25 years of progress? examining the representation of ... · policy diffusion and political...
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This is a draft. Please do not cite.
25 Years of Progress? Examining the representation of women in
political executives across post-communist Central and Eastern Europe,
1989-2014
Dee Goddard
University of Kent
Dr Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling
University of Nottingham
Dr Kyriaki Nanou
University of Nottingham
Abstract
Despite the increasing scholarly interest in the representation of women in parliaments
worldwide, little academic attention has been paid to women’s representation in the highest
echelons of political power: political executives. This paper seeks to further the
understanding of women's political representation through an examination of the
representation of women in cabinets in post-communist Europe. This region’s unique
political history renders it a particularly interesting case for the investigation of women’s
executive representation, due to the lasting legacy of authoritarian Communism on the social
and political role of women. Through the use of an original dataset, quantitative methods are
employed to seek to explain variation in women's representation in the executives of the ten
post-communist European Union member states over time. A novel theoretical framework for
the investigation of women’s executive representation is employed, through the use of a top-
down versus bottom-up structure. The results of this analysis indicate that bottom-up, societal
pressures for an increased representation of women in government best explain increases in
women's representation over time. Top-down institutional factors also affect the selection of
women for cabinet positions. A finding unique to the region is that right-wing Prime
Ministers are found to appoint more women to government than their leftist counterparts.
This discovery is testament to the increased mobility of women in the rightist parties created
after the collapse of Communism, and the observed inversion of the concepts of ideological
left and right in states with a legacy of ideological totalitarianism. The process of European
Union accession has also played a significant role in increasing women's cabinet
representation in post-communist governments, due the EU’s uniquely effective methods of
policy diffusion and political socialisation.
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Introduction
In the male-dominated governments of post-communist Europe, the question of the
integration of women has been largely ignored. Indeed, throughout the entire history of
democracy the views and policy preferences of women have been under-represented in
executive decision-making. Unlike the analysis of the representation of women in executives,
‘literature on comparative female representation in parliament is now well established’
(Siaroff 2000:197). Much of this work adopts an institutionalist perspective, assessing the
impact of institutional features on the election of women to the legislature (Caul 1999,
Kenworthy and Malami 1999). The global share of women in parliament has been gradually
rising and reached 20% in late 2012 (United Nations 2013:1).
Yet, even in states which are moving towards gender parity in their legislatures, women
typically hold few government positions. When women are appointed to cabinet ministries,
they are rarely allocated the most prestigious portfolios. Besides some key works which
highlight the mechanisms through which women’s appointment to executive positions can be
understood, the selection of women for cabinet positions is under-analysed (Davis 1997,
Siaroff 2000, Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005, Claveria 2014). Women's
representation in the executive is a particularly interesting and important subject for analysis,
as ministerial positions are some of the most powerful in the democratic world. Furthermore,
these positions are not elective but appointive: the systems of appointment to cabinet
positions are complex, and clearly point to Prime Ministers and party leaders.
Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe is a lucrative landscape for the analysis of
women's representation, as the region provides a unique opportunity to examine the nature of
gender inequality in democratic governments after a period of authoritarian rule. During the
period covered in this study (1990-2014) the Central and Eastern European states have
undergone dramatic transformations, from totalitarian Communism and a centralised
command economy to political and economic liberalism. Gender plays a complex role in the
politics of post-communist Europe (Fuszara 2000). During the Communist era, women were
forced into a ‘pseudo-emancipation’ as the Soviet governments declared that gender equality
had been achieved despite the deeply patriarchal nature of the totalitarian communist regimes
(LaFont 2001:205). After the collapse of Communism, gender equality relapsed for economic
convenience, as women returned to the home in a period of deep economic recession.
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It is typically understood that women are more equally represented in democracies than non-
democracies, as the rules of the political game are more transparent and consistent in
democracies (Paxton 1997). However, due to the unique history of the post-communist states,
the transition to liberal democracy actually led to a remarkable decrease in the number of
women in parliament (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2014). After the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, the quotas enforced by the Communist regimes which guaranteed women around 30%
of the seats in the parliament were removed (Ostrovska 1994). This led to a decrease in the
representation of women in the legislature. During the Communist era this representation was
‘little more than a formality’, yet as the political arena has become increasingly empowered
women have become poorly represented (LaFont 2001:209).
This region also provides a unique opportunity to assess the role of international institutions
in the promotion of gender equality in the highest echelons of political power. In the
enlargements of 2004, 2007 and 2013, eleven of the post-communist Central and Eastern
European states acceded to the European Union (EU) and thus joined a progressive,
democratic regional institution. It is expected that accession to this institution will reduce the
gender gap in political participation through socialisation and EU policy diffusion
mechanisms.
This paper seeks to identify the conditions under which women are appointed to cabinet
positions by posing two research questions. Firstly, which set of factors are seen to lead to an
increase in the number of women appointed to government in Central and Eastern Europe?
Secondly, how are these factors similar to those identified in existing studies of women's
cabinet representation across the world, and which factors can be identified that are unique to
post-communist Europe? The theoretical basis for this paper will be developed from an
analysis of the existing literature on women’s representation in legislatures and executives,
and the literature examining the role of women in post-communist European societies (Funk
and Mueller 1993, Gal and Kiligman 2000, Matland and Montgomery 2003). This research
will employ statistical methods to examine the appointment of women to ministerial positions
across ten post-communist states.
This quantitative analysis develops the existing literature examining the representation of
women in executives by testing the theories identified in this field in a previously
unexamined region. This paper also supplements the academic literature on the political
representation of women by proposing new mechanisms which are specific to the Central and
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Eastern European context. This study is also conducted within a novel theoretical framework
which enables competing mechanisms for women's representation to be tested using
regression analysis. This theoretical framework leads to the development of four competing
models to explain the variation in women's cabinet representation: time, bottom-up pressures,
top-down factors and international influences. This investigation will begin with an
explanation of the theory behind the hypotheses tested in this analysis, the methods of data
collection will then be discussed before the results of the regression analysis are presented.
The results will be analysed in order to assess the relevance of each of the hypothesised
variables in the post-communist context. Finally, conclusions will be drawn from the analysis
and the implications of the findings will be considered. This quantitative analysis reveals
similarities, as well as significant differences, between the existing literature examining the
representation of women in government and the nature of women's representation in post-
communist Europe.
Theory and Hypotheses
In this analysis, a novel theoretical approach to the study of women's cabinet representation is
employed in order to assess the gendered nature of ministerial selection. Previous studies of
the representation of women in cabinets have utilised a ‘supply and demand’ model of
government appointment. In that theoretical framework, factors affecting the number of
women in the ministerial selection poll are contrasted to the political costs and benefits of
appointing a woman to a cabinet post (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005:830).
Other analyses have focussed on alternative mechanisms of cabinet selection. Davis’ (1997)
analysis of women executives in Western Europe draws a distinction between generalist and
specialist recruitment norms. Davis (1997) finds that women are less likely to be appointed
in generalist systems (where cabinet ministers move between portfolios) due to their
hierarchical nature and closed selection processes (Davis 1997:42). In this analysis, we utilise
a new theoretical model to provide a framework within which to understand the factors
behind the selection, or non-selection, of women for government positions.
In this analysis, the factors affecting the representation of women in government are
conceptualised using a bottom-up and top-down framework. Bottom-up pressures for an
increase in women's representation in executives capture the effect of the empowerment of
women in politics and society, which affects cabinet appointments in two ways. Firstly, as
more women become professionally-trained, well-networked and politically active, the
number of women in the ‘pool of eligibles’ for cabinet positions increases (Davis 1997:59).
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Secondly, as women become increasingly socially, politically and economically active, Prime
Ministers and party leaders are more likely to develop an awareness of the need to respond to
their needs as a group at the ministerial level. Previously unrepresented groups are unlikely to
be represented in political systems until those groups ‘develop a sense of their own interests
and place demands upon the system' (Sapiro 1981:704).
In contrast, the top-down factors affecting the selection of women for executive positions
captures the institutional factors which may impact upon the decision-making processes of
Prime Ministers and party leaders. Prime Ministers and party leaders are primarily
responsible for the selection of ministers in semi-presidential political systems. The decision-
making relationship between party leaders and Prime Ministers in the selection of ministers
within coalition governments is widely debated in the ministerial selection literature (Huber
and Martinez-Gellardo 2008:171). For the purposes of this analysis, it will be assumed that
the Prime Minister is the individual ultimately responsible for the selection of ministers for
cabinet positions. This analysis also considers the effects of international pressures on the
gendered selection of cabinet ministers. These external pressures include socialisation norms
and legal interventions instigated by international and regional organisations which can affect
the perceived costs and benefits of selecting a woman for a cabinet position.
Some of the mechanisms identified in this theoretical framework are specific to the Central
and Eastern European countries, while others are observed in existing studies examining
women's political representation. This analysis develops the existing literature on women's
representation in government by testing the salience of the mechanisms identified in other
studies in the post-communist context, and also proposes new factors which are specific to
the region.
Time Effects
Existing analyses of the representation of women in both parliaments and legislatures across
the world, have shown that the representation of women has consistently increased over time
(Davis 1997, Matland 1998, Siaroff 2000, Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005,
Kittilson 2006). However, to say that this increase is due to the passage of time alone is
theoretically uninteresting, and neglects the wide range of factors that also occur over time
and may impact upon the representation of women in government.
In general, there are two key mechanisms by which the passage of time may correlate with an
increase in the number of women selected for cabinet positions. Firstly, as citizens,
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parliamentarians and party leaders slowly become increasingly accustomed to women
holding ministerial portfolios, successive Prime Ministers are more likely to also appoint
women to government positions (Sainsbury 2004). Eventually, Prime Ministers may be
negatively received and criticised for the under-representation of women in their cabinets.
Secondly, women’s low levels of political ambition may ‘be attributed to a paucity of female
political role models’ (Paxton, Kunovich and Hughes 2007:267). Consequently, as more
women are appointed to government, others may be inspired to seek political office as they
have evidence that a ministerial post is an achievable career goal (Atkeson 2003, Campbell
and Wolbrecht 2006:233).
These transition effects will be assessed in more detail through the other variables included in
this analysis. However is expected that the passage of time since the collapse of Communism
will have a substantial positive effect on women's cabinet representation, due to the vast
simultaneous economic, social and political transformations towards liberalism in the post-
communist states (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998:4).
H1: The representation of women in government will increase over time.
Bottom-up Pressures
Bottom-up pressures for an increased representation of women in the executive are the
societal processes of women’s empowerment. There are three key aspects of these societal
changes that are theorised to have a bottom-up effect on women's representation in
government: the role of women in the workforce, the number of women engaged in tertiary-
level education, and the representation of women in parliament.
Most cabinet ministers have professional experience before commencing their political career
(Norris 1993, Sainsbury 2004). Consequently, an increase in the number of women actively
engaged in the workforce is anticipated to have a positive effect on the number of women
appointed to cabinet to cabinet positions. Additionally, an enhanced role of women in the
workforce been found to lead to greater female political participation in general: as women
begin to earn and contribute to family resources, the political dominance of men over women
in the family is reduced (Togeby 1994). There is an increased likelihood of bottom-up
demands from women for increased representation when more women are working outside of
the home.
In post-communist Europe, Soviet employment policies have left a significant legacy on the
role of women in the workforce. The Soviet policies aimed at full employment were not
sensitive to the needs to the female population (Purvaneckiene 1998). During the communist
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era, women were inhibited by a ‘double burden’: they were forced into full-time, low-paid
work whilst patriarchal attitudes in the home meant that they still took full responsibly for
domestic work and childcare (Siemienska 1998:127). During the 1980s in Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, close to 90% of working-age women were in paid
employment (LaFont 2001:205). Women often had little time to engage in political activities,
and the male-dominated professional market was closed to most women who were placed in
low-paid, low-skill employment.
The dual transition to democracy and a capitalist economy in Central and Eastern Europe has
led to increases in women’s unemployment and underemployment (LaFont 2001:203, Bartlett
1997). As the post-communist states began the austere process of market liberalisation,
women - as potential mothers - became expensive to employ. The male-dominated political
elites of the transition era had too few resources and little interest in providing the
employment-related social entitlements and benefits for women which were guaranteed by
the law (LaFont 2001:210). In order to make efficiency savings during the transition era,
many women lost their jobs and chose to return to the home. This movement from paid work
to housewifery was endorsed by the transition governments who were concerned about
declining birth rates and a decrease in familial stability. In Bulgaria, government slogans
bluntly stated ‘back to home and family’ (Mamonova 1993:265, Gineitiené 1998). Women
were forced into poorly paid, low-skill labour under Communism and then encouraged back
into the home during the transition to democracy. As the post-communist economies
stabilised over time, more women returned to paid employment. As women’s employment
increases, so will their importance as an economically engaged political group. Previous
analyses of the effect of women's role in the workforce on the representation of women in
national legislatures and executives have found that employment is correlated with formal
political representation (Davis 1997, Siaroff 2000).
H2: An increase in the proportion of women actively engaging in the workforce will
have a positive effect on the representation of women in government.
Secondly, educational attainment is a key political resource and has a significant positive
impact on political interest, efficacy and knowledge (Verba, Burns and Schlozman
1997:1060). Based on theoretical expectations, an increased number of women in tertiary
education will increase the number of women with the necessary skills and networks, as well
as confidence and aspiration, to assume a position in government. Fox and Lawless (2004)
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find that women are much less likely than men to aspire for political office, and less likely to
view themselves as qualified to run for elected and appointed positions. Therefore, it is
anticipated that an increase in the number of women with university degrees will have a
positive effect on women's cabinet representation. Previous analyses have shown little
evidence for this relationship in Western Europe (Paxton 1997, Kenworthy and Malami
1999). The interaction between gender and education is particularly important in Central and
Eastern Europe. During the Communist era, women were excluded from well-paid
prestigious jobs, such as those in heavy industry. This had the unintended consequence of
increasing women’s educational attainment. As other opportunities were closed to women,
they progressed throughout formal education, encouraged by progressive Communist
education policies (Einhorn 1993:48). High educational attainment drew women to certain
professions, including medicine, specialist legal areas and accountancy (Pollert 2003:334).
However, these professions quickly became feminised, leading to a reduction in their pay and
prestige. Despite the feminisation of these careers persisting throughout the transition to a
liberal economy, many women still undertake higher education. Over time, the socialisation
role of higher education is expected to have a positive impact upon the representation of
women in ministerial positions.
H3: An increased number of women with tertiary-level education will have a positive
effect on the representation of women in the executive.
The final bottom-up mechanism is the representation of women in parliament. The number of
women in the legislature is a key factor affecting the number of women in the ‘pool of
eligibles’ for cabinet appointments (Davis 1997:59). As most cabinet ministers have had a
career prior to taking up their ministerial portfolio a paucity of women in the legislature is
likely to lead to an under-representation of women in government positions (Blondel 1987,
Kobayashi 2004). Furthermore, the broader cultural effects of an increase in the number
women in parliament should not be underestimated. An increased representation of women in
parliament changes the ‘political climate’ of an institution, as well as perceptions about
female politicians (Dalherup 1988:284).
Due to the lasting legacy of Communism, the role of women in Central and Eastern European
legislatures is particularly interesting. The Communist rhetoric of gender equality and the
socialist emancipation of women led to the enforcement of gender quotas in the “rubber-
stamp” legislatures. These quotas usually stipulated that at least 30% of the representatives in
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parliament must be female (Funk 1993:12). However, women were frequently recruited from
the countryside to meet the 30% threshold, rather than to articulate women’s interests. These
women were selected by male political elites to further their own totalitarian regime. This
‘milkmaid syndrome’ meant that the rural women selected to fulfil the stipulated quotas had
little political savvy and were not kept informed by party elites (Corrin 1994). The
recruitment of unprofessional and inexperienced women parliamentarians has had a negative
effect on the perception of women politicians, who have since been perceived as incompetent
(Funk 1993:4). Although one might assume that democratisation would increase women's
representation in parliament, in light of the nature of representation during the Communist
era, a decline in descriptive representation does not necessarily mean a decline in the
substantive representation of women (Saxonberg 2000:146).
In the existing literature, the representation of women in the legislature has had a significant
positive impact on the number of women appointed to the cabinet, even if the women
parliamentarians are not from the governing party (Davis 1997, Siaroff 2000, Escobar-
Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005).
H4: An increase in women's legislative representation will have a positive effect on
the representation of women in government.
Top-Down Pressures
There are also top-down pressures on a Prime Minister to appoint more women to
government positions. These factors arise from domestic, institutional characteristics which
lead to increased incentives for appointing women to government, or increased costs of
choosing not to do so. These include the ideological orientation of the Prime Minister’s party,
the security of the Prime Minister’s party in the legislature and whether the government is
single-party or a coalition.
For any individual who seeks to run for political office, political parties are ‘gatekeepers’: the
potential candidate must be selected by a political party and supported by the party
throughout their political career (Lovenduski and Norris 1993, Kunovich 2003, Sanbonmatsu
2002, Kittilson 2006). Consequently, political parties play a key role in the election of
women to parliament and the selection of women for government positions. One key function
of political parties is the representation of ideological and group interests (Strøm 1990).
Therefore, ideological differences between political parties may play a role in the recruitment
and promotion of women in political institutions. Indeed, some studies have shown that
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ideology can provide a more consistent explanation for variation in the representation of
women in parliaments than often-studied electoral system effects (Chiva 2005:971).
In the existing literature examining the impact of party ideology on the representation of
women in the legislature, left-wing parties typically exhibit a greater representation of
women than right-wing parties (Rule 1987, Norris and Lovenduski 1993, Matland 1998,
Kenworthy & Malami 1999, Caul 1999, Chiva 2005). This effect is seen to be caused by the
leftist rhetoric of equality and egalitarianism, which leads left-wing parties to promote
traditionally under-represented groups. There can also be a ‘contagion effect’ between
parliamentary parties, whereby smaller left-wing parties actively recruit more women which
places pressure on the larger parties, especially those on the centre-left, to increase the
number of women in their parliamentary party (Matland and Studlar 1996:707). This effect
has been shown to have an impact on larger social democratic parties in Central and Eastern
Europe (Saxonberg 2000, Moser 2001:363).
In the literature examining the representation of women in political executives, there is not a
consensus on the role of ideology in the appointment of women to cabinet. Davis (1997) finds
no evidence for an independent, direct effect of ideology on the number of women in
government. Instead, she proposes that ideology plays an indirect role due to the greater
‘supply’ of female parliamentarians on the left (Davis 1997:65). In Escobar-Lemmon and
Taylor-Robinson’s (2005) analysis, ideology has a small effect, with leftist presidents
appointing 1.6% more women to government than their right-wing counterparts (Escobar-
Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005:836). Whereas, others find a strong and statistically
significant relationship between ideology and the representation of women in government
(Siaroff 2000:974, Claveria 2014).
H5: There will be more women in government when the Prime Minister is from a left-
wing party.
Despite the extensive literature examining the development of party systems in post-
communist Europe, the role of gender issues has been neglected in these analyses (see
Wightman 1995, Mair 1996, Kitschelt et al.1999). Women played a wide range of active
roles in undermining the Communist regimes, including involvement in social protest
movements and fostering values in the home which were not approved by the authorities
(Jaquette and Wolchik 1998:3-4). Therefore, women were more likely than ever before to
become involved in the creation of new political parties at the beginning of the transition to
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democracy: new institutions require new actors (Semenova et al. 2014:1). Women tend to
succeed in democratic political parties that have transparent rules which prevent the
formation of ‘old-boy networks’ (Guadagnini 1993:180-182). Therefore, it is hypothesised
that women are more likely to be promoted to government positions in new, center-right,
political parties in Central and Eastern Europe that do not have an existing network of
predominantly male elites. It has often been observed that the traditional roles of left and
right-wing political parties are reversed in Central and Eastern Europe due to the legacy of
totalitarian Communism. For example, leftist political parties in post-communist Europe are
more likely to pursue rightist policies of fiscal responsibility and economic reform than their
right-wing counterparts (Tavit and Letki 2009). Additional evidence of this reversal includes
observations that highly educated and democratically-inclined citizens in post-communist
Europe demonstrate a right-wing bias, unlike the rest of the world where the opposite is true
(Thorisdottir et al. 2007, Pop-Elches and Tucker 2010:2). The impact of left-wing
totalitarianism may result in the inversion of the effect observed in the West: the newly-
formed, centre-right political parties may have more women in their executives than left-wing
parties. Consequently an alternate hypothesis to H5 is to be tested:
H6: In the post-communist states, there will be more women in the government when
the Prime Minister is from a right-wing party.
As each of the states in this study are parliamentary or semi-presidential political systems,
party leaders and Prime Ministers appoint cabinet ministers1 (Krouwel 2003:2). One factor
affecting the perceived costs of appointing women to government positions is the size of the
governing party’s majority in the legislature (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005).
Close competition among political parties is expected to be beneficial for women, since the
government may see the appointment of women ministers as a means by which to appeal to
female swing voters (Studlar and Moncrief 1997:69).
H7: There will be more women in government when there is close competition among
parties in the legislature.
The nature of the government may also effect a Prime Minister’s decision whether to appoint
women to ministerial positions. Existing analyses of women in government have shown that 1 Consequently, the presence of a woman Prime Minister may also increase the representation of women in
government. However the rarity of this occurrence makes it difficult to test. In this analysis, there are 5 observed
cases of women Prime Ministers: Poland 1992-93, Bulgaria 1994-95, Slovakia 2010-12, Slovenia 2013-Present
and Latvia 2014-Present.
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women are less likely to be appointed to ministerial positions in coalition governments than
majoritarian ones (Matland 1994, Davis 1997, Shvedova 1997). Davis (1997) finds that the
nature of coalition bargaining and government formation may dilute leftist parties’
commitment, or power, to appoint women to government (Davis 1997:61). In addition,
smaller coalition partners often choose their party leader to fill ministerial positions: as these
party leaders are usually male, fewer women are appointed to government (Shvedova 1997).
Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson (2005) argue that a president who has not been
forced to form a coalition government can afford the ‘luxury of reaching out to new groups
through his cabinet appointments if he chooses to do so’ (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-
Robinson 2005:832).
H8: Fewer women will be appointed to cabinet ministries in coalition governments.
International Factors
Top-down pressures on Prime Ministers to increase the representation of women in their
cabinets are also applied by external organisations. Indeed, there has been a shift in the
literature examining the political representation of women towards assessing the role and
power of international actors in the promotion of women's political representation (Gray et al.
2006, Paxton et el. 2006, Chhibber 2009). This literature has demonstrated that international
pressures for gender equality and the global diffusion of norms and ideas about gender have
had a significant impact on the representation of women in political institutions. The United
Nations’ (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) put women's
representation on the global agenda (West 1999:177). At the time, the Beijing Conference
was the largest UN conference ever held, with over 50,000 participants from 189 states (Otto
1996:7). This event sparked a significant change in international attitudes towards women's
issues, and demonstrated a global shift which ‘may rapidly raise the cost of not having at
least token representation of women in top levels of government’ (Escobar-Lemmon and
Taylor-Robinson 2005:832). One chapter of the Platform for Action determined at the
conference was entitled ‘Women in Power and Decision-Making’ (UN 1995b). At the time of
the conference, the post-communist states were undergoing their transitions to a liberal
political and economic system. Therefore, these states may have beenparticularly open to UN
influence in their desire to open-up to the international community.
H9: The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) has had a positive
impact on the representation of women in government in Central and Eastern Europe.
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However, the post-communist Central and Eastern European states have been engaged in a
more rigorous, intensive and cohesive international process than the UN World Conference
on Women: accession to the European Union. EU enlargement is a ‘unique process in world
politics’, due to the necessary adoption of binding legislation that shapes the functioning of
the state (Avdeyeva 2010:208). In general, there are three key mechanisms of policy
diffusion: acculturation, persuasion and coercion (Goodman and Jinks 2004). The EU has
generally been highly successful in diffusing its policies and institutional models to states that
aspire to membership due to the underlying mechanism of coercive policy diffusion
(Sedelmeier 2012:20).
The promotion of gender equality was one of the first declarations of the European
Community (EC), as stated in Article Two of the 1957 Treaty Establishing the European
Community. The elimination of gender discrimination has remained a consistent EU policy,
especially in the field of equal pay and equality in the workplace. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall, the prospect of achieving EC membership was a powerful symbol of the post-
communist states’ ‘return to Europe’. Membership was a powerful incentive for these states
to implement the acquis communautaire, including the legal provisions and directives on
gender equality. As the process of EU accession has established a single standard of policy
among the states in the East and West of Europe, it is anticipated that accession negotiations
and membership of the EU will have a positive impact on the representation of women in
government.
H10: The process of EU accession negotiations will have a positive impact on the
appointment of women to cabinet positions.
H11: Membership of the EU will have a positive effect on the representation of
women in Central and Eastern European governments.
Data and Variables
The dataset used in this analysis was assembled by the authors, and details the cabinet
composition of 10 post-communist Central and Eastern European states: Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. In
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this dataset, the unit of analysis is each individual government2. There are 139 individual
governments in this dataset, which covers a total of 1,882 individual ministers. The first
government analysed in each state is the ‘founding government’, as defined by Müller-
Rommel, Fettelschoss and Harfst (2004) (see Appendix)3. The first case in this analysis is the
government of József Antall in Hungary, which was appointed on 23/04/1990. The most
recent case included in this analysis is the Latvian government led by Laimdota Straujuma,
appointed on 22/01/2014. The date of appointment and dissolution of each government has
been standardised using Conrad and Golders’s (2010) guidelines in their study of government
duration and stability in Central and Eastern European democracies. The appointment and
dissolution dates for the governments that are not included in Conrad and Golder’s (2010)
analysis are designated according to the standardising procedure identified in their study.
Data on the composition of each government was gathered from Lars Sonntag’s Politica
database4 (Sonntag 2014). The data on the ministerial composition of the cases in Poland,
Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary were gathered from alternate sources for a paper
on the tenure of ministers in post-communist Europe (Meyer-Sahling and Morgan-Collins
2012). The authors then proceeded to identify the sex of each cabinet minister, using a
reputable international first name database. Ambiguities were resolved through the
consultation of language experts and web searches for references to the minister. This data
was then verified through a process of cross-checking with the relevant entries in the
European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook (EJPR 2014). The
percentage representation of women in government has been calculated using the data
gathered by the authors and is the dependent variable in this study.
To test for the effects of time across each of the cases, a variable is included which measures
the time in years since 1990. 1990 represents a significant starting point for this analysis,
marking two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the year of the appointment of the
first case in this study.
2 Consequently, changes of minister and portfolios allocations are included within one case. The most turbulent
government in this analysis has 60 ministers within one case. 3 An exclusion from this rule are the governments of former Czechoslovakia. The first government considered in
this analysis for the Czech Republic is that of Petr Pithart (29/06/1990-02/07/1992), who was Prime Minister of
the Czech Republic within Czechoslovakia. For Slovakia, the first case in this analysis is Vladimír Mečiar
(27/06/1990-22/04/1991). Prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the democratically elected Prime Ministers
of the two republics were able to able to appoint their own, separate cabinets. Thus, it is appropriate that these
cases are included in this analysis. 4 The Sonntag dataset has been described as ‘especially helpful, valuable and reliable’ (Manow and Döering
2008: 1367)
15
Turning to the bottom-up variables, the effect of women in the economy, H2, is
operationalised through the percentage ratio of female to male labour force participation. This
data is made publically available by the World Bank, but collected by the International
Labour Organisation in their Key Indicators of the Labour Market database (World Bank
2014). The labour force participation rate is the proportion of the population aged 15 and
older that is economically active, i.e. supplying labour for the production of goods and
services. Due to the lack of data on women's representation in managerial or executive
positions, this measure is the most effective means by which to capture the role of women in
the economy. Women’s education, H3, is measured using the ratio of girls to boys enrolled in
tertiary education. This data is part of the UN database of Millennium Development Goals
Indicators (UN 2014). A value of 1 indicates parity between the sexes in tertiary-level
education, a value between 0 and 1 demonstrates a disparity in favour of males, whilst a value
greater than 1 indicates a disparity in favour of females. The representation of women in the
legislature, H4, is operationalised as the proportion of women in the lower (or only) chamber
as a percentage of the total number of Members of Parliament. This data is measured on an
annual basis by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU 2014).
The ideology hypotheses, H5 and H6, are operationalised through the use of the left-right
score accorded to the Prime Minister’s party in Holger Döring and Philip Manow’s party
ideology expert surveys in the Parliament and Government Composition Database. The
measures of party ideology ‘are time-invariant unweighted mean values of information from
party expert surveys on a 0 to 10 scale’ (Döring and Manow 2014a). A value of 0 indicates an
extreme left party, whilst a value of 10 represents to an extreme right party. Despite this
measure being time-invariant, it is a suitable indicator for this analysis, as it enables an
effective comparison between states.
The level of partisan competition in the legislature, H7, is operationalised as the percentage
representation of the Prime Minister’s party in the lowest or only chamber of the legislature.
This is collated using data from the Parliament and Government Composition Database
(Döring and Manow 2014b). This data is divided into a trichotomous measure whereby the
Prime Minister’s party has a secure majority when it controls more than 55% of the seats in
parliament. The party has a near majority/narrow minority when it controls 45 to 54.9% of
the seats, and the party is measured as a minority when it holds less than 44.9% of the seats in
parliament. This measure provides an indicator of party competition in the legislature. An
additional internal top-down factor, whether the Prime Minister has formed a coalition
16
government, H8, is measured using a dummy variable. A value of 1 represents a minimal-
winning coalition, a surplus/grand coalition or a minority coalition. A value of 0 represents a
single party majority or single party minority government. The data used to code this variable
is gathered from the Parliament and Government Composition Database (Döring and Manow
2014c).
The role of the EU, as hypothesised in H10 and H11, is operationalised using another
trichotomous variable. Three dummy variables are used to assess the impact of the EU on the
representation of women in the post-communist governments. The first dummy variable
represents the period prior to the formal establishment of accession negotiations between the
EU and the post-communist state5. The second codes the period of EU accession, between the
establishment of formal negotiations and eventual membership of the EU. A final dummy
variable represents the period since accession to the EU.
Results and Analysis
Table 1 presents the results of a series of linear OLS regression models where the dependent
variable is the percentage representation government ministers that are female. OLS
regression is appropriate for this analysis as the independent variables can be assumed to be
non-random and are not linearly dependent, this data does not violate the homoscedasticity
assumptions for OLS regression (Pohlman and Leitner 2003). In this analysis, four regression
models are presented to test the competing sets of pressures that have been theorised: time,
bottom-up factors, top-down and international pressures. The fifth model presents a
comprehensive analysis of all of the factors identified in this study, except time which
correlates too strongly with the variables representing the impact of the EU. The results of
this regression analysis provide an original insight into the representation of women in
government, and add to the existing literature examining the nature of political representation
in Central and Eastern Europe.
5 The EU began formal accession negotiations with the Central and Eastern European states in two rounds.
Round 1 was initiated in 1998 and included the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Round
2 began in 2000 and included Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
17
Table 1: Regression Analysis Results, Dependent Variable the Percentage Representation of Women in Government
Independent Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Beta Coefficients
Years Since 1990 0.697*** (0.090)
0.522*** (0.131)
0.697*** (0.108)
Labour Force Participation -0.059 (0.176)
-0.106 (0.206)
-0.046
Gender Parity In Tertiary Level Enrolment
7.401** (3.013)
9.253*** (3.370)
0.268
Women In Parliament (%) 0.284** (0.143)
0.188 (0.156)
0.117
Left-Right Score 0.853** (0.331)
0.724** (0.354)
0.179
PM Party Near Majority or Narrow Minority In Legislature
10.432** (4.011)
6.711 (4.799)
0.340
PM Party Minority In Legislature
6.832* (3.802)
3.361 (4.629)
0.177
Coalition 2.017 (1.749)
2.637 (1.768)
0.128
Post-Beijing Dummy 2.781 (1.848)
1.518 (2.131)
0.072
Ongoing EU Accession Negotiations
5.728*** (1.922)
5.153*** (1.837)
0.289
EU Accession 7.893*** (1.612)
4.896 (1.888)
0.305
Constant 3.459*** (1.162)
-3.681 (13.075)
-10.099** (4.565)
4.929*** (1.328)
-10.191** (16.354)
Adjusted R2 0.301 0.396 0.309 0.280 0.335 N 139 117 112 139 103
(Standard errors shown in parentheses, ***p< 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p< 0.10)
18
Model 1
A greater number of years since 1990 is expected to have a positive effect on women's
cabinet representation, reflecting the anticipated increase in the representation of women over
time. As demonstrated in Graph 1, the positive bivariate relationship between time and
women's representation is clear, where the line of best fit has an r2 value of 0.31. In this
dataset there are ten observed cases where there are no women represented in the cabinet,
eight of which are Romanian governments. Two cases with zero women ministers are clear
outliers: the Romanian Popescu-Tăriceanu III government (02/03/07-30/11/08) and the
Hungarian Bajnai government (28/04/09-29/05/10). Each of these governments were
replacement cabinets allocated after a period of political instability. Therefore, the exclusion
of women may reflect the hasty choice of ministers made by the Prime Minister at the time,
as well as the perception that the Prime Minister was not seeking re-election and thus need
not be concerned with the electorates’ perception of the government. Two of the three cases
in which more than one-third of cabinet ministers are female are in incumbent at the time of
writing
The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Plamen Oresharski, sought to increase his domestic popularity
through emphasising the professionalism of his cabinet and the representation of women
y = 0.6974x - 1384.4
R² = 0.3056
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Rep
rese
nta
tio
n o
f W
om
en i
n G
over
nm
ent
(%)
Year Government Appointed
Graph 1: The Effect of Time on the Representation of Women in
Government
19
within it, thus he actively appointed more women ministers in order to appeal to the female
electorate (Europost 2013). The other incumbent government with a relatively high
proportion of women ministers is the Latvian administration appointed on 22/01/14 by female
Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma.
Model 1 seeks to examine whether, at a bivariate level, time has a positive effect on women's
cabinet representation. As shown in Table 1, the bivariate OLS regression model reveals a
significant positive relationship. Over the 24 year time-period of this study, the representation
of women in each government across all of the countries is expected to have increased by
16.73 percentage points. Moreover, this model accounts for 30.1% of the variation in the
representation of women in government. Thus, as expected, time has a significant and
positive impact on women's government representation. However, it is the mechanisms
behind this time effect that are key to this analysis.
Model 2
In Model 2, bottom-up pressures are shown to explain 39.6% of the variation in the
percentage representation of women. This model has the largest adjusted r2 value of each of
the regression analyses, which illustrates the significance of the bottom-up pressures on
women's representation in the cabinet. Time, the control variable in this model, has a
statistically significant effect. Two of the three hypothesised bottom-up variables have a
positive, statistically significant effect on the percentage of the cabinet which is female.
In H2 it was hypothesised that an enhanced role of women in the economy would have a
positive effect on women's cabinet representation due to the greater professionalism of
women candidates and an increase awareness amongst Prime Ministers for the need to appeal
to women as an economically active group. However, this result does not achieve statistical
significance. This may be due to the over-representation of women in low-prestige, low-paid
roles in post-communist Europe (LaFont 2001:203). Due to the under-employment of
women, active engagement in the labour force may not have an effect on a woman’s ability to
gain the necessary skills to pursue a career in politics or apply pressure for an increase in
women's representation in politics.
Unlike previous analyses of the representation of women in government, the effect of the
education indicator is statistically significant (Davis 1997, Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-
Robinson 2005). However, in all but seven cases there is a disparity towards women in
enrolled in tertiary-level education. Therefore, an increased representation of women in
20
university-level education may have a weaker effect in post-communist Europe in
comparison to regions in which there is a disparity towards men in tertiary education
(Bradley 2000). This analysis demonstrates that the bottom-up pressure of educated and well-
networked women available for appointment to government positions increases the likelihood
more women in the cabinet in post-Communist Europe. Therefore, there is evidence to accept
H3.
In H4, it was hypothesised that women's government representation would increase when a
greater proportion of the legislature was female, as a greater number of women would be
eligible for appointment to cabinet positions. As observed in Graph 3, at the bivariate level
there is a positive relationship between the representation of women in parliament and
women's cabinet representation, although the goodness-of-fit measure for the linear
relationship between these variables is small (r2=0.20). Within the bottom-up regression
model, the representation of women in the legislature has a statistically significant, positive
effect on women's representation in cabinet. This finding is consistent with existing analysis
of the representation of women in government (Davis 1997, Siaroff 2000, Escobar-Lemmon
and Taylor-Robinson 2005). The suggested effect is noteworthy, if a case moves from the
mean representation of women in parliament (14.47%) to the maximum observed value
(32.20%) a 5.04 percentage point increase in the representation of women in government is
expected. For the average sized cabinet (22.22 ministers) this increase would constitute the
appointment of one female minister. As anticipated, the representation of women in the
y = 0.677x + 1.428
R² = 0.1952
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Rep
rese
nta
tio
n o
f W
om
en i
n G
over
nm
ent
(%)
Representation of Women in Parliament (%)
Graph 3: The Effect of the Representation of Women in
Parliament on the Representation of Women in Government
21
legislature has a significant positive impact on the representation of women in government:
H4 is accepted.
The results of this regression model have demonstrated the impact of societal advancement of
women on the highest echelons of political power. The finding that the measures of women’s
representation in education and the legislature have a significant impact on the representation
of women in government, even when controlling for time, demonstrates that upwards
pressures from educated women increase the likelihood that a Prime Minister will appoint
more women to the cabinet.
Model 3
The third model tests the effects of top-down factors. Three of the four variables achieve
statistical significance, including the time variable. The top-down model explains 30.9% of
the variation in the representation of women in government.
Two contradictory hypotheses were proposed regarding the effect of the party left-right score
of the Prime Minister’s partyon women's representation in the cabinet. H5, suggests that more
women will be appointed by left-wing Prime Ministers, as is observed in the existing
analyses of the representation of women in cabinets and legislatures (Caul 1999, Siaroff
2000, Chiva 2005, Claveria 2014). H6 proposes that more women ministers will be observed
in governments led by right-wing Prime Ministers in the post-communist context due to
increased women's mobilisation in right-wing parties formed after the collapse of
Communism. The regression coefficient for this variable demonstrates that the relationship is
positive, and is significant to the 95% level. As the value for party ideology increases when
the party is more right-wing, this positive regression coefficient demonstrates that there is
expected to be a greater representation of women in government when the Prime Minister is
from a right-wing party. Thus, this analysis suggests that there is evidence to reject H5 and
accept H6. This is a significant and novel contribution to the existing literature on the
representation of women in government, as well as the nature of party ideology in the context
of post-communism. Right-wing Prime Ministers may appoint more women to the cabinet
because of an increased openness and transparency in the newer, rightist parties; unlike the
‘communist successor parties’ which are dominated by male party elites (Bozóki and
Ishiyama 2002). This observation also adds to the existing literature on the nature of political
ideology in post-communist Europe. In this developing field it has been observed that, due to
the legacy of leftist totalitarian communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the nature
22
of ideological representation has been reversed (Evans and Whitefield 1998, Yordanov and
Zhelyakova 2011). This variable also achieves statistical significance in both models in
which it is included. Therefore, a feature unique to post-communist Central and Eastern
Europe is that an increased representation of women in government is observed when the
Prime Minister is from a party on the right.
The results from the trichotomous dummy variables that indicate the representation of the
Prime Minister’s party in the legislature provide significant evidence to accept H7, that more
women will be appointed to a government where there is intense partisan competition. When
compared to governments in which the Prime Minister’s party controls a majority of seats in
the legislature, cases where the Prime Minister’s party has a near majority/narrow minority or
minority representation in the parliament display an increased representation of women in
government. Each of these results is statistically significant, and the effect is anticipated to be
largest in governments in which the Prime Minister’s party holds a near majority/narrow
minority in the legislature. All else being equal, the model predicts that a government in
which the Prime Minister’s party holds a near majority/narrow minority will have 10.43
percentage points more women than a government where the Prime Minister’s party holds a
majority in the legislature. However, this analysis does not return a significant regression
coefficient for the coalition government variable. Consequently, the hypothesis that women
will be more poorly represented in coalition governments, H8, is rejected. This may be due to
the preponderance of coalition governments in Central and Eastern Europe, as only 29 of the
observed cases are single-party governments. Therefore, it is unlikely that this variable will
achieve statistical significance.
This model has demonstrated the relevance of top-down pressures on women's representation
in the cabinet. The most interesting result observed in this model is the impact of party
ideology on the appointment of women to government positions. The effect witnessed in
existing analyses, that there is a greater likelihood that women will be appointed to
government by leftist Prime Ministers, is not observed in this study.
Model 4
The fourth model in this analysis seeks to capture the effect of international factors on the
representation of women in the cabinet. In this model, the time variable is omitted as it is
highly correlated with the EU variables. In this model, three external top-down pressures are
23
tested: the role of the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women, the impact of the EU
accession process and the consequences of membership of the EU.
The results from this analysis demonstrate that the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on
Women in Beijing did not have a significant impact on the representation of women in post-
communist governments. Therefore the null hypothesis, that the Beijing conference did not
have an impact on the representation of women in government, must be accepted. This effect
could be due to the UN’s limited ability to enforce the policies proposed at the Beijing
conference, due the international organisation’s reliance on acculturation and persuasion as
methods of policy diffusion (True and Mintrom 2001).
In H10 and H11, it was hypothesised that the EU accession process and membership of the
EU would lead to an increase in women's cabinet representation due to the positive influence
of this regional institution. Model 4 demonstrates that EU has a more significant impact on
the representation of women in Central and Eastern European governments than the UN.
Within this analysis, the period before the formal initiation of accession negotiations with the
EU is compared to the period during the accession process and membership of the EU. Both
the dummy variable representing the EU accession process and the variable denoting
membership of the EU are statistically significant, and have a large impact on the
representation of women in government. Thus it can be observed that the chapter-by-chapter
EU accession process has had a significant positive impact on the representation of women in
government. The difference in values for the two EU variables signifies that eventual
membership of the EU does not have such a large impact on the representation in
government. Therefore, this regression analysis suggests that the period of accession
negotiations had the most significant impact on the number of women appointed to
ministerial positions.
This model demonstrates the importance of coercive methods of policy diffusion. The EU
used coercion during the accession negotiations, as states were unable to join the EU unless
each of the EU’s directives were enforced at the national level. As the post-communist states
were keen to join the EU to signify their political ‘return to Europe’, the EU had significant
leverage over the Central and Eastern European governments (Mikkel and Pridham
2004:716). This leverage was used by the EU to enforce legislation which enhanced the role
of women in society, and this has had a positive effect on women's representation in
government. Furthermore, the EU had a socialisation effect on the elites of the transitioning
24
states, who became more accustomed to women holding powerful political positions within
the EU.
Model 5
The focus of this paper is to test the competing explanations for an increased representation
of women in government through the use of several regression models. However, a
comprehensive model examining the representation of women in post-communist cabinets
provides significant insight into the relative salience of each factors. The only variable
excluded from this analysis is the time measure, as this factor is too highly correlated with the
dummy variables which capture the EU effects.
Three of the factors which exhibit statistical significance in Models 1 to 4 maintain their
significance in the comprehensive model. Firstly, gender parity in tertiary-level education is
significant to the 99% level. This effect demonstrates the persistent salience of this bottom-up
pressure for an increased representation of women in government and the importance of
women's access to university-level education in improving their chances of economic and
political advancement in transitioning economies. Another factor which achieves significance
within this comprehensive model is the left-right score of the Prime Minister’s party. This
result demonstrates the importance of the finding that the expected representation of women
is greater in governments led by rightist Prime Ministers. However, the left-right score
variable has a small beta regression coefficient (0.179), so the ideology of the Prime Minister
has a small effect on the representation of women in the government. Finally, one of the
external top-down pressure variables is also significant in this model: the dummy variable
representing the period in which the state is in accession negotiations with the EU. The
continued significance of this variable demonstrates that accession negotiations had a large
impact on the representation of women in ministerial positions.
Some variables which demonstrated significance within Models 1 to 4 lost their statistical
significance in this comprehensive model. One of these variables is the representation of
women in the legislature. This demonstrates that, contrary to the findings of Escobar-
Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson (2005), the representation of women in the parliament may
have a limited effect on the representation of women in government. This could be due to
limited career progression for women in Central and Eastern Europe. Another key
observation is that the dummy variable representing membership of the EU also loses its
significance in this model. Therefore, it may be observed that the EU is more effective in
25
policy diffusion whilst states are acceding to the Union, rather than when the state becomes a
member of the EU.
Together, these results provide a wide range of insights into the nature of women's
representation in post-communist governments. Through identifying the similarities and
differences between this region and the existing analyses of women's representation in
government, this study has provided a first insight into the nature of women's political
representation in cabinets in Central and Eastern Europe.
Conclusion
The representation of women in ministerial positions is important for democratic
representation and accountability, especially during periods of social, political and economic
upheaval. The exclusion of women from ministerial positions limits the descriptive and
substantive representation of women in the highest echelons of political power (Bratton and
Haynie 1999). Of course, not all women appointed to government positions are going to
represent women's interests, but even the purely descriptive representation of women is
preferable to the systematic exclusion of women from political power (Paxton, Kunovich and
Hughes 2007:272).
This research has illuminated a previously unexplored phenomenon: the nature of women's
representation in Central and Eastern European governments. The findings from this regional,
time-series OLS regression analysis have enhanced the existing literature examining women's
cabinet representation, through testing the theories identified in these analyses in a different
region with a unique political history. The purpose of this analysis was to test the salience of
previously established theories of women's cabinet representation in a new context and
examine new mechanisms which are specific to the role of women in post-communist
European society. An additional contribution has been the top-down/bottom-up framework
employed in the analysis. This framework has provided a new way to conceptualise the
factors which affect women’s cabinet representation, through the examination of both
institutional and societal factors.
In addition to the finding that time has a significant positive effect on the representation of
women in government, there have been multiple conclusions from this analysis which can
26
provide a novel contribution to the existing literature on the political representation of
women.
The first significant finding from this investigation is that, in Central and Eastern Europe,
societal changes matter. The bottom-up model examined in this analysis has the largest
adjusted r-squared value of each of the models, and thus explains the most variation in the
percentage representation of women in cabinets. In particular, this analysis demonstrates the
importance of women’s engagement in tertiary-level education. Women’s representation in
the legislature also has a positive effect on the appointment of women to government, which
demonstrates the importance of women successfully standing for election to political office in
order to affect change in the gender balance of the executive. Socioeconomic changes are
especially relevant in the analysis of states transitioning from totalitarian regimes. When a
society is in a state of flux, this analysis has shown that the socioeconomic advancement of
women is key to women's political representation.
Secondly, the model assessing the effect of top-down features on the representation of
women in government provides one particularly interesting result: that right-wing Prime
Ministers are more likely to appoint women to their governments than their left-wing
counterparts. This is particularly significant as previous studies of the representation of
women in government across the world have found that leftist parties are more likely to treat
women politicians more favourably than right-wing parties (Davis 1997, Siaroff 2000,
Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005, Chiva 2005). This finding reflects the often-
observed inversion of interpretations of ideological left and right in the context of a legacy of
a leftist totalitarian regime (Pop-Elches and Tucker 2010).
The effect of international factors on women's representation in government provides an
original insight into the impacts of EU accession on post-communist political elites. As
anticipated, this regression analysis demonstrates that the impact of the EU accession process
is greater than that of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995). The EU
accession negotiations significantly impacts on the representation of post-communist women
in their national governments. This analysis also reveals that the EU accession negotiations
had a greater effect on the representation of women in government in the accession countries
than their eventual membership of the EU.
The findings of this paper are subject to at least two limitations. Firstly, this study only covers
ten of the democratic Central and Eastern European states. Therefore, this analysis could be
27
improved through expanding the dataset to all of the post-communist states, which will
provide an illuminating comparison between EU member states and non-EU states. Secondly,
this analysis may be improved though the inclusion of more cultural and societal variables
which reflect the general attitudes towards gender equality over space and time.
However, the conclusions from this analysis demonstrate the importance of the continued
investigation of women's representation in a wide range of geographic and political contexts,
as the explanations identified in one set of cases may not be generally applicable to others. As
women’s under-representation is a pervasive feature in politics across the world, it is essential
that the investigation of the nature of women's representation continues. This analysis adds to
this pursuit. This study has opened up opportunities for further work in the field of women's
representation in government, as well as the nature of gender roles in post-communist
Europe.
These results demonstrate the persistent under-representation of women in government, but
also identify the conditions under which women's cabinet representation has increased. The
former Lithuanian Prime Minister, Kazimiera Prunskienė, titled her essay for the 1995 Fourth
World Conference on Women ‘I was Regarded an Exception’ and declared her frustration
that the male-dominated legislature restricted her ability to appoint female ministers
(Prunskienė 1995:1). This analysis has demonstrated the conditions in which more women
are likely to be selected for government positions, and identified the trend towards increased
gender-parity in the executive. The finding that broad societal bottom-up pressures have a
significant effect on women's representation in government provides encouragement that
women like Prunskiene will no longer be regarded as an exception, but welcomed to the most
powerful political offices in post-communist Europe.
28
Appendices
Appendix I
Table 2: Summary Statistics for All Variables
Independent
Variables
N Minimum Maximum Mean Standard
Deviation
Representation
of Women in
Government (%)
139 0 35.7143 11.2262 8.3384
Years Since 1990 139 0 24 11.14 6.609
Labour Force
Participation
134 70.8481 88.7070 77.5686 3.5547
Gender Parity In
Tertiary Level
Enrolment
117 0.79 1.85 1.3547 0.2346
Women In
Parliament (%)
139 3.65 32.20 14.4737 5.4426
Left-Right Score 117 2.79 8.4962 5.5080 1.8737
PM Party Near
Majority or
Narrow Minority
In Legislature
117 0 1 0.19 0.392
PM Party
Minority In
Legislature
117 0 1 0.78 0.418
Coalition 139 0 1 0.79 0.408
Post-Beijing
Dummy
139 0 1 0.79 0.408
Ongoing EU
Accession
Negotiations
139 0 1 0.18 0.385
EU Accession 139 0 1 0.39 0.489
29
Appendix II
As a test for the effect of country-level difference on the percentage representation of women
in government, a categorical variable was coded for each county. The results of a regression
analysis on these country dummy variables demonstrated that there was not a significant
difference in the representation of women in government between Romania (the state with
the lowest mean representation of women) and the other states included in this analysis. In
the two exceptions to this observation, Latvia and Bulgaria, the unstandardised regression
coefficients reveal that these differences only have a small effect. Therefore, as expected, the
country-level analysis demonstrates that a region-wide study is particularly enlightening in
post-communist Europe due to the shared experiences of totalitarian communist regimes.
Appendix III
Table 3: Regime Transition in Central and Eastern Europe
Table extracted from (Müller-Rommel, Fettelschoss and Harfst 2004:871)
30
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