Case studies situated in individual countries and focusing on single groups must be complemented by broader cross-national research on legislative diversity. Of global research on inequality in politics, research on women is the most developed, in part because good data on women s representation is available. But failing to acknowledge how gender intersects with race, ethnicity, and religion may, at worst, lead to incorrect assumptions about why women are underrepresented in politics. Acknowledging differences among women may be a difficult step for cross-national research on legislative diversity, but it is arguably an important one. Research on racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups is overwhelmingly a countrylevel endeavor. Yet, some scholars are beginning to look at the underrepresentation of minority groups in national legislatures using cross-national data. I suggest these studies should use an even broader lens, as the political salience of ethnicity and religion may vary across countries. Evaluating more than one dimension of minority status may therefore be especially important for cross-national researchers. I also argue that researchers concerned with the political underrepresentation of women or minority groups should focus explicitly on the overrepresentation of majority men. Turning our focus to the majority group has been a useful course of study for many sociologists. Cross-national research on legislative diversity should learn from these success stories. Finally, although this review has focused on descriptive representation, or who is represented, scholars of legislative diversity should not stop there. As demonstrated by research on the obstacles faced by Rwanda s women parliamentarians (e.g. Burnet 2008; Longman 2006), physical presence in a legislative body does not guarantee that a group will be able to influence policy outcomes. There is much to learn about the ways in which marginalized groups are represented (or underrepresented) substantively as a function of legislative behavior and policymaking. I suggest that the three approaches advocated here attending to differences among women, embracing the multi-dimensionality of minority status, and focusing explicitly on majority men could also advance scholarship on substantive representation. Acknowledgement I am grateful to Professor Joyce Bell and to the editors and reviewers at Sociology Compass for providing guidance on earlier versions of this article. Short Biography Melanie M. Hughes has been an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh since 2008. Her research considers how gender intersects with other forces of

30 Diversity in National Legislatures marginalization to influence women s political power. She has published numerous articles on women s legislative representation cross-nationally in journals such as American Sociological Review, American Political Science Review, and Social Problems. She also coauthored Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective (2nd edition forthcoming) with Pamela Paxton. She is currently researching North-South inequalities in women s transnational organizing and the political representation of Muslim minority women. She holds a BA in Government and Sociology from the University of Texas and a MA and PhD in Sociology from The Ohio State University. Notes * Correspondence address: Melanie M. Hughes, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, 2400 WWPH, 230 S. Bouquet St., Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. E-mail: hughesm@pitt.edu. 1 In this review, I focus on the descriptive representation of women and racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups across countries. For reviews of the gender and politics literature that focus on other aspects of women s representation, such as how women act as legislators once in office, see Paxton et al. 2007; or Wängnerud 2009. 2 A few studies on quotas looked at both quotas for women and quotas for minority groups (Htun 2004; Krook and O Brien 2010). These studies show the benefits of thinking about gender and minority groups together in a single study of legislative diversity. 3 In Romania, only 2 of the 40 (5 percent) seats occupied by ethnic minorities were women. The same year in the United States, 12 of the 38 (32 percent) seats held by Blacks were women. If ethnic minority women in Romania had been as successful as Black women in the United States, an additional 11 women would have been elected to the legislature, upping women s share of overall seats in Romania to 15 percent. 4 Ruedin (2010) did take a first step towards understanding this relationship by comparing representation by gender and by ethnic group across countries. However, Ruedin (2010) does not break down the categories of women or ethnic minorities to compare majority women and minority men. References Bacchi, Carol L. 1996. The Politics of Affirmative Action: Women, Equality and Category Politics. London: Sage Publications. Barrett, Edith J. 1997. Gender and Race in the State House: The Legislative Experience. The Social Science Journal 34(2): 131 44. Bauer, Gretchen and Hannah E. Britton (eds) 2006. Women in African Parliaments. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Bieber, Florian. 2004. Power Sharing as Ethnic Represenation in Postconflict Societies: The Cases of Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Pp. 231 48 in Nationalism After Communism: Lessons Learned, edited by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Ivan Krastev. Budapest: Central European University Press. Bird, Karen. 2005. The Political Representation of Visible Minorities in Electoral Democracies: A Comparison of France, Denmark, and Canada. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11(4): 425 65. Bird, Karen, Thomas Saalfeld and Andreas M. Wüst (eds) 2011. The Political Representation of Immigrants and Minorities: Voters, Parties, and Parliaments in Liberal Democracies. New York, NY: Routledge. Black, Jerome H. 2000. Entering the Political Elite in Canada: The Case of Minority Women as Parliamentary Candidates and MPs. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 37(2): 143 66. Bochsler, Daniel. 2010. Electoral Rules and the Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Post-Communist Democracies. European Yearbook of Minority Issues 2007 8 7: 153 80. Burnet, Jennie E. 2008. Gender Balance and the Meanings of Women in Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda. African Affairs 107(428): 361 86. Cederman, Lars-Erik, Andreas Wimmer and Brian Min. 2010. Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis. World Politics 62(1): 87 119. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. London: HarperCollins. Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Steven Fish, Allen Hicken, Matthew Kroenig, Staffan I. Lindberg, Kelly McMann, Pamela Paxton, Holli A. Semetko, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton and Jan Teorell. 2011. Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach. Perspectives on Politics 9(2): 247 67. Dahl, Robert A. 1985. A Preface to Economic Democracy. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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