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The Substantive Representation of Women: Rethinking the ‘Critical Mass’ Debate
Sarah ChildsSenior Lecturer
Department of PoliticsUniversity of Bristol
10 Priory RoadBristol BS8 1TUUnited Kingdom
[email protected]: 011 44 117 331 0835Fax: 011 44 117 331 7500
and
Mona Lena KrookAssistant Professor
Department of Political ScienceWashington University
Campus Box 1063One Brookings DriveSt. Louis, MO 63130
Tel: (314) 935-5807Fax: (314) 935-5856
Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science AssociationNational Conference, Chicago, IL, April 20-23, 2006.
1
The Substantive Representation of Women:
Rethinking the ‘Critical Mass’ Debate
A central question in research on women and politics – as well
as in activism both for and against increases in the number of female
officeholders – is whether or not women can be said to represent
women once in political office. As few legislatures consist of equal
proportions of women and men,1 many scholars and activists invoke
the concept of ‘critical mass’ to explain why women appear to make a
difference in some contexts but not in others, arguing that women are
unlikely to have a major impact on legislative outcomes until they
grow from a few token individuals into a considerable minority of all
legislators. They reason that as the numbers of women grow, women
will be able not only to work more effectively together for women-
friendly policy change, but also to influence their male colleagues to a
greater extent to accept and approve bills promoting women’s
concerns. Although the concept of ‘critical mass’ has been interpreted
and applied in many different ways over the last twenty years, it has
gained wide currency among politicians, the media, and international
organizations – as well as activists and researchers – as a justification
for measures to bring more women into political office.2 Nonetheless,
it has recently been subject to increased criticism as scholars have
discovered several relationships between numbers of women and
passage of legislation beneficial to women, finding that women make a
2
difference even when they form a very small minority,3 or
alternatively, that a jump in the proportion of women actually
decreases the likelihood that individual female legislators will act on
behalf of women as a group.4 These developments have precipitated a
crisis of confidence in ‘critical mass theory,’ leading many to question
its continued utility and relevance as a concept in research on the
substantive representation of women.5
Viewing this crisis as an opportunity to develop a better model
of gender and political representation, we trace the genealogy of
‘critical mass’ to assess its advantages and limitations as a tool for
understanding women’s legislative behavior. We begin by probing the
origins of the concept in the classic contributions of Rosabeth Moss
Kanter,6 who outlined three expectations regarding the impact of
increased proportions of women on group life, and Drude Dahlerup,7
who popularized the term in the study of women and politics but
ultimately discarded it in favor of analyzing ‘critical acts.’ We then
review applications and critiques of their work and find that these
studies often fail to reflect the totality of their original expositions.
More specifically, this literature frames ‘critical mass theory’ as if
Kanter made only a single claim about women’s behavior and as if
Dahlerup made a strong case in favor of the critical mass concept. As
such, many authors test and reject ‘critical mass theory’ using
evidence that, although they do not recognize it, is in fact consistent
3
with Kanter’s second and third expectations and Dahlerup’s notion of
critical acts. To resolve these tensions and inconsistencies, we
propose two means for rethinking this debate that revive the original
ideas of Kanter and Dahlerup but significantly extend them in light of
more than twenty years of research on women’s substantive
representation: (1) reformulating the central research question from
when women make a difference to how the substantive representation
of women occurs, and (2) refocusing the investigation from the macro-
level (i.e., what do ‘women’ do?) to the micro-level (i.e., what do
specific women do?).
These two moves, we argue, open up a series of new
possibilities for analyzing legislative behavior. Reviewing the gender
and politics literature, we identify five elements that merit further
consideration – and, indeed, explicit dis-aggregation – when seeking
to understand women’s substantive representation: (1) anticipated
effects of increased proportions of women, (2) constraining and
enabling features of legislative contexts, (3) identities and interests of
female and male legislators, (4) feminist and non-feminist definitions
of ‘women’s issues,’ and (5) stable and contingent features of policy-
making processes. To provide a guide for subsequent research, we
‘unpack’ these five dimensions and then draw on the literature in
sociology on tokenism, thresholds, and collective action to reclaim and
extend elements in the work of Kanter and Dahlerup that introduce
4
greater contingency with regard to the behavior of individual women.
Such an approach calls attention to the diverse possibilities within
each category that are masked by traditional interpretations of
‘critical mass theory,’ which condense and simplify aspects of
legislative behavior in ways that restrict the meaning of ‘acting for
women,’ as well as assume uniform motivations across a potentially
diverse population of female legislators. We systematize these insights
into a template for situating the contributions and claims of individual
studies that sheds light on the dynamics at work in particular cases,
as well as takes the first steps towards fostering more cumulative and
comparative research on women’s substantive representation. Placing
concrete actors at the center of analysis, the resulting lens signals a
more complicated relationship between ‘critical mass’ and ‘critical
actors’ that undermines any simple correlation between numbers of
women and ‘women-friendly’ policy outcomes.
The Origins of the Critical Mass Concept
The debate on ‘critical mass’ in women and politics research can
be traced back to three seminal works, two by Kanter8 and one by
Dahlerup,9 which respectively analyze the experiences of women who
form small minorities in the corporate and political spheres. Although
both authors are concerned primarily with how women respond to
5
dynamics of marginalization in minority situations, each concludes
with some speculations as to how these experiences will change as
the number of women increases. These latter ideas form the nucleus
of the critical mass concept as it has been taken up by subsequent
researchers, who have in turn transformed the possibilities signaled
by Kanter and Dahlerup into firmer expectations about the behavior of
women according to ‘critical mass theory.’ To separate their
contributions from these later interpretations, we review their
arguments to establish the precise nature of their predictions
regarding women’s behavior as the proportion of female legislators
grows. We then highlight shortcomings and ambiguities in their
formulations which may in fact be responsible for confusion among
other scholars in order to later evaluate the scope and limits of their
work for advancing the debate on the substantive representation of
women.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter on ‘skewed’ and ‘tilted’ proportions and
group life
Kanter examines women’s token status in a large American
corporation in the 1970s and observes that the “relative numbers of
socially and culturally different people in a group” – differences which
derive from “salient master statuses” like sex, race, and ethnicity10 –
6
are “critical in shaping interaction dynamics” in group life.11 To this
end, she constructs a typology consisting of four distinct majority-
minority distributions: uniform groups with one significant social type,
at a ratio of 100:0; skewed groups with a large preponderance of one
social type, at a ratio of perhaps 85:15; tilted groups with a less
extreme distribution of social types, at a ratio of perhaps 65:35; and
balanced groups with a more or less even distribution of social types,
at a ratio of 60:40 to 50:50.12 Although she argues that as the
numerical proportions within a group “begin to shift so do social
experiences,”13 her empirical evidence derives from a study of only
one of these four groups, a case where the ratio of men to women is
skewed in men’s favor, as her primary concern is to uncover “what
happens to women who occupy token statuses…in a peer group of
men.”14 In these skewed groups, she argues, the numerically many –
or “dominants” – “control the group and its culture,” while the
numerically few – or “tokens” – are reduced to symbolic
representatives of their social category.15 Due to their minority status,
tokens are subject to greater visibility within the group, leading
dominants to stress intra-group differences in ways that compel
tokens to conform with dominant models while also suffering
stereotypes in line with these perceived differences.16 These
tendencies in turn generate three particular challenges for token
individuals: performance pressures, which require them to
7
overachieve or limit their visibility;17 token isolation, which forces
them to remain an outsider or become an insider by being a ‘woman-
prejudiced-against women’;18 and role entrapment, which obliges
them to choose between alternative female stereotypes like the
mother, the seductress, the pet, or the iron maiden. As a consequence
of these dynamics, tokens – even if they are two together – find it
difficult to “generate an alliance that can become powerful in the
group.”19 Thus, in the absence of greater numbers capable of creating
a “counterculture,” tokens are left with “little choice about accepting
the culture of dominants.”20 Tokenism in this manner becomes self-
perpetuating: rather than paving the way for others, it reinforces low
numbers of women, leaving outside intervention as the only means for
increasing their presence.21
Reflecting on how these dynamics might change in the
transition from a skewed to a tilted group, Kanter makes three
conjectures regarding women’s behavior as the perceptions of
dominants and the responses of tokens take on new forms. The first is
that “with an increase in relative numbers, minority members are
potentially allies, can form coalitions, and can affect the culture of the
group while the second is that “with an increase in relative numbers,
minority members begin to become individuals differentiated from
each other.”22 Together, these two claims suggest that women in tilted
groups are able to evade performance pressures and token isolation,
8
which had previously prevented them from forming coalitions with
other women, as well as escape role entrapment, so that they can
pursue interests that may not conform with female stereotypes.
Kanter offers no insights as to which scenario will prove most likely,
but simply signals two possibilities whose direction ultimately
depends on the choices of individual women. This sense of
contingency similarly pervades her third intuition regarding a change
in absolute numbers, despite a lack of change in relative numbers:
“two…is not always a large enough number to overcome the problems
of tokenism and develop supportive alliances, unless the tokens are
highly identified with their own social group.”23 This claim implies that
even when the number of women remains low, the presence of
“feminist” or “women-identified-women” can reduce performance
pressures, token isolation, and role entrapment if the particular
women involved form coalitions.24 Thus, as she argues in the case of
balanced groups, the characteristics of individual women become
paramount because group dynamics “depend on other structural and
personal factors.”25 Nonetheless, her acknowledgment that two tokens
can easily “be divided and kept apart” leads her to add the
qualification that “it would appear that larger numbers are necessary
for supportive alliances to develop in the token context.”26 All the
same, her contention that feminists are central to women-friendly
9
outcomes suggests that numbers may in fact matter less than the
presence of ‘women-identified-women.’
While these dynamics share certain parallels with the
challenges faced by women in politics, their application to the study of
women’s political representation is limited in several ways. First,
Kanter investigates the experiences of token women in corporations,
not women as minorities in political institutions. She thus examines
how proportions affect tokens’ abilities to fulfill their roles as
employees, where job performance is related to economic efficiency
and assessed daily by superiors in the job hierarchy. This contrasts
with legislators, whose job priorities remain the prerogative of
individuals and political parties and are judged on a multi-year basis
by voters.27 Even if business and politics share certain features in
common – like “cultural traditions and folklore” that shape how
members “manage relations” between internal and external actors28 –
Kanter’s research does not in fact speak to the question of whether or
not female legislators will seek to ‘act for’ women.29
Second, she is unclear about “tipping points,” or the moments
when groups move from “skewed to tipped to balanced.”30 Although
her ratios of “up to” 85:15, “perhaps” 65:35, and “60:40 down to
50:50” mark qualitative distinctions among groups, her diagrams
suggest a continuous scale.31 Furthermore, because the percentage
point differences between these categories are large, particularly
10
between the skewed (85:15) and tilted (65:35) groups, this ambiguity
generates opposite predictions regarding ‘in-between’ proportions
and their implications for group interaction: the first reading indicates
that groups with proportions like 80:20 and 75:25 should be
categorized as skewed, since no change can occur until the ratio is
65:35, while the second suggests that such groups are on their way to
being tilted, as they are moving up a continuum.
Third, Kanter explicitly removes gender from her analysis by
arguing that “rarity and scarcity, rather than femaleness per se…
shaped the environment for women in the parts of [the corporation]
mostly populated by men.”32 Indeed, she claims that relative numbers
“can account for any two kinds of people regardless of the category
from which the token comes.”33 At the same time, however, she relies
upon gendered analysis to make sense of her observations: her
description of the dynamics of tokenism stems from an appreciation of
how women’s gender ‘master status’ is displayed and reproduced on
and through women’s bodies, especially in sections where she points
out how sexual innuendos serve to exclude and demean female
tokens.34
Fourth, given her lack of an explicitly gendered lens, she leaves
the role of men in these situations under-analyzed. While she does
recognize that men who are not used to interacting with women are
often “more confused than hostile,” she also notes several who are
11
“openly angry” and simply do not know how to interact with a woman
who is not their wife or their secretary because they went to “all-male
technical schools.”35 These reactions cannot be understood without a
prior theory of patriarchal gender relations, and in glossing over them
Kanter underplays the potential for backlash against women in
occupations “normatively defined as men’s work.”36 As such, her
saleswomen may feel the “negative effects not of their small numbers
but of their increasing numbers.”37 Because she views skewed groups
as largely self-perpetuating, however, Kanter’s lack of attention to
men’s reactions is understandable: she simply does not have the
empirical material to theorize in any firm way how male and female
behavior will change in the transition from skewed to tilted groups.
Drude Dahlerup on small and large minorities of women in
politics
Dahlerup extends Kanter’s analysis to the study of women in
politics, at least partly in response to the growing tendency among
female politicians in the mid-1980s to refer to the notion of ‘critical
mass’ when describing the limits on their possibilities to ‘act for’
women. Skeptical of the appropriateness of this metaphor for
understanding political behavior, she draws on Kanter to consider how
the performance pressures for saleswomen compare with those for
12
female politicians, who must prove that they are “just like (just as able)
as male politicians” but also that “it makes a difference when women
are elected.”38 She thus adopts an explicitly gendered perspective that
emphasizes how women’s minority position in politics relates to their
minority group status in society through “over-accommodation, sexual
harassment, lack of legitimate authority, stereotyping, no
considerations for family obligations…[and the] double standard,”
which are the “combined consequence of the minority position and
women’s status in a patriarchal society in general.”39 Seeking to tailor
Kanter’s insights to the political realm, she then identifies six areas
where women might have an impact in politics: reactions to women
politicians, with a decline in sexist treatment and sexual harassment;
the performance and efficiency of female politicians, with fewer women
leaving politics; the social climate of political life, with the arrival of a
more consensual style and family-friendly working arrangements;
political discourse, with a redefinition of ‘political’ concerns; the policy-
making agenda, with a feminization of the political agenda; and the
influence and power of women in general, with the broader social and
economic empowerment of women.40
Although careful to adapt Kanter’s work, however, Daherlup
only partially represents the change in interaction dynamics as a
group moves from skewed to tilted to balanced. She argues:
13
“in the tilted group (‘with ratios of perhaps 65:35’, Kanter
writes, from her figure, however, from 15 to about 40), the
minority is becoming strong enough to influence the culture
of the group, and alliances between minority group
members become a possibility.”41
With this single sentence, Dahlerup transforms the ‘critical mass’
debate in two ways with important implications for later research on
the substantive representation of women. First, she focuses
exclusively on the opportunity for women to form supportive alliances
when there is an increased number of women, overlooking the
possibility that women as a group will grow more diverse as their
numbers grow, as well as the chance for women to have an impact
even when they constitute only a very small minority of all political
representatives. Second, she inserts a new definition of tilted groups
as those where the proportion of women ranges between 15 and 40
percent, meaning that they occupy all the space between skewed
(85:15) and balanced groups (60:40). At the same time, she defers to
common usage of the term ‘critical mass’42 and identifies 30 percent
as the crucial cut-off point for gauging the impact of women in
Scandinavian politics,43 even though a strict reading of Kanter would
categorize such a group as skewed, not tilted or balanced. In light of
her re-formulation, Dahlerup concludes that available empirical
evidence simply does not support a relationship between specific
14
percentages of women and changes in each of her six areas. She
suggests that factors beyond numbers – especially those that are
impossible to isolate or control, like broader shifts in societal attitudes
– might go further in explaining both change and lack of change
following the advent of more women to political office.44
Developing this, Dahlerup argues that the specific mechanisms
for change lie in “critical acts,” or initiatives that “change the position
of the minority and lead to further changes.” These acts include the
recruitment of other women, the introduction of quotas for women,
and new equality legislation and equality institutions,45 and depend
crucially on “the willingness and ability of the minority to mobilize the
resources of the organization or institution to improve the situation
for themselves and the whole minority group.”46 In entertaining this
possibility, Dahlerup implicitly revives Kanter’s third claim that
feminist women can have an impact above and beyond their token
status if they form alliances with one another despite their small
numbers. All the same, she overlooks Kanter’s second claim – despite
her observations regarding the importance of party identities in
dividing women’s loyalties – by underplaying the importance of
differences among women and how these might prevent coalitions
among them when they are present at higher or lower numbers.47
Still, Dahlerup remains guarded in her predictions when she links
critical acts to larger proportions of women by stating that a “growing
15
feminist consciousness among a growing number of women politicians
could mean that women are reaching an important turning point,
becoming a critical mass.”48 In her view, therefore, critical acts, the
work of individuals, precede but do not necessarily lead to a critical
mass, a larger group whose influence inevitably leads to dramatic
political change. This shift in focus thus transforms the optimistic
outcomes implied by the notion of ‘critical mass’ into a much more
contingent future in which outcomes depend closely upon the actions
of particular individuals.
While a central contribution to the debate on the substantive
representation of women, the multiple strands and occasional
inconsistencies in Dahlerup’s argument easily foster a range of
distinct interpretations about whether – and in what ways – numbers
matter.49 When she discusses changes in the reaction to female
politicians, for example, she writes that “the presence of women
politicians in great numbers does make it seem rather hopeless to try to
remove women from the public sphere today. So numbers do count.”
She elaborates by explaining that “following the growing number of
women in politics, stereotyping decreases, because so many different
types of women now occupy the political arena.”50 She then adds,
however, that “it is not possible to conclude that these changes follow
from any fixed number of women, e.g. 30 percent.” Rather, “the
example of just a few successful women in top positions…may have
16
contributed substantially to the change in the perception of women as
politicians,” leading her to conclude that “in such cases it is not
numbers that count, but the performance of a few outstanding women
as role models.”51 She presents similar arguments across the five other
areas that combine individual and collective explanations by switching
between statements like “the entrance of just one woman into an all
male group…changes the discussion and behavior of that group” and
the “higher the proportion of women, the more social conventions will
change.”52 As a result, she rejects ‘critical mass’ in favor of ‘critical
acts,’ but nonetheless concludes that “the opportunity for women to
form majority coalitions…increases when they constitute 30 percent,
rather than 5 percent,”53 an assertion that relies on an assumption
about numbers and outcomes that she ultimately rejects.
Applications and Critiques of ‘Critical Mass Theory’
Interested in analyzing women’s legislative behavior, many
subsequent scholars draw on the work of Kanter and Dahlerup in
order to understand why the increased presence of women in
legislatures does not always translate into women-friendly policy
outcomes. Reviewing this literature, we find that – following Dahlerup
– many reduce Kanter’s three expectations into one, anticipating that
increased numbers will facilitate coalitions among women, rather than
17
acknowledging that this may also lead to greater diversity among
women and that change may occur even when women are few.
Similarly, we discover that nearly all frame Dahlerup’s work as if she
had made a strong case in favor of the critical mass concept, when in
fact she rejects ‘critical mass’ in favor of ‘critical acts.’ Given the
strong consistency across these accounts, we characterize these
misrepresentations as ‘critical mass theory,’ recognizing that even if
these accounts distort the work of Kanter and Dahlerup, these ideas
play a central role in organizing research on the substantive
representation of women. To this end, we examine both applications
and critiques of ‘critical mass theory’ and find that while the former
adopt Kanter’s first claim and Dahlerup’s notion of ‘critical mass,’ the
latter present evidence that corroborates the second and third claims
of Kanter and the idea of ‘critical acts’ introduced by Dahlerup. These
patterns indicate a fundamental disjuncture between the work of
these two authors and how it is represented in ‘critical mass theory,’
suggesting the need to rethink traditional views of the relationship
between the descriptive and substantive representation of women.
The politics of optimism and applications of ‘critical mass
theory’
18
Applications of ‘critical mass theory’ draw on the concept to
explain a range of different outcomes, most obviously instances where
increased numbers of women result in greater attention to women’s
issues, but also cases where increased numbers of women result in
little or no change, on the grounds that women may not yet constitute
a ‘critical mass.’ These studies assume that the percentage of women
in the institution is the key determinant of their behavior. As such,
they reflect a ‘politics of optimism’ that gender differences can be
eliminated and, especially, that women’s progress can proceed on a
non-conflictual basis, provoking little or no reaction from men as a
group.54 Empirically, these accounts find that legislatures with high
proportions of women introduce and pass more bills on women’s
issues than their female counterparts in low representation
legislatures.55 Further, they discover that as the number of women
increases, the number and rate of enactment of such bills also
increases,56 including as a total proportion of the total legislation they
introduce.57 They explain these changes in terms of the more
supportive legislative environment produced by the presence of more
women, which leads even those who do not view themselves as
representatives of women or women’s issues to be drawn into the
process.58 This work thus focuses exclusively on opportunities for
women to form coalitions with one another, anticipating that a
19
‘critical mass’ of women will be sufficient to promote women-friendly
policy outcomes.
The limits of proportions and critiques of ‘critical mass theory’
1 The national legislatures that come the closest to equal numbers are
Rwanda with 48.8% women and Sweden with 45.3% women. The
current world average for the lower house of parliament, however, is
16.6% women (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2006a; Inter-Parliamentary
Union 2006b).
2 Grey 2004; Krook 2005.
3 Crowley 2004.
4 Carroll 2001.
5 Childs 2004; Tremblay and Sawer forthcoming. The substantive
representation of women may take place in multiple sites (Weldon
2002) – for example, within women’s movements, political parties, and
women’s policy machineries – but in this paper we focus exclusively
on women in elected political office.
6 Kanter 1977a; Kanter 1977b.
7 Dahlerup 1988.
8 Kanter 1977a; Kanter 1977b.
9 Dahlerup 1988.
10 Kanter 1977a, 966; Kanter 1977b, 208.
20
Critiques of ‘critical mass theory,’ in contrast, focus primarily on
cases where policy change does not occur, even as the numbers of
women in the legislature reach ‘critical mass’ proportions, identified
in both literatures at levels ranging from 10% to 40%.59 This second
set of authors is thus much more skeptical of the magic of numbers
and attempts instead to delineate the various boundary conditions
that may prevent women from pursuing reforms addressing women’s
concerns. Focusing on the limits of proportions, they call attention to
the opportunities and constraints that stem from political party
affiliation,60 legislative committee membership,61 institutional norms,62
legislative inexperience,63 and the external political environment,
11 Kanter 1977a, 965; Kanter 1977b, 239.
12 Kanter 1977a, 966.
13 Kanter 1977b, 207.
14 Kanter 1977a, 968.
15 Kanter 1977a, 966.
16 Kanter 1977a, 971-972.
18 When differences between token and dominant groups are
emphasized, tokens are often subject to loyalty tests where being “one
of the boys” means being against “the girls” (Kanter 1977a, 979).
19 Kanter 1977a, 966.
20 Kanter 1977b, 231.
21 Kanter 1977a, 998; Kanter 977b, 210, 233-237, 241-242.
21
including the electoral system.64 Although these structures are strong
in and of themselves, these scholars argue, they are compounded by
potential for backlash, which generally increases as the number of
women rises.65 For this reason, women may actually be more effective
when they are fewer, as they can mobilize individually66 or through
22 Kanter 1977a, 966.
23 Kanter, 1977a, 987.
24 Kanter 1977b, 238.
25 Kanter 1977a, 966.
26 Kanter 1977b, 238.
27 Bratton 2005.
28 Beckwith 2002.
29 Mateo Diaz 2005.
30 Kanter 1977b, 237.
31 Kanter 1977a, 967; Kanter 1977b, 209.
32 Kanter 1977b, 207.
33 Kanter 1977a, 972; Kanter 1977b, 6.
34 Kanter 1977a, 968; cf. Thomas 1994.
35 Kanter 1977b, 42.
36 Yoder 1991, 188.
37 Yoder, 1991, 185, emphasis in original; cf. Considine and
Deutchman 1996.
38 Dahlerup 1988, 279.
22
women’s legislative caucuses67 to achieve gains for women without
having to contend with the opposition of powerful men. As such, they
reject ‘critical mass theory’ but in fact provide empirical support for
diversity among women, mobilization despite small numbers, and
potential for ‘critical acts’ at all levels of descriptive representation.
39 Dahlerup 1988, 279, emphasis in original.
40 Dahlerup 1988, 283-295.
41 Dahlerup 1988, 280.
42 Dahlerup 1988, 276, 280, 296.
43 Dahlerup 1988, 281.
44 Dahlerup 1988, 276-278.
45 The distinction between ‘critical mass’ and ‘critical acts’ is
sometimes conflated in the literature. In their rebuttal of the ‘critical
mass hypothesis,’ for example, Studlar and McAllister (2002) in fact
test a ‘critical act,’ the recruitment of more women.
46 Dahlerup 1988, 296, emphasis in original.
47 Dahlerup 1988, 293.
48 Dahlerup 1988, 293.
49 These inconsistencies are resolved in an interesting way in
Dahlerup’s later work with Lenita Freidenvall, where they argue that
critical mass dynamics do not characterize countries that have
followed an ‘incremental track’ to increased representation, like the
Nordic countries, but might characterize countries that have followed
23
From ‘Critical Mass Theory’ to the ‘Substantive Representation
of Women’
a ‘fast track’ thanks to the use of quotas (Dahlerup and Freidenvall
2005).
50 Dahlerup 1988, 285.
51 Dahlerup 1988, 287.
52 Dahlerup 1988, 290.
53 Dahlerup 1988, 294.
54 Blum and Smith 1988.
55 Bratton 2005; Thomas 1991; Thomas 1994.
56 Saint-Germain 1989; Skard and Haavio-Mannila 1985.
57 Vega and Firestone 1995.
58 Flammang 1985.
17 In skewed situations, everything that a token woman does attracts
public notice such that her actions have symbolic consequences for all
women. In such a context, many women seek to limit their visibility by
amongst other things “adopting ‘mannish dress’” (Kanter 1977a, 974).
59 Beckwith and Cowell-Meyers 2003; Childs 2004; Towns 2003; Grey
2002; Lovenduski 2001; Norrander and Wilcox 1998; Thomas 1994;
Thomas and Welch 1991. This more critical literature, however, is
24
The concept of critical mass has thus informed a substantial
proportion of research on women and politics, but has come under
greater scrutiny in recent years as scholars have uncovered a diverse
set of relationships between the numbers of women elected to
political office and the passage of legislation beneficial to women as a
group. These patterns point to the need to address the uses and limits
of this concept – as well as its growing body of criticisms – in order to
assess its relevance for future work on gender and political
much more open than earlier studies to multiple ways of
operationalizing ‘critical mass,’ although this openness probably
derives from attempts to delineate its boundary conditions through
the exploration of non-linear and exponential operations (cf. Bratton
and Ray 2002; Celis 2004; Grey 2002; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler
2005).
60 Childs 2004; Poggione 2004.
61 Frisch and Kelly 2003; Norton 1995; Swers 2004.
62 Dodson 2001a; Considine and Deutchmann 1996; Kathlene 1995;
Kenney 1996; Mackay 2001; Rosenthal 1998.
63 Beckwith 2002; Cowley and Childs 2003; Jeydel and Taylor 2003.
64 Swers 2004; Tremblay 2003.
65 Kathlene 1995; Towns 2003; Yoder 1991; cf. Heath et al 2005.
66 Crowley 2004.
67 Reingold 2000; Thomas 1991; Towns 2003.
25
representation. Drawing on a range of observations in existing
studies, we suggest two means for rethinking this debate: (1)
reformulating the central research question from when women make
a difference to how the substantive representation of women occurs,
and (2) refocusing the investigation from the macro-level (i.e., what do
‘women’ do?) to the micro-level (i.e., what do specific women do?).
Combined, these two shifts reorient the discussion away from
determining the exact conditions under which women’s presence
alters political outcomes towards exploring variations in how
individual politicians – both male and female – perceive and negotiate
the act of representing women. This revised approach, we contend,
not only relaxes overly restrictive analytical frames regarding the
form and content of ‘acting for women,’ but also offers greater
leverage for investigating whether or not an increase in the numbers
of women in political office will translate into gains for women as a
group. By assuming greater contingency in the behavior of individual
women, it highlights the need to move away from traditional
methodological strategies by exposing the weaknesses of macro-
quantitative techniques and the strengths of micro-qualitative
analyses for developing a more complex model of women’s legislative
behavior.
Dimensions of the substantive representation of women
26
Reviewing the literature, we find that many scholars frame their
work as a test of ‘critical mass theory,’ but in supporting or disputing
its assumptions, most provide crucial insights into the varied and
complicated nature of the substantive representation of women. We
identify five elements that merit further consideration – and, indeed,
explicit disaggregation – when seeking to understand women’s
substantive representation. The first concerns anticipated effects of
increased proportions of women in political office. The most common
assumption is that as women grow more numerous in legislative
chambers, they will be increasingly able to form strategic coalitions
with one another in order to promote legislation related to women’s
concerns.68 A related belief is that a rise in the number of women will
influence men’s behavior in a feminist direction, causing both male
and female legislators to pay more attention to women’s issues.69 A
third popular expectation, however, is that the increased presence of
women will provoke a backlash among male legislators who, sensing a
threat, will employ a range of subtle and more obvious measures to
obstruct women’s policy initiatives and keep them outside positions of
power.70 For this reason, a fourth perspective suggests that women
will be more effective when they constitute a smaller proportion of
68 Flammang 1985; Thomas 1994.
69 Bratton 2005; Flammang 1985.
27
legislators, as they will be able to specialize in women’s concerns
without appearing to undermine male domination,71 although some
scholars take a slightly more benign view by pointing out that, in the
absence of a large proportion of women, a well-organized women’s
caucus may act as a functional substitute by coordinating the actions
of the few women in the legislature.72 A fifth take, finally, anticipates
that a rise in the overall number of women will result in the election
of an increasingly more diverse group who may or may not be
interested in pursuing women’s issues, either because their priorities
lie elsewhere or because they believe that other female legislators will
continue to lobby on behalf of women.73 These dynamics, some
contend, intensify the need for individual ‘equality champions’ who
will act as legislative policy entrepreneurs to motivate the support of
both overt and ‘closet’ feminists for women-friendly policy change.74
Studies that address the constraining and enabling
characteristics of legislative contexts similarly point to a multiplicity
of factors that limit and enhance opportunities for women to translate
70 Hawkesworth 2003; Heath et al 2005; Kathlene 1995; Towns 2003;
Yoder 1991.
71 Crowley 2004; Dodson and Carroll 1991.
72 Bratton 2005; Reingold 2000; Thomas 1994.
73 Carroll 2001; Schwindt-Bayer 2004.
74 Carroll 1984; Chaney forthcoming.
28
policy preferences into legislative initiatives on behalf of women.
Much of this research focuses on institutional rules and norms that
reflect a bias towards men’s experiences and authority,75 and as such,
compel women to conform to existing masculine legislative practices
in ways that undermine their ability to integrate women’s
perspectives into public policy-making.76 Some authors draw
attention, however, to other institutional rules and norms that
facilitate women’s participation,77 as well as women’s caucuses and
women’s policy machineries that, in certain cases, serve as effective
institutional channels for promoting women’s representation and
engender effective alliances.78 Several extend these observations to
positional power, noting that women generally do not occupy high
ranking posts in important legislative committees79 and often face
repeated challenges to their leadership when they do as a result of
gendered norms of power.80 Nonetheless, others point out that
women’s access to legislative committees enables them to influence
policy-making from an insider position that was previously
unavailable,81 although their relative ‘newness’ sometimes mitigates
their potential to influence policy due to their lack of legislative
experience.82
These dynamics, in turn, intersect with the impact of party
affiliation and ideology on women’s legislative activities. As various
scholars observe, mechanisms of candidate selection combined with
29
pressures for party discipline strongly determine what kinds of
women are elected,83 as well as the specific policy positions that they
are likely to take once they accede to political office.84 At the same
time, as this research notes, distinct party ideologies often create
different opportunities for women to pursue feminist policy concerns,
as right-wing parties tend to favor more traditional roles for women,
while left-wing parties are often more open to new and even multiple
gender roles.85 Consequently, the rise of certain parties to power
plays a crucial role in shaping the broader political climate that –
together with broader global trends like the rise of neo-liberalism86
and more local dynamics like military conflict,87 recent democratic
transition,88 and the presence or absence of strong women’s
movements89 – influences the emergence and resonance of women-
friendly policy concerns.90 As a few authors point out, however, these
effects are not necessarily uniform across all legislative spaces:
although women often form small minorities in broader legislative
chambers, at times they constitute larger minorities in party
delegations or committee rooms, where their increased numbers
enable them to have a greater impact on policy formation.91
Similar considerations pervade discussions of the identities and
interests of female and male legislators, as nearly all work on the
substantive representation of women addresses individual features
that facilitate and undermine cooperation among women in political
30
office. Notably, while many political theorists aim to discern or define
a shared perspective among women as a group in order to justify calls
for their increased political presence,92 most empirical studies stress
divisions among women – like race, class, age, and party affiliation –
that prevent the formulation of a collective legislative agenda.93 These
apparent cleavages among women lead some to argue that identity
categories like ‘women’ are inherently exclusionary and serve to reify
one difference while erasing and obscuring others.94 As such, ‘gender’
should be seen not as a pre-political and fixed identity that women
bring with them when they enter politics, but as an identity that is
partially produced and reproduced within the context of particular
legislatures.95 Other scholars simply question the elision of women’s
bodies with feminist minds, pointing out that being female may matter
less than ‘gender consciousness’ for achieving feminist outcomes,96 as
many women come to office for reasons related to more traditional
aspects of their gender identities, for example in their capacity as
mothers or as substitutes for their male relatives.97
These concerns overlap with debates on the need to establish
differences in the behavior of women and men in political office. While
some claim that women only have an impact when they do not act in
the same way as men,98 others explain convergence according to at
least four distinct scenarios: (1) women and men share the same
policy priorities, but diverge in terms of their support for, and
31
willingness to propose legislation on, feminist issues;99 (2) the
increased presence of women leads men to show more interest in
women’s issues, either to promote women’s autonomy or to restrict
advances in women’s status;100 (3) the presence of anti-feminist
women and pro-feminist men evens out the aggregate balance of
preferences across women and men as groups;101 and (4) ‘gendering’
processes silence women by pressuring them to conform to positions
taken by men on various political issues or by blocking their
opportunities to freely articulate their own views.102 While these
scholars search for the differences underlying these apparent
similarities,103 others insist that a continued focus on ‘difference’ has
certain discursive dangers because it retains an emphasis on women
as the sex with special interests and experiences,104 enabling
opponents to argue – on the basis of similarities – against any
increases in women’s representation,105 as well as placing undue
responsibility on the shoulders of individual women.106
Variations and ambiguities in terms of the ‘identities’ and
‘interests’ of legislators find further reflection in feminist and non-
feminist definitions of ‘women’s issues. Within the gender and politics
literature, scholars adopt various approaches that include policies
that increase the autonomy and well-being of women,107 concerns that
belong to the private sphere according to established views on gender
relations,108 areas where surveys discover a gender gap in the
32
population,109 and any issues of concern to the broader society.110
Taken together, these policies cover issues as diverse as abortion,
childcare, divorce, domestic violence, equal pay, equal rights, family
issues, parental leave, pensions, rape, reproductive rights, sexual
harassment, women’s health, and work/life balance; in other words,
those issues that achieve equality for women, address women’s
special needs, or enable women to undertake their traditional roles as
care-givers.111 Although some scholars prefer feminist definitions that
focus on role change for women through increases in autonomy and
the scope for personal choice,112 others opt for more inclusive ones
that capture a broader range of issues affecting women’s everyday
lives.113 Noting the context- and time-bound nature of ‘women’s
issues,’ yet others favor definitions based on the concerns articulated
by women’s movements at various moments in time, which allow
women’s issues to remain a priori undefined, context-related, and
subject to evolution,114 as well as a collective product that emerges as
women interact with other women to identify their priorities.115 This
perspective recognizes a broader range of ‘women’s issues’ that
includes those important to women in the developing world – like
access to water, child marriage, land ownership, inheritance, genital
cutting, and university admissions116 – and those central to many
women’s groups at earlier points in time, like suffrage, wage labor,
and widows’ benefits.117
33
The possibility to achieve gains for women also depends closely
on the stable and contingent features of policy-making processes,
which influence how and when women’s issues reach the legislative
agenda, as well as their ultimate prospects for being passed into law.
Most research on women’s substantive representation focuses on
stable features, finding that women as a group have the greatest
impact – or, more specifically, tend to differ most from men – in terms
of setting the legislative agenda and proposing new bills that address
issues of concern to women.118 For this reason, many criticize studies
that focus exclusively on legislative voting, as these not only assume
that enactment is the most important stage of the policy-making
process,119 but also overlook the fact that votes on many women’s
issues are not even included in the standard databases that collect
this information.120 Although some suggest that the best solution is to
examine the entire legislative process,121 others point out that policy-
making often involves numerous elements of contingency that make
such models appear overly simplistic. On the one hand, complex
combinations of factors – often in series of chance events – are
generally responsible for moving an issue to agenda prominence and
34
gaining its passage.122 On the other hand, policy innovations rarely
proceed in a vacuum, because policy cycles and demonstration effects
strongly condition which issues enter and are kept of legislative
agendas, separate from any assumed prerequisites for change.123
These possibilities, in turn, raise broader questions regarding the
definition of ‘policy impact’ itself, which in many cases extends to
arenas beyond policy-making, for example by leading to increased
political engagement among female constituents.124
Closer examination of these five dimensions – anticipated effects
of increased proportions of women, constraining and enabling
features of legislative contexts, identities and interests of female
legislators, feminist and non-feminist definitions of ‘women’s issues,’
and stable and contingent features of policy-making processes – thus
reveals multiple facets within what many scholars treat as relatively
straightforward categories of analysis. As such, it uncovers the
nuances that are lost when researchers focus on when women make a
difference rather than on how the substantive representation of
women occurs: while the former assumes relatively narrow
definitions, the latter presents a more fluid view of how actors,
interests, and outcomes combine to produce women-friendly policy
outcomes. Drawing on these five dimensions we outline a template for
future research (see Figure) that
– Figure 1 about here –
35
can facilitate a more constructive and focused debate by recognizing
the various configurations of conditions that may be consistent with
the substantive representation of women, as well as by structuring the
analysis of individual cases to situate particular claims and
contributions in relation to others. While this template reveals the
micro-level dynamics masked by a focus on macro-level patterns,
however, it does not explain how shifts in the numbers of women in
political assemblies translate more concretely into specific policy
outcomes. To investigate these processes, we revisit the contributions
of Kanter and Dahlerup with the help of insights from sociology to
develop a set of conceptual tools for analyzing ‘critical actors’ and
their part in policy change.
‘Critical actors’ and the micro-level dynamics of legislative
behavior
Research on ‘critical mass theory’ almost invariably truncates
and even fundamentally misrepresents the work of Kanter and
Dahlerup, at the same time that it provides a wealth of evidence
consistent with their other claims. These diverse possibilities in
women’s legislative behavior thus imply a more complicated and
contingent relationship between the descriptive and substantive
representation of women than is typically recognized by scholars or
36
activists. As such, they indicate a need for new theoretical tools for
opening up the ‘black box’ between the election of individual women
to political office and the passage of legislation beneficial to women as
a group. Seeking clues as to these dynamics, we explore contributions
that address the phenomenon of ‘critical mass’ in other areas of social
life, namely research on tokenism, thresholds, and collective action,
which together reveal how macro-level analyses distort
understandings of micro-level activities. We then revive Kanter’s ideas
about diversity among women and ‘women-identified’ women, as well
as Dahlerup’s notion of ‘critical acts,’ to theorize the conditions under
which individual legislators decide to ‘act for’ women, and especially,
how they come together to promote women-friendly policy change.
Although gender and politics scholars generally employ the
concept of ‘critical mass’ in a singular fashion – namely, to gauge how
increasing numbers of women affect legislative outcomes in a feminist
direction – studies in other fields examine the multiple ways in which
the dynamics of ‘critical mass’ influence collective behavior. Focusing
on the micro-level actions that account for puzzling patterns across
social aggregates, they theorize the contingent calculations of
individuals within these groups in order to explain why similar
distributions of preferences do not always translate into comparable
collective outcomes. Nonetheless, each tackles these questions from a
slightly different angle in terms of attention to individual versus sub-
37
group tendencies. Research on tokenism, for example, centers on the
mechanisms that compel minority individuals to conform to role
expectations based on group stereotypes. Although some authors
locate these structures in tokens’ lower social status outside the
group, which compound their minority status inside the group,125
others argue that tokenism relies upon individuals’ compliance with
the sent role expectations of the dominant majority. As a result, it
75 Considine and Deutchmann 1996; Hawkesworth 2003; Kathlene
1998; Kenney 1996.
76 Carroll 1984; Carroll 2001; Cowell-Meyers 2001; Dodson 2001a.
77 Chaney forthcoming; Kathlene 2001; Reingold 2000.
78 Squires and Wickham-Jones 2004; Thomas and Welch 1991; Towns
2003; Weldon 2002; Waylen 2004.
79 Heath et al 2005; Norton 1995.
80 Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995; Fairhurst and Snavely 1983; Kathlene
1995.
81 Dodson 1998; Swers 2002.
82 Beckwith 2002; cf. Cowley and Childs 2003; Childs and Withey 2006.
83 Chathukulam and John 2000; Gotell and Brodie 1991.
84 Cowley and Childs 2003; Geisler 2000.
85 Dodson and Carroll 1991; Erickson 1997; Reingold 2000; Swers
2004.
86 Grey 2004; Trimble 2004.
38
hinges on the extent to which one person accepts or rejects another’s
definitions, so although being in the minority position often leaves
tokens without a source of power with which to resist majority group
assertions, some individuals may be able to offer a competing vision
based on their own task relevant abilities. While such situations are
87 Beckwith and Cowell-Meyers 2003.
88 Waylen 2004.
89 Dahlerup 1986; Grey 2002; Lovenduski and Norris 1993; Thomas
1994; Weldon 2002.
90 Reingold 2000; Swers 2002.
91 Erickson 1997; Poggione 2004; Tremblay 1998.
92 Dovi 2002; Mansbridge 1999; Phillips 1995; Williams 1998; Young
2000.
93 Barrett 1995; Dodson 1998; Dodson and Carroll 1991; Swers 2002.
94 Carroll 2001; Fuss 1988; Spelman 1988.
95 Towns 2003; Whip 1991.
96 Childs 2001; Childs 2004; Reingold 2000; Tolleson Rinehart 1992;
Tremblay and Pelletier 2000.
97 Genovese 1993; Mehta 2002.
98 Cowell-Meyers 2001.
99 Dodson 2001b; Dodson and Carroll 1991; Jones 1997; Schwindt-
Bayer 2004; Swers 2004; Taylor-Robinson and Heath 2003; cf.
Conover 1988.
39
rare, they mean that tokens do not necessarily require a numerical
shift in order to reduce attention to their uniqueness and to acquire
power,126 suggesting that changes in group dynamics may occur even
in the absence of more minority members, at the same time that
increases in the numbers of tokens may bring about no change at all.
100 Bratton 2005; Norton 1995; Reingold 2000.
101 Chaney forthcoming; Tremblay and Pelletier 2000.
102 Hawkesworth 2003; Rosenthal 1998.
103 Cammisa and Reingold 2004.
104 Jónasdóttir 1991; Skjeie 2001.
105 Grey 2004.
106 Trimble 2004.
107 Bratton 2005; Tamerius 1995; Wängnerud 2000.
108 Meyer 2003.
109 Schwindt-Bayer 2004.
110 Dolan and Ford 1995; Mackay 2001.
111 Swers 2002.
112 Childs and Withey 2004; Dodson and Carroll 1991; Mezey 1994;
Oldersma 2002; Reingold 2000; Tremblay and Pelletier 2000; Trimble
2004.
113 Bayard de Volo 2003; Manasco 2005; Swers 2002.
114 Celis 2004.
115 Weldon 2002.
40
Studies of thresholds and human behavior, in contrast, frame
these individual decisions in terms of the proportion of others who
also choose to act, on the grounds that the costs and benefits of an
actor making a certain choice depend in part on how many others
decide to make that choice.127 For subjective reasons, however,
individuals view these costs and benefits differently and thus vary in
terms of how many others need to act before they do so themselves:
‘radicals’ have low thresholds, as they will act even if many others do
not, while ‘conservatives’ have high thresholds, as they will not act
unless many others do as well. These thresholds, moreover, may shift
depending on the density of friendship ties, as people might be
persuaded to act at lower absolute thresholds if a relatively high
proportion of their friends decides to act. Because thresholds are
116 Raman 2002; Tripp 2001.
117 Celis 2004; Meyer 2003.
118 Bratton and Ray 2002; Childs 2004; Swers 2004.
119 Tamerius 1995.
120 Norton 1997.
121 Carroll 1984; Carroll 2001; Dovi 2002; Norton 1995; Swers 2002.
122 Childs and Withey 2006; cf. Kingdon 1984.
123 Bratton and Ray 2002; Sawer 2004; cf. Finnemore 1993.
124 Atkeson 2003; High-Pippert and Comer 1998; Kudva 2003; Mackay
2001; but see Lawless 2004.
41
situation-specific, therefore, two groups may be identical in
composition but still experience distinct outcomes due to the
particular process of aggregation. As such, collective results do not
necessarily offer an accurate reflection of what individuals would do
in every situation; rather, the interaction of individual dispositions can
only be analyzed after behavior actually occurs.128 These models thus
separate attitudes from the ability and willingness to act on them,
offering crucial insight into situations where outcomes are not
consistent with individual preferences.
Similar notions pervade work on collective action, which places
the group at the center of analysis but theorizes action in terms of the
relations between various individuals inside the group. Seeking to
move away from accounts that view collective action as irrational on
the grounds that self-interested individuals would not act to further
group interests,129 these authors focus on interdependence among
actors, heterogeneity within groups, and the role of mobilizing agents
in order to explain how group members come together to realize
collective goals. They argue that in most instances collective action
occurs not as the result of the efforts of the average group member,
but rather through the work of a relatively small number of highly
interested and resourceful individuals, who either provide the
collective good themselves or play a central role in mobilizing
others.130 Given these distinct levels of commitment, the fact that
42
nothing happens does not indicate how near to being viable a certain
course of action is: because the ‘critical number’ for one person
differs from that of another, the definition of how many is ‘enough’
may vary from situation to situation.131 While highly motivated
individuals may be sufficient, therefore, they may not always achieve –
or need to achieve – widespread mobilization for collective ends.
Many of these ideas resonate with the original formulations of
Kanter and Dahlerup, who point to diversity among women and the
importance of individuals who resolve to act on behalf of women as a
group. For Kanter, a rise in the relative numbers of women enables
them to form alliances, at the same time that it permits them to
become individuals differentiated from one another. Similarly,
increases in their absolute numbers – in the absence of a change in
their relative numbers – generally divide women, but allow feminist
women to build coalitions with one another to overcome token
dynamics. For Dahlerup, initiatives to benefit women constitute
‘critical acts,’ which may be related to numbers of women in political
office, but which may also evolve separately them. These possibilities
are largely under-theorized in the work of each author, but do provide
some insights for conceptualizing how individuals decide to ‘act for’
women, both on their own and in conjunction with other women.
Adapting them, we distinguish between ‘critical actors’ and
‘critical mass’ in order to identify the concrete representatives – not
43
vague imperatives of ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ – who put in motion individual
and collective campaigns for women-friendly policy change.
Consistent with evidence from the broader literature, we argue that
‘critical actors’ are those who initiate policy proposals on their own,
even when women form a small minority, and embolden others to take
steps to promote policies for women, regardless of whether women
constitute a small or large minority of political representatives.
Indeed, they may not even be women: in some situations, individual
men may play a crucial role in advancing women’s policy concerns.132
These ‘critical actors’ take several different guises – other scholars
refer to them as ‘feminist activists’133 and ‘equality champions’134 – but
their common feature is their relatively low threshold for political
action: although they may hold attitudes similar to those of other
representatives, they are much more motivated than others to initiate
women-friendly policy reforms, often due to an element of ‘gender
consciousness’ that politicizes their view of the world.135 As with
definitions of ‘women’s issues,’ however, the specific characteristics
of ‘critical actors’ may vary across countries and over time in line with
evolving attitudes towards traditional gender roles, and thus their
actions may or may not conform with contemporary definitions of
‘feminism.’
Although ‘critical actors’ may operate alone, they may also
stimulate others to act, setting in motion a momentum for policy
44
change, or alternatively, provoking a backlash among those opposed
to fundamental reform. As such, their shape and impact are not
absolute, as smaller numbers of women may join together in
legislative caucuses to promote common goals with great success,136
while larger numbers may enhance the opportunity for critical acts
but may also foil their effects. These processes play themselves out in
two related ways within research on women and politics: the
activation of ‘closet feminists’ whose commitment to women’s issues
remains hidden from public view,137 and the politicization of women
who become feminists on the job in response to the neglect of
women’s interests in legislative institutions.138 Although these
analyses are limited to the feminist substantive representation of
women, they point to a moving target in all instances of
representation, as individuals are often transformed by their
experiences, such that their thresholds for collective action may
decrease following a policy success139 and may increase following a
policy failure.140
Given the unpredictable and often non-linear nature of ‘critical
acts,’ research that seeks to understand the dynamics of legislative
behavior – and thus get past the impasse of testing ‘critical mass
theory’ – must begin by examining micro-level interactions. To offer
robust insights that can be used to inform the study of other cases,
this approach requires that scholars engage in post-hoc analyses that
45
trace the behaviors of individuals over time in order to uncover the
respective roles of ‘critical actors’ and ‘critical mass’ in attempts to
carry out the substantive representation of women. Thus, while good
practice in political science generally involves employing multiple
methods, some techniques are more appropriate than others for
answering different types of research questions.141 For this reason, we
argue, scholars serious about generating insights into the complex
dynamics of ‘critical actors’ must abandon quantitative work that
infers micro-level preferences from macro-level patterns in favor of
qualitative studies that draw on micro-level behaviors to explain
macro-level results, at least in the short term. Although this approach
cannot establish when women will make a difference, its focus on
individuals opens a new avenue for research that recognizes diversity
rather than presumes uniformity across women’s legislative behavior.
As the number of such studies grow, scholars will then be able to
compare their insights and draw broader conclusions about the
substantive representation of women that nonetheless remain
sensitive to the details of individual cases at particular moments in
time.
Conclusions
46
In the context of growing concerns about the continued utility of
the concept in gender and politics research, this paper traces the
origins of ‘critical mass,’ as well as its uses and misuses in the
literature on ‘critical mass theory,’ in order to assess its strengths and
weaknesses as a tool for analyzing women’s political representation.
Seeking to clarify the terms of this debate, we undertake a close
reading of Kanter and Dahlerup to outline their precise predictions
regarding women’s behavior as the proportion of female legislators
grows. Although we highlight ambiguities and shortcomings in their
formulations, we argue that subsequent work fundamentally
misinterprets their contributions by framing ‘critical mass theory’ as if
both authors had made only one claim about the impact of rising
numbers of women, namely that they would enable women
increasingly to form supportive coalitions among one another to
promote feminist-oriented policy change. Informed by this revised
reading, we contend that research on gender and political
representation is better served by: (1) reformulating the central
research question from when women make a difference to how the
substantive representation of women occurs, and (2) refocusing the
investigation from the macro-level (i.e., what do ‘women’ do?) to the
micro-level (what do specific women do?). These two moves shift the
focus away from determining the exact percentage of women that
constitutes a ‘critical mass,’ or alternatively, identifying all the
47
possible variables that may mediate the impact of numbers. As a
result, they open up a series of new directions for analyzing legislative
behavior that discard uniform expectations about numbers and
political contexts, as well as strict definitions of the interests and
identities of female legislators. In this way, they answer criticisms on
the basis of essentialism that stress important differences among
women, as well as concerns about eliding feminism and women’s
political representation, by relaxing overly restrictive analytical
frames regarding the form and content of ‘acting for’ women.
We elaborate this approach by drawing on more than twenty
years of research on women and politics to outline five dimensions of
the substantive representation of women – related to anticipated
effects, legislative contexts, individual female legislators, women’s
issues, and policy-making processes – which reveal substantial
diversity within each category of analysis that needs to be taken into
account by scholars interested in explaining particular patterns of
political representation. We then advocate a conceptual shift from
‘critical mass’ to ‘critical actors,’ who are those who either initiate
reforms themselves or play a central role in mobilizing others for
policy change. Importantly, these ‘critical actors’ can exist in the
absence of ‘critical mass,’ as the concept is understood in ‘critical
mass theory,’ namely, that a certain percentage of women in political
office leads to the substantive representation of women. Nonetheless,
48
the dynamics of critical mass, as utilized by scholars from the wider
social science literature – and alluded to in the original contributions
of Kanter and Dahlerup – retain explanatory value in attempts to
understand women’s substantive representation. In particular, they
are relevant in situations where ‘critical actors’ solidify the resolve of
a larger group, who were not previously active in promoting policy
reform.
This revised approach has important methodological
implications, as it calls on scholars to replace traditional macro-level
studies that search for broad aggregate trends with micro-level
research that investigates more varied and contingent processes.142
Further, it highlights the need to pay close attention to attempts both
to influence the political agenda and to pass legislation as the
articulation of women’s concerns still constitutes attempts at
substantive representation even when these have little or no effect in
terms of legislative output.143 In making the case for more micro-level
analysis, however, we do not suggest that gender and politics
research should never undertake large-n studies. Rather, we propose
that in order for such studies to be robust and meaningful, scholars
need to engage in greater number of micro-level studies before they
seek to aggregate this information into a larger data set. Given the
bias in the existing literature toward developed countries, these
collective efforts must include greater attention to dynamics at work
49
in developing countries,144 especially those which have seen a
significant increase in the number of women elected through the use
of candidate gender quotas.145
Ironically, the misinterpretations that underlie ‘critical mass
theory’ have played a crucial role in the spread of gender quotas
around the world: international organizations, transnational networks,
party politicians, women’s activists, and even ordinary citizens argue
for 30 percent women in politics on the grounds that this figure
constitutes a ‘critical mass’ of female legislators.146 Given these
successes, activists are unlikely to give up on the concept any time
soon, because even if it is theoretically misguided, it has proved to be
a crucial tool for increasing the number of women elected to political
institutions. The perspective we develop in this paper exercises
greater caution: our approach retains some elements of the critical
mass concept, but by theorizing the importance of critical actors
seeks to establish its empirical limits. ‘Critical mass theory’, on the
other hand, should be firmly discarded: by debating only whether or
not women are more likely to form alliances when their numbers
increase, it has served to obfuscate – rather than clarify – the
complicated and contingent relationship between the descriptive and
substantive representation of women. While our arguments are not
the final word on the matter, they do seek to stimulate further debate
by outlining a new agenda for research that places concrete actors –
50
rather than abstract notions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ – at the center of
analysis.
51
Figure 1The Substantive Representation of Women: A Template for Analysis
1. Anticipated Effects of Increased Proportions of Women Women will form strategic coalitions with other women. Women will influence men’s behavior in a feminist or women-
friendly policy direction. Women will provoke a backlash among male legislators. Women will be less effective than at smaller proportions of
female legislators. Women will become increasingly more diverse as a group,
leading some to lobby on behalf of women and others to pursue other policy interests.
2. Constraining and Enabling Characteristics of Legislative Contexts
Institutional norms, especially in legislative practices Positional power, especially in legislative committees Political parties, especially in terms of party ideology Political climate, especially in terms of its relation to women’s
empowerment Legislative arenas, especially in terms varying distributions of
women and men in distinct legislative spaces3. Identities and Interests of Female and Male Legislators
Similarities and differences among women, especially race, age, party affiliation, and feminist identity
Similarities and differences between women and men, especially alternative conceptions of ‘similarity’ and ‘difference’ as the measure of women’s impact
4. Feminist and Non-Feminist Definitions of Women’s Issues Feminist definitions focused on role change for women, often
through increases in autonomy and scope for personal choice Non-feminist definitions focused on women’s traditional roles in
family and society Context- and time-bound features of these definitions
5. Stable and Contingent Features of Policy-Making Processes Stages in the policy-making process Legislative policy cycles and demonstration effects Impact within and outside the policy-making process
52
53
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Notes
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