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women’s
political
participation
and
representation
in
asia
Obstacles and Challenges
Edited by Kazuki Iwanaga
The ability of a small elite of highly educated, upper-class Asian
women to obtain the highest political positions in their country
is unmatched elsewhere in the world and deserves study. But, for
those interested in a more detailed understanding of how women
strive and sometimes succeed as political actors in Asia, there is a
marked lack of relevant research as well as of comprehensive and
user-friendly texts.
Aiming to fill the gap is this timely and important study of
the various obstacles and opportunities for women’s political
participation and representation in Asia. Even though it brings
together a diverse array of prominent European and Asian
academicians and researchers working in this field, it is nonetheless
a singularly coherent, comprehensive and accessible volume.
The book covers a wide range of Asian countries, offers original
data from various perspectives and engages the latest research on
women in politics in Asia. It also aims to put the Asian situation
in a global context by making a comparison with the situation in
Europe.
This is a volume that will be invaluable in women’s studies
internationally and especially in Asia.
Series Editors:
Kazuki Iwanaga (Halmstad University) and Qi Wang (Oslo University)
Women and Politics in Thailand Continuity and Change
Edited by Kazuki Iwanaga
Women’s Political Participation and Representation in Asia Obstacles and Challenges
Women’s Political Participation
and Representation in Asia
Obstacles and Challenges
First published in 2008 by NIAS Press
NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Leifsgade 33, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
tel (+45) 3532 9501 • fax (+45) 3532 9549 email: books@nias.ku.dk • website: www.niaspress.dk
© NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies 2008 All rights reserved.
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, copyright in the individual papers belongs
to their authors. No paper may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the author or publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Women’s political participation and representation in Asia :
obstacles and challenges. - (Women and politics in Asia ; 2) 1. Women in politics - Asia 2. Women politicians - Asia
I. Iwanaga, Kazuki II. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies 305.4’332’095
ISBN: 978-87-7694-016-4
Typeset by NIAS Press
Produced by SRM Production Services Sdn Bhd and printed in Malaysia
Abbreviations and Acronyms • ix Contributors • xiii
Preface • xvii
1 Kazuki Iwanaga
Introduction
Women and Politics in Asia: A Comparative Perspective • 1
2 Andrea Fleschenberg
Asia’s Women Politicians at the Top: Roaring Tigresses or Tame Kittens? • 23
3 Jude Howell
Gender and Rural Governance in China • 55
4 Lichun Chiang
Women as Agents of Change in Legislation in Taiwan • 81
5 Kazuki Iwanaga
Women’s Political Representation in Japan • 101
6 Won-Hong Kim
South Korean Women’s Political Status and Future Challenges • 130
7 Trudy Jacobsen
Beyond Apsara: Women, Tradition and Trajectories in Cambodian Politics • 149
Women in Thai Politics • 173
9 Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza
Women and the Democracy Project: A Feminist Take on Women’s Political Participation in the Philippines • 210
10 Anula Attanayake
Elitism in Women’s Political Participation in Sri Lanka within a South Asian Context • 253
11 Kamal Uddin Ahmed
Women and Politics in Bangladesh • 276
12 Drude Dahlerup
Gender Quotas in Politics: Empowerment from Above or from Below? • 297
Index • 311
Tables
2.1 Socio-political data of countries with female political leadership
(as of 2004) • 28–29
2.2 Gender-related data of countries with female political leadership
(as of 2004) • 30
2.3 Biographical data of Asia’s female political leaders • 32–33
2.4 Electoral performance of top Asian woman politicians (in 2004) • 42
2.5 Female political representation in countries with elections
(in 2004) • 43
2.6 Female political representation according to ranking of
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) • 44
2.7 Parliamentary gender ratio in 1975 and 1998 (% of women) • 47
4.1 Percentage of women in the legislative Yuan in Taiwan • 82
4.2 Theoretical foundations • 87
4.3 Total frequencies of speeches in the 4th legislature in Taiwan • 92
4.6 Reasons for crime protection policies in Taiwan • 95
4.7 Reasons for foreign/military policies in Taiwan • 96
4.8 Reasons for economic policies in Taiwan • 97
4.9 Main reasons for speaking policies in the 4th Taiwan legislative
Yuan • 98
6.1 Number of eligible voters and actual votes during the previous
presidential elections • 133
6.2 Number of eligible voters and actual voters in the national assembly
elections • 134
6.3 Rate of females elected in previous elections • 136
6.4 Number of females elected in basic local assembly elections in 1991,
1995, 1998 and 2002 • 138
6.5 Number of females elected in Broad District Assembly elections in
1991, 1995, 1998 and 2002 • 138
6.6 Comparison of current and suggested electoral systems • 143
8.1 Bills initiated by both female and male legislators in the house of
representatives from the beginning of the Thaksin government to September 2003 • 186
9.1 Number of women in the Philippine senate and house of
representatives, 1946–1987 • 225
9.2 Women elected to public office: executive branch:
national • 226
9.3 Women elected to public office: legislative branch:
national • 226
9.4 Women elected to public office: executive and legislative positions
at the local government levels • 227
9.5 Data and women-related bills filed in the bicameral legislature:
comparison of the 11th and 12th congress • 232
9.6 Categories of women-related bills filed in the bicameral legislature:
summary between the 11th and 12th Congresses • 233
9.7 Tabulation of women-related legislations passed into law: from the 8th
to the 12th Congresses, by categories • 235
10.3 Woman’s political participation by country • 266
10.4 GDI and GEM rates in South Asia • 267
11.1 Women in national parliaments in selected countries • 282
11.2 Elected women’s members to the Bangladesh parliament
(1973–2003) • 286
11.3 Elected women chairpersons to the Union Parishad
of Bangladesh • 288
11.4 Female members in the party hierarchy of major parties
in Bangladesh • 290
12.1 The top of the world rank order: parliaments with more
than 30 per cent women • 307
Figures
2.1 Women presidents and prime ministers by region
(1994–2004) • 26
2.2 Women presidents and prime ministers by development level
(1945–2004) • 27
9.1 Trending of Filipino voters’ turnout rates by sex
(1947–2001) • 224
9.2 Trending of women elected to public office:
bicameral legislature • 226
9.3 Trending women elected to public office: executive and legislative
positions at the local government levels • 228
9.4 Trending of women elected to public office: executive and legislative
branches: national and local elections, 1987–2004 • 230
9.5 Women in national legislature vis á vis pro-women laws:
ACWF All-China Women’s Federation
ADB Asian Development Bank
AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
AL Awami League
AMEND Alliance of Migrant Workers and Advocates to Amend RA
8042
ARMM Autonomous Region of Muslims Mindanao
ASG Abu Sayyaf Group
AWARE Alliance of Women for Action towards Reconciliation
AWIT Association of Women in Theology
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BNP Bangladesh Nationalist Party
BNWLA Bangladesh National Women’s Lawyer Association
BPFA Beijing Platform for Action
CAR Cordillera Administrative Region
CCP Communist Party of China
CEDAW Convention Against the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CLD Center for Legislative Development
COMELEC Commission on Elections
CORIS Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Online
Research and Information System
CPK Cambodia’s Communist Party
CPP Cambodian People’s Party
CWR Center for Women’s Resources
DK Democratic Kampuchea
DP Democratic Party
DPP Democratic Progressive Party
DVD Digital Video Disc
EDSA Epifanio de los Santos Avenue
EO Executive Order
EPZ Export Processing Zones
EU European Union
FHI Freedom House Index
PFP People First Party
FPTP First past the post
FUNCINPEC National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia
GABRIELA General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Equality,
Leadership and Action
GAD Gender and Development
GB Great Britain
GDI Gender Development Index
GEM Gender Empowerment Measure
GLAD Gretchen’s Ladies Auxiliary for Danding
GLOW Gloria’s League of Women
GOBD Government of Bangladesh
GRDI Gender Related Development Index
HDI Human Development Index
HDR Human Development Report
HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
IDEA International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance
ILO International Labour Organization
IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union
JCP Japanese Communist Party
JI Jamat-e-Islami
JVP People’s Liberation Front
KMT Kuomintang
KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute
KWVC Khmer Women’s Voice Center
LDP Liberal Democratic Party
LICHADO The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of
Human Rights
LSSP Lanka Sama Samaja Party
MILF Moro Islamic Front
MMDA Metro Manila Development Authority
MP Member of Parliament
NCRFW National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women
NDF National Democratic Front
NGO Non-governmental Organization
NIAS Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
NP New Party
NPA New People’s Army
NPC National People’s Congress
NSCB National Statistical Coordination Board
OAWISS Institute of East Asian Studies
OWL Osmena’s Women’s League
PDIP Party of Democratic Struggle
PPGD Philippine Plan for Gender Responsive Development
PPP Pakistan’s People Party
PPRC Power and Participation Research Centre
PR Proportional Representation
PRK People’s Republic of Kampuchea
ROC Republic of China
SHD Sustainable Human Development
SIDA Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation
SLFP Sri Lanka Freedom Party
SNTV Single non-transferable vote
SPAN Solidarity Philippine and Australia Network
SRP Sam Rainsy Party
TAO Tambon Administrative Organizations
UK United Kingdom
UMNO United Malays National Organization
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women
UNP United National Party
UNRISD United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia
UP Union Parishad
US United States
WID Women in Development
WMC Women’s Association of Cambodia
WMC Women’s Media Center of Cambodia
Kamal Uddin Ahmed is Professor of Political Science at the University of Dhaka,
Bangladesh. He has also held teaching and research positions in America, Australia, and Japan. Dr Ahmed has to his credit more than 35 publications in different journals and edited books around the world. His areas of research include politics in Bangladesh, the political economy of South and South East Asia, public policy issues, poverty and development, democratization, human rights, and the empowerment of women.
Anula Attanayake is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in History at the University
of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. She has written on women and politics in Sri Lanka and her research interests include women’s political participation, ethnicity and identity in South Asia.
Lichun Chiang is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National Cheng
Kung University, Taiwan. She received her PhD from the University of Southern California. She has written on the theme of gender and politics in Taiwan. Her research interests include feminist theory, women as agents of change and political participation.
Drude Dahlerup is Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. She has
published extensively on women in politics, the history of the women’s movements and feminist theory, e.g. The Redstockings: The Development, Newthinking and
Impact of the Danish Redstocking Movement 1970–1985 (2 vols, 1998, in Danish).
She is Editor of The New Women’s Movement: Feminism and Political Power in
Europe and the USA (1986). In her present research project she compares the use
of electoral gender quotas all over the world, see Dahlerup (ed.): Women, Quotas
and Politics (2006). See also ‘Quotas as a Fast Track to Equal Representation for
Women’ (with Lenita Freidenvall), pp. 26–48 in International Feminist Journal
Andrea Fleschenberg was until recently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Political
Science/East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and lecturer in comparative politics at the Universities of Duisburg-Essen and Cologne. She is currently research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Hildesheim, and was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore (Pakistan) in 2007. She has written ex-tensively on the theme of Asian women in politics. Her recent publications in-clude ‘Universal, free and fair? – Gender and Elections’ (in German), in Heberer and Derichs (eds), Wahlen und Wahlsysteme [Elections and Election Systems] (forthcoming); ‘Political Empowerment of Women in Asia’, in Dharam Pal Singh and Manjit Singh (eds), Women and Empowerment: Experiences from some Asian
Countries (2005)
Jude Howell is Professor at the Social Policy Department as well as Director of the
Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her main research interests include civil society and governance, civil society/ state relations, politics of policy-making, politics of international development policy and practice, anti-poverty policy, gender and political participation. Her country experience includes China, India, Mozambique and Central Asia. Her recent publications include Gender and Civil Society with Diane Mulligan (ed.) (2004), and Governance in China (ed.) (2003).
Kazuki Iwanaga is a political scientist specializing in gender and politics in Asia.
He teaches political science and international relations at Halmstad University, Sweden. He was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Political Science at Thammasat University, Bangkok, 2002. He is the editor of Women and Politics in
Thailand: Continuity and Change (2007) and he is one of the co-editors to Gender Politics in Asia (2007). He was one of the organizers of the First International
Conference on Women and Politics in Asia at Halmstad University in Sweden, 2003.
Trudy Jacobsen is a Research Fellow at the School of Political and Social Inquiry,
Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Monash Asian Institutite, Monash University, Australia, having previously taught Asian history and culture at the University of Queensland. Her PhD thesis, an analysis of women and power in Cambodia from the earliest historical period to the present day, has re-evaluated traditional theories of the role of women in Cambodian political legitimation and religion. She was a Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies Visiting Fellow
in 2004, further developing and refining projects on Indonesian governance reform, the role of Buddhism in democratization processes, and gender issues in mainland Southeast Asia.
Won-Hong Kim is Director of the Law and Politics Research Department at the
Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI). He also teaches at Konkuk University, Yonsei University and Incheon University. He has published extensively in the field of women and politics in Korea. His research interests include gender and politics, women and civil servants, women and political leadership, and women’s role in the reunification between North Korea and South Korea.
Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza is Associate Professor at Miriam College, Philippines.
She is also faculty associate at the Women and Politics, Women and Gender Institute. She has published in various academic journals on gender and politics. She also teaches politics and governance, and gender studies/politics at Ateneo De Manila University, Philippines.
This volume is the offspring of an international conference entitled ‘Women and Politics in Asia’ which was held in June 2003 at Halmstad University in Sweden. The conference was remarkable for bringing together many leading scholars and practitioners committed to this topic from various parts of the world. The Conference was coordinated by four Scandinavian institutions: Halmstad University, Lund University, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) and the Institute of Asian Studies at Göteborg University. The contributors to this book are scholars who either live and work in Asia or have spent long periods in Asia doing research. The papers were carefully screened in order to suit the topic’s – women’s political participation and representation in Asia – before being selected for the volume. Since the time of the conference, authors have revised and expanded their papers several times and updated their essays in order to reflect recent developments. Additional essays were eventually recruited in the later stages of the book project in order to complement the gaps and were also reviewed and edited and brought up to date.
As is the case with many international projects involving the collaboration and cooperation of members from different countries, this book project has taken several years to complete. The authors have shown patience and graciousness in the face of delays and repeated requests for revisions. Of course, a book project of this magnitude would not be possible without the contributions of a number of individuals and organizations. I am particularly grateful for the financial support of the conference that laid the foundation for this volume and would like to express my gratitude to the Swedish Research Council, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation (SIDA), NIAS – the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University, and Halmstad University for their generous contributions. I have also been fortunate enough to enjoy research assistance from the talented April Vuorjärvi and Matilde Johansson. I thank them for not only proofreading
the chapters with great sensitivity but also for their suggestions concerning the improvement of the texts. I would also like to acknowledge Gerald Jackson and Leena Höskuldsson of NIAS Press who have provided continuous encouragement and editorial support.
introduction
women and politics in asia:
a comparative perspective
Kazuki Iwanaga
As in other regions of the world, Asian women in politics represent somewhat of a paradox. While constituting approximately half the population, women hold only a fraction of both appointive and elective political offices within various levels of government. Women as a group have consolidated enormous voting power in recent years, but have been simultaneously disenfranchised with regard to political representation. This begs the question of why women are grossly under-represented at all levels of government in Asia in an era when democracy as a system of government has been spreading worldwide. This volume is an attempt to provide a range of possible answers to this question from a number of competing perspectives. It seeks to unravel some of the major issues confronting scholars and political leaders alike in Asia at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It also explores the various aspects of continuity and change in women’s political participation and representation in Asia.
Asia is a vast and diverse region covering dozens of countries and a multitude of societies, political systems and varying stages of democracy and socioeconomic development. For the purposes of this volume, the term ‘Asia’ stands for what is commonly known as East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Women in Asia received the right to vote and stand for election much later than women of industrial democracies. Only three Asian countries had enacted female suffrage before the start of World War II, when most European countries and the United States had enfranchised women in the years soon after the First World War. Sri Lanka was the first nation in Asia to allow women to vote in 1931, followed by Thailand in 1932 and Myanmar in 1935. Despite some progress, women’s political representation continues to lag behind in most of Asia. Even in the most affluent Asian societies (e.g., Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and
Malaysia) where women have been remarkably successful in higher educational institutions and professional occupations, there has only been slow, incremental progress for women in politics. By contrast, the proportion of women in parliaments in some poorer nations in Asia, such as Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, China, and the Philippines, is much higher. This may be due to the use of various affirmative action policies that promote women’s parliamentary representation, in such forms as the quota or reserved seat system, ideological commitments to gender equality, or the promotion of a more egalitarian political culture.
Although a tiny elite of highly educated women in Asia have achieved the highest positions in governments, the majority of women by contrast have been typically marginalized from participating in mainstream politics. The glass ceil-ing appears to remain intact for the vast majority of Asian women in politics despite the fact that Asia as a whole has been undergoing a period of rapid socio-economic changes and political restructuring over the past two decades. Years of rapid socioeconomic developments in Asia have not fundamentally changed the political situation of women in many Asian societies and many obstacles continue to prevent women from entering public office. A number of factors, including religious and other cultural variables, impose limits on women in Asia and determine the amount of political opportunities available to them. This vol-ume reveals that the political status of women in Asia is anything but uniform and that women’s opportunities vary considerably from country to country. It is additionally the case that some countries have advanced faster than others in terms of women’s political representation. Factors accounting for variations in women’s representation in long-established democracies of Western Europe and the United States have long been examined and understood while such ar-ticulations of women’s political representation in developing countries have been somewhat neglected. Research in this field remains at this time inconclusive, although the authors in this volume employ a variety of approaches, each with a different focus of analysis, that suggest several possibilities. One explanation lies in the political culture of individual countries. Another acknowledges that it is exceptionally difficult for women to break into public office due to their lower socioeconomic, occupational, and educational position in society in addition to the heavy burden of family responsibilities and lack of child care.
Although the number of women holding office at various levels of government has increased incrementally since the very low rates of female participation in the 1960s, Asia has experienced among the slowest rates of growth in women’s representation of all the world regions. The overall percentage of women members of parliament in 2005 in Asia is just slightly above that of 1995 –
between 1995 and 2005, the proportion of female members of parliament in the world increased from 13.8 per cent to 15.7 per cent. If this incremental trend persists, it will most probably take a few more decades before women in many Asian societies reach the levels of representation recorded in Northern Europe. As the Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union stated: ‘(…) we will have to wait until 2025 for women’s overall representation in parliament to reach the critical mass of 30 per cent and until 2040 to achieve gender parity’ (cited in Inter-Parliamentary Union, Press Release 2005).
One of the most important questions for Asian countries is whether women should be empowered by adopting the so-called incremental track model as described in Dahlerup’s chapter in this book. The incremental track model is a gradualist approach in attaining gender equality in political representation which is frequently used in the Nordic countries and many established democracies of the West. One may alternatively adopt the fast track model, which enlists various forms of gender quotas to foster the empowerment of women. In another work, Dahlerup argued that the Nordic experience should not serve as a model for increasing women’s political representation since it took 80 years to progress from having no women in parliament to the number of women that are represented today, and as she urgently points out ‘(…) the women of the world are not willing to wait that long’ (Dahlerup 2002: 10).
The literature on politics and women suggests at least two major perspectives on political representation, namely, the descriptive and substantive perspectives. According to the descriptive perspective, electing more women serves a symbolic purpose of gender equality and, moreover, a greater legitimacy is rendered to the political system. By far, most parliaments in the world draw disproportionately from the male population of societies, which reflects nowhere near all the electorate. The descriptive approach argues for increasing women’s representation in legislative bodies so that it better reflects their proportion in society. An overwhelming body of existing studies on women and politics primarily deals with the descriptive and numerical representation of women in politics in established democracies of the West. Research done over the last three decades has given us a wealth of information about women’s representation, offering various models of women’s representation in legislative bodies. Does this mean that theories developed in the West can assist us in understanding the various obstacles facing women in the developing world? Both the causes of under-representation and the variations in representation of women are numerous and complex. Hence, the complexity of this phenomenon makes it particularly difficult, if not impossible, to provide a comprehensive account of all the factors underlying women’s
under-representation. One researcher argues that ‘(…) [in] the developing world, none of the variables found significant among established democracies, nor several other plausible variables, are found to have a consistent effect’(Matland, 2002: 6). It appears that in order to have an overall effect on women’s representation, a country must attain a certain level of socioeconomic and political development if the factors that facilitate women’s entry into political life in Western countries are to have an effect in lesser-developed countries. As Matland (2002: 6) argues:
A country’s level of development appears to be one of the most important features of society bearing upon levels of women’s representation in national legislative assemblies. Development leads to a weakening of traditional values, increased urbanization, greater education and labour force participation for women and attitudinal changes in perceptions regarding the appropriate role for women – all factors that increase women’s political resources and decrease existing barriers to political activity.
In recent years, a number of studies on women and politics have begun to prioritize the substantive representation of women, adding to the scholarly literature of the field (Norris and Lovenduski 1995, Norris 1996). The substantive perspective argues that a growth of women’s representation in parliament would make a substantive difference due to the fact that women and men carry different experiences and priorities when considering political issues. It is considered important to incorporate women’s interests and perspectives since they may espouse political issues that are either marginalized or excluded in legislative bodies that are dominated by men. As the numbers of women in elective office increase, so does the anticipation that these increases will imply important policy ramifications. One key question is whether women’s increased presence in national legislatures would result in improved representation of women’s interests and policy areas which are of direct concern to women. It is often assumed that having more women in elected office produces more women-friendly policies. When the number of women elected to legislature rises beyond token levels, it is expected that women politicians will generally place more emphasis on ‘women’s issues’.
It is crucial to investigate whether female legislators act as agents of change within the national legislatures they serve and if the increased presence of women has transformed the legislative agenda due to female legislators paying greater attention to women’s interest areas than their male colleagues. Research in this area, however, has been done almost exclusively in advanced industrialized democracies with little, if any, attention paid towards Asia. Norris and Lovenduski argue that when the proportion of women elected to national assemblies increases
beyond a certain threshold, the consequence will be a feminized transformation of politics, or in their words, ‘(…) a transformation in the institutional culture, political discourse, and policy agenda’ (2001: 3).
In contrast to the proliferation of studies examining women and politics in advanced industrialized democracies, there has been relatively little written specifically about women’s empowerment and political representation in less developed countries in both descriptive and substantive terms. Generally speaking, the scarcity of women in national parliaments in the world makes it difficult to assess the policy impact of electing women. It is even more difficult to assess the impact of women’s presence in politics on the political systems in Asia because of the small number of women legislators. Consequently, empirical studies on this subject matter are rare. Researchers argue that it is not until women move from being a small minority to a large one in legislative assemblies that women can make a real difference (Kanter, 1977; Dahlerup, 1988; Thomas, 1994). As long as female legislators continue to be reduced to mere tokens in male-dominated politics unaccustomed to women’s presence, it may be progressively difficult for women to have any distinctive or gendered impact on legislation.
The numerical presence of women presumes that women legislators will produce political perspectives and issues that are poorly represented. The presumption of female legislators acting on the behalf of women, or representing women’s interests, forms an essential part of arguments in favor of the equal presence of women and men in political bodies, and the legislature in particular. The substantive representation of women’s interests implies that female politicians have a gendered awareness that influences them to act accordingly in specific ways. Can we assume that women politicians have a shared experience and perspective that unites them based on their gender? There are various differences among women politicians that may be found according to ideological, ethnic, religious, economic, social, and other differences. There are women politicians who deny gender as a factor in shaping their priorities in policy issues and instead point to other important factors such as party policy and party discipline that have more influence on their political decision-making. In addition, there are male politicians who also advance women’s interests and form alliances with women politicians in order to promote the interests of women. In order to understand the question of whether women do represent women’s interests, it is important not to neglect the understanding that women politicians represent various differences among women although they share the same gender.
This volume reflects at minimum these two perspectives in regard to women’s political representation. The three chapters written by Lichun Chiang on Taiwan,
Kazuki Iwanaga on Thailand, and Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza on the Philippines focus wholly or partly on the impact women have on public policy and the vari-ous contexts in which women shape and influence politics. These chapters seem to suggest that, although there is some evidence of gender differences, the impact of women politicians may be less evident in the Asian settings than in the Nordic countries and state legislatures in the United States and varies across political envi-ronments. The remainder of the book focuses primarily on women’s empowerment and political representation from a descriptive perspective.
Why are there so feW Women Politicians in asia?
Women who attempt to enter the political arena face considerable hurdles and the dearth of women in elected offices has been due to many factors. Extensive studies on this subject, conducted mainly in Western Europe and North America, point to the major obstacles facing women who desire to become politically engaged, which include the lack of ‘women-friendly’ electoral systems, a lack of active women’s organizations and female role models, a general lack of gender consciousness of gate keepers, especially within the political parties, and finally, women’s unwillingness to run for elective office. Although women in many societies may face similar obstacles, what is markedly different in Asia is the cultural context within which women can become politically active. The studies in this volume seem to indicate that the lack of a political culture supportive of women’s political involvement is strongly manifest in many societies in Asia.
the concePt of facilitators
In an attempt to grasp the features of women’s empowerment and legislative representation, the remaining part of this introductory chapter maps out a framework of various factors that influence women’s representation in national parliaments. A useful starting point for addressing the paucity of women politicians is to analyze factors that positively influence women’s participation and representation in politics by using the concept of facilitator (Iwanaga 1998). Facilitators refer to particular conditions and policies that facilitate women’s empowerment. The assumption is that in the absence of facilitators the progress of women’s advancement in politics will not take place or be slow, uneven or incremental at best. Facilitators can remove or reduce barriers that hinder women’s political participation. They can broadly be grouped into three major categories: institutional, contextual and individually oriented facilitators.
Institutional Facilitators
These concern the political structure of opportunities available to women and are dependent on the type of political and electoral system, the nature of the legal system, the role of the state, and the level of party competition in addition to other factors such as incumbency, turnover, and campaign finance. Correspondingly,
institutional facilitators can be subdivided further into legal, electoral, and political facilitators.
Contextual Facilitators
These refer to the broader context of the socioeconomic and cultural structure in which women’s participation and recruitment takes place and considers additionally the influences from the external environment that facilitate women’s participation in politics. Contextual facilitators in turn can be subdivided into three categories: international, socioeconomic, and cultural. Both institutional and contextual facilitators influence the structures of opportunities for female participation in political life.
Individually Oriented Facilitators
These have to do with the supply of potential candidates willing to run for elected office. Relevant here are the resources that various kinds of candidates bring to the recruitment process as well as the motivations of the aspirants. Such resources often include financial assets, educational qualifications, political and organizational connections, and party experience. Aspirants can be inspired by a sense of civic duty, i.e., some opt to run for office because they want to help the constituency or society. Individual motivations can also be influenced by family traditions and one’s political and career ambitions. Individual motivations can lastly be influenced by institutional and contextual settings (Norris 1997).
Obviously, some facilitators are more important than others for advancing the status of women in politics. Wilma Rule (1994: 16), for example, argues that the electoral system is ‘the single most important predictor of women’s recruitment to parliament’, which accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the variation in women’s electability. 60 per cent is attributable to political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors (Rule 1994: 16). Moreover, she claims that ‘favorable societal conditions will not substitute for unfavorable electoral systems relative to women reaching their optimum representation in parliament (...) [but] unfavorable contextual conditions can be overcome to a great extent by favorable electoral systems’ (ibid.: 16). Some researchers argue that cultural factors such as socialization and the dominant political culture in which politics is conducted are primarily
responsible for women’s (non)entry into elected office (Norris and Inglehart 2000, 2003). According to this school of thought, men and women are socialized to play different roles in society, with men in public life and women in the domestic sphere.
Legal Facilitators
These are concerned with the rules and regulations of a political system that are conducive to women’s entry into the political arena. In many developing countries, the legal rights of women have been quite restricted until recently and for many women their rights remain somewhat limited even today. In most countries, gender equality in various fields is guaranteed by the constitution and laws. For other countries, laws concerning equal rights and women’s concerns have facilitated the improvement of women’s political position. Reforms have been designed to increase opportunities for women in political representation and in the labor market and educational institutions, as well as to end sex discrimination. But in many cases, the gender equality of participation in public life is more an ideal than a reality and there lingers a gap between the recognition of formal rights and actual practice.
Recruitment of individuals into elective office is a legal mechanism in most countries which filters those who are eligible to stand for elections. Legal eligibility is one of the basic democratic rights such as the right to vote and the right to stand for election. Legal requirements for eligibility for candidates may include nationality, age, residence, education, and holding public office. After the enfranchisement of women, such formal requirements have appeared not to present barriers to women desiring to run for office in most political systems, and therefore do not seem to work to the disadvantage of women relative to men (Norris, 1996). How do the formal rules of eligibility affect women in Asian countries? The legal eligibility requirements are often the same for men and women, and therefore do not explain the paucity of women politicians and leaders. The informal rules and norms, on the other hand, may present severe obstacles, given the lamentable social and economic position of women in many countries in Asia. Political, electoral, socioeconomic, cultural, and other factors may limit the nature and extent of women’s political engagement, constitutional safeguards and legal gains notwithstanding.
Electoral Facilitators
These concern the role of electoral systems in facilitating women’s legislative recruitment. They include the types and rules of electoral systems as well as the
district magnitude, i.e., the number of seats to be filled in a district at an election. Does the electoral system have an impact on the structure of opportunities for women’s representation? In much of the women and politics literature, women are more likely to be elected in proportional representation (PR) systems than in single-member majoritarian systems. However, the relationship between the type of electoral system and female representation is not automatic. Proportional representation is not sufficient by itself to ensure a higher proportion of women to be elected. A number of countries using the PR system have smaller percentages of women legislators than those countries which have a single-member majoritarian system. Some majoritarian systems, such as Canada and Australia, have produced more women parliamentarians than PR systems in Belgium, Israel and Malta. Moreover, open-list PR systems, where voters are able to alter the ordered party list through their votes, appear to be more women-friendly than closed-list systems where voters are unable to make such a preference (Shugart, 1994; Reynolds, 1999). Although the electoral system by itself does not guarantee women’s representation, it recurrently functions as a facilitator for the entry of women into elected office. Interestingly, some scholars argue that PR systems do not have an immediate effect on women’s representation in less-developed countries (Reynolds, 1999; Matland, 2002). It is contended that women in less-developed countries are not sufficiently well organized to take advantage of certain electoral systems: ‘If the forces interested in women’s representation are not effectively organized, then the electoral system is expected to have only limited effect’ (Matland, 2002: 10). In European democracies, the difference in women’s representation in parliaments between the proportional systems and majoritarian systems was relatively small until the 1970s, but the difference has subsequently widened (Matland, 2002: 10). In mixed systems that combine proportional and majoritarian elements, as found in elections to the House of Representatives in the Japanese Diet and the German Bundestag, we discover that a higher proportion of women get elected via party lists rather than through single member districts.
Political Facilitators
These refer to the level of democratization and the commitment of the state and political parties to the advancement of women in political life. The literature on women’s political participation presents inconclusive and inconsistent findings on the role of democracy in facilitating women’s political representation. One cross-national study found that the level of democratization had no significant impact on the numbers of women in parliaments: ‘Democracy in itself is not necessarily
a precursor to the presence of substantial numbers of women in political life’ (Reynolds, 1999). Karvonen and Selle (1995) have stressed the role of the state in the enhancement of women’s political position in the Nordic countries. In the Nordic countries, the state has facilitated the political mobilization of women by enacting and implementing a continuous flow of reforms, first with social and family policies and then with gender-equality legislation enacted in recent decades. Political facilitators also include the promotion of women by political parties, the introduction of mandatory gender quotas, and the existence of party competition. One way of increasing women’s presence in politics is through the use of quotas such as constitutional, electoral or political party quotas that ensure women’s access to decision-making institutions. There is a consensus among scholars that gender-based quotas can have a positive and great impact on the number of women represented. Quota systems have been viewed as one of the most effective and expeditious affirmative action policies in increasing women’s participation and representation in both elective and appointive positions in public office. Unfavorable socioeconomic and cultural conditions are overcome to a great extent by quotas of various kinds. The increase in the numbers of women in political decision-making positions may result in raising women’s agendas to a higher priority level. One can anticipate that the political agenda will broaden and include issues previously ignored by male-dominated policymaking bodies when ample women are in public office. An increasing number of countries have adopted various types of quota systems to increase women’s representation on various grounds. As Dahlerup mentions in her chapter, about 40 countries in the world have already introduced some form of gender quota or reserved seat system. If this trend continues, the makeup of both local offices and national legislatures will undoubtedly change significantly with a great impact on leadership and approaches to political problems. In Rwanda women experienced tremendous progress thanks to the introduction of gender quotas, which increased women’s parliamentary representation by 23.1 percentage points up to a staggering 48.8 per cent, surpassing Sweden as the previous world record holder. Another good example is the case of South Africa, where quotas were enlisted during the first democratic election in 1994, producing a quantitative growth to about 30 per cent. South Korea also witnessed a leap in women’s representation from 5.9 to 13 per cent in just one election when the Political Party Law was reformed in 2004 to incorporate a quota for women.
During the last decade, an increasing number of Asian countries have jumped on the bandwagon of the worldwide ‘quota fever’ and have also introduced and implemented various forms of quotas to empower women. Some Asian countries
have even provided the earliest examples of quotas in the world with Pakistan imposing quotas in the 1950s and Bangladesh in the 1970s. Furthermore, different types of quotas have been applied to public office at various levels of government in the following countries in Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. Generally speaking, Asian countries have preferred to have their quota provisions legislated, rather than expecting political parties to implement their own informal party quotas, as is done in Western Europe and some countries from the African continent (Ballington and Bylesjö 2002). It should not mean that the introduction of quotas for women always brings about positive results, as the case of Bangladesh illustrates. As one analyst remarked on the experience of Bangladesh: ‘Instead of contributing to women’s political agency and autonomy, it accentuated their dependence in politics and reinforced their marginality’ (Chowdhury 2002). In respect to the Asian region, it is too soon to make a definite statement as to whether the recent introduction of quotas will produce an actual, qualitative empowerment of women or if it is mere window-dressing.
Some scholars argue that the nature of party competition within the parliament affects the number of women in elected office. Norris, for example, claims that increased party competition, with multiple parties competing for the national legislature combined with the growth of new parties, may provide increased opportunities for women to run for office as well as getting elected (Norris, 1993). Nevertheless, some scholars have reservations about this argument. Reynold’s worldwide comparative study demonstrates that systems with legislative assemblies dominated by a few strong parties tend to have a higher proportion of women elected than multi-party systems with a large number of parties, which ensures only a few seats to women candidates of each party (Reynolds, 1999). In other words, ‘high party fragmentation may well increase the number of women nominated as candidates, but to actually win seats the fragmentation needs to be lower’ (Reynolds, 1999: 553).
Cultural Facilitators
These are related to socialization, i.e. attitudes and expectations concerning the appropriate division of sex roles in the dominant culture in which politics is operated. Cross-national comparisons of the relationship between political culture and women’s political representation have been an important research focus in recent years. Some scholars, for instance, emphasize the significance that political culture plays in shaping attitudes toward women as political leaders. It has been suggested that whether attitudes toward women’s political leadership are egalitarian
or traditional will consequently affect the willingness of women to come forward as candidates for elective office, and additionally affect the criteria used by those who determine whether women are selected, which ultimately may influence
the proportion of women in legislative assemblies (Inglehart and Norris, 2003).
Nordic countries have a gender-egalitarian political culture which is particularly conducive to women’s participation in politics. According to comparative survey data from more than 70 societies representing more than 80 per cent of the world’s population, Inglehart and Norris (2003) found that statistically a significant relationship existed between public attitudes toward women’s political leadership and the proportion of women in parliament. They also found that societies with egalitarian political cultures were more likely to have a higher proportion of women in parliament. Their conclusion was that ‘traditional attitudes toward gender equality remain a major obstacle to the election of women to parliament’ (2003: 162). Much of available evidence tends to suggest that many traditional cultures in Asia are not conducive to women’s entry into the political arena.
Although cultural barriers to women’s advancement have often been said to be significant, it has nevertheless been difficult to test the relationship between culture and women’s participation and representation in politics. Cross-national empirical evidence has been scarce until quite recently and there is little agreement among scholars on how the relationship may be measured and tested, or of its actual effect on women’s advancement. The political culture of a country has been said to have an effect on what Norris and Lovenduski (1995) call the supply-side of the legislative recruitment process, i.e. whether women are prepared to run for office. Additionally affected is the demand side of the process, i.e., the attitudes of gatekeepers and voters regarding the suitability of candidates for elected office. If few women want to become candidates, then women will be scarcely represented in elected office. But even if women seek office, gatekeepers may not endorse them. One of the most important cultural factors offered to explain women’s under-representation in politics is the role of sex-role socialization. According to theories of socialization, women and men are socialized to accept the assignment of different kinds of gender roles in life. Women’s domestic roles are viewed as incompatible with the toughness and assertiveness that politics and political leadership require. These stereotypical attitudes influence whether women are prepared to run for elected office and frequently shape the criteria utilized by gatekeepers for evaluating potential candidates for office.
It should be noted here that traditional attitudes toward women’s political leadership have changed and continue to change as a result of societal modernization. This is particularly true of post-industrial societies, where the younger generation
is far more egalitarian than the older generation. However, in developing societies, the younger generation is equally traditional in their attitudes toward women in public office as their parents and grandparents are, displaying only a slight shift toward less traditional attitudes than the older generation (Inglehart and Norris, 2003. 143–144).
It is perhaps more common in Asian societies than in Western societies to see women and politics constructed as each other’s antithesis. In the political culture of individual states in Asia, politics is defined as a male realm and viewed as an arena of dishonesty in which politicians do not shy away from bribery, corruption, or even violence. Women as a whole are represented as symbols of innocence and moral superiority and have been stereotypically viewed as either more moral than men or ruled by emotion rather than reason, thereby not being suitable to participate in the public and political domains. Since women are viewed as more moral, they are deemed unfit for the ‘dirty’ world of politics, and they are additionally seen as being governed primarily by their emotions, deeming them unfit as political leaders. These particular stereotypes have contributed to the marginalization of women in politics and the acceptance of politics as an unusual place for women. This supposed antithesis between women and politics has a powerful influence on people’s attitudes and on women themselves in coming forward as candidates. At the same time, a growing number of women’s movements and organizations in Asia advocate women’s participation in politics due to their cleansing influence on politics.
Given that religion is an important source of value orientations, it can have a powerful impact on political culture and subsequently on women’s political participation and representation. In fact, it has long been assumed that religion plays an important role in influencing attitudes and practices regarding sex roles and gender inequality in the private and public spheres. A recent cross-national study by Inglehart and Norris, drawing on evidence from the World Values Surveys/European Values Surveys for 1995–2001, found that attitudes toward women as political leaders varied depending on different religions. Islam was found to be a specifically significant barrier to the rising tide of gender equality, including women’s political participation and representation (Inglehart and Norris, 2003). Moreover, by using multiple indicators of religiosity, they found significant contrasts in the strength of religiosity among countries in the world. According to their study, Asian societies such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India are among the most religious, while China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan emerge as the most secular, with Taiwan falling somewhere in between these two categories (Inglehart and Norris, 2003: 54). Reynolds hypothesized
that the proportion of women elected to office is lower in societies where the dominant religion is hostile to the advancement of women in the public sphere. This hypothesis was confirmed in his study of women in politics in 180 countries. Reynolds came to the conclusion that women’s political representation was higher in Christian countries than in non-Christian states (Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist and Judaic countries) (1999).
International Facilitators
These are inputs from the external environment that enter into a political system, contributing to women’s engagement in politics. Governments constantly respond to new conditions and opportunities provided by the external environment. They often change their gender policies in order to cope with international influences. The women’s movement and organizations that have emerged across the globe since the 1970s were to a great extent a response to the changes in the international environment. The UN Decade for Women (1976–85), for example, stimulated the establishment of many women’s organizations and networks worldwide. This in turn helped stimulate women’s political participation. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 rendered it possible for women’s organizations to focus on strategies that substantially increased female representation in decision-making positions. The Beijing Platform’s call for affirmative action measures, including the imposition of statutory quotas to address gender inequality has triggered the move by states to establish quotas for women in politics. Another source of international faciliators is represented by various international women’s organizations such as the South Asian Network for Political Empowerment of Women and the Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics. These organizations have focused on the issue of women in public decision-making and have promoted actions to bring more women into legislative bodies.
Socioeconomic Facilitators
These refer to social and economic conditions that create opportunities for wom-en’s active involvement in politics. Scholars point to the relationship between women’s representation in legislative assemblies on the one hand and the pro-portion of women’s participation in the labour force outside the home and the proportion of women college graduates on the other. One important dimension of socioeconomic facilitators is whether the eligibility pool for elective office is limited for women. Women most often have a lower socioeconomic status than men, and thus their occupational backgrounds are frequently not as well-suited
for political careers as those of men. Women are scarcely present in professional, administrative, and managerial jobs. Considering that the professional and occu-pational status of women has a significant impact on recruitment pools for elect-ed office, women’s lower socioeconomic, elect-educational, and occupational position consequently inhibits their political participation and representation. In develop-ing societies, women are severely limited in the eligibility pool from which politi-cal elites are drawn. Thus is formed one of the causes of under-representation of women in politics. Reynolds’ study of 180 countries shows that levels of women’s socioeconomic development, as measured by the United Nations Development Program’s Gender Related Development Index (GRDI), are positively related to the numbers of female parliamentarians (1999). However, it should be pointed out that levels of socioeconomic development are not necessary conditions for women’s electoral success (Inglehart and Norris, 2003: 131).
Matland (1998) discovered in his comparative study on women’s political representation in developed and developing countries that none of the variables found significant among established democracies (e.g., electoral systems, women’s participation in the labour force, women’s cultural position in society and the country’s level of development) had a statistically significant and consistent effect on women’s political representation in less developed countries. His study seems to indicate that a minimum level of socioeconomic development is needed in order to establish conditions favourable to women-friendly electoral systems and women’s participation in the labour force, which are often prerequisites for a growth in women’s political representation. Factors that contribute to women’s representation in developed countries are unlikely to have much impact on the representation of women in developing countries when below a minimum threshold (Matland, 1998). It is anticipated that women’s opportunities increase in societies where women’s movements or organizations that are committed to women’s representation are effectively organized and active. In contrast to many other facilitators, women’s organizations provide facilitating conditions for women’s empowerment from below, providing women with the skills, confidence and experience necessary for political activism in addition to an availability of resources that may be used to aid election campaigns.
Individually Oriented Facilitators or ‘Supply-side’ Facilitators
These concern factors that encourage women to run for office in the legislative recruitment process. If few women aspire to run for office because they lack ambition, self-esteem, financial resources or political experience, then it should come as no surprise that women are scarcely represented in politics. Many women
are restricted psychologically when they confront the border between the private and the public domain since they have been socialized by society to perceive their role according to gender norms. The stress involved in challenging cultural and societal norms often enough discourages women from entering the political arena and running for public office. Women’s restricted role in the private domain has prevented them from participating in the public arena on the same terms as men, which hinders women from obtaining valuable experiences that are frequently required for a political career. Lengthy political experience in participation at various levels in a party and in local politics and organizations is often required in order to gain approval as a candidate for local and national assemblies. Women do generally not have the necessary political network, political know-how, time or backing from home in order to devote themselves to political footwork. Poor self-esteem and lack of experience in public appearences are also mentioned as reasons why women do not want to run for office (Lovenduski and Norris 1993: 128; Kelber 1994: 48ff).
As for other individual-related factors, economic resources can play a deter-mining role, especially in countries with majority elections, where candidates are expected to create a profile for voters and have their own election organization. Election campaigns in countries with party elections, on the other hand, are often financed by the political parties and by state party support, which means that both women and men can enter elections without needing significant financial resources to run for office.
A ‘normal increase’ in female representation in national and local legislatures that is characterized by a low presence of the different facilitators (i.e., a change in the electoral system that is not accompanied by other facilitating policies, such as a party’s recruitment of women candidates) can be distinguished from an overall radical change in women’s representation, which is typified by a high presence of facilitators. Normal transitions usually reflect natural or passive adjustments to changing conditions that are inevitable considering overall changes in a society. Women’s representation in legislature tends to increase more quickly when there is an interdependence and relationship between the various types of facilitators than in cases of a low presence of facilitators. A drastic increase in the numbers of women running for public office and getting elected usually involves the conscious linking of different facilitators. One of the most effective and fast ways of facilitating higher levels of female representation appears to be the use of gender quotas, as previously mentioned.
A very high interdependence between facilitators has resulted in the ex-ceptionally high rates of women’s representation in Scandinavian legislatures
and cabinets. The rapid growth of women’s political participation in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland occurred between 1970 and the first parliamen-tary elections of the 1990s, when various facilitators helped to reinforce one an-other to expedite the pace of women’s advancement in politics. The governments in these countries have made considerable efforts over the past several decades to overcome barriers to female participation by reinforcing these facilitators. In the words of Karvonen and Selle (1995: 10): ‘(...) the increased women’s representa-tion in politics are to a decisive extent a result of conscious policies’. The Nordic countries seem to be exceptional. Many other polities have failed in their endea-vours to increase the political mobilization of women.
Identifying facilitators may shed some light on why women’s political represen-tation has progressed faster in some Asian countries than in others. The relative importance of various facilitators can vary from country to country since some facilitators may be more crucial than others. By studying the presence or absence of various facilitators and the relationship between them, one can understand more clearly the processes by which women’s representation in political life has increased or remained stagnant.
overvieW of the remaining chaPters
In this introductory chapter I have focused on the concept of facilitators in an attempt to grasp certain important aspects of the influences on women’s participation and representation in politics in a comparative perspective. The remaining chapters in this volume are less general and more specific. Unravelling the reasons behind the paucity of women politicians is a major focus of several chapters. Various chapters point to similar obstacles facing women who want to become politically involved: the need for electoral systems that advance women’s opportunities for election; gender consciousness of political parties; the existence of role models; and especially, women’s willingness to run for public office. In many parts of Asia, prejudices and traditional cultural values limit women’s participation in the political system.
Although the authors focus on women’s political participation and represen-tation, each has portrayed the problem in his or her country differently. The chapters are based on original research employing different approaches and methodologies, and offer varying interpretations of women’s empowerment and women’s representation.
In Chapter 2, Andrea Fleschenberg examines one of the striking features of women and politics in Asia, namely, the ability of a small elite of highly educated,
upper-class Asian women to obtain the highest political positions of the country, a record that is unmatched by other parts of the world. Despite having women leaders at the top, the glass ceiling remains very real for most Asian women in politics. This phenomenon is interesting when one takes into account the lamentable position of women in the Asian society as a whole. What kind of politicians are these women – roaring tigresses or tame kittens? Fleschenberg examines Asia’s women leaders in the context of gender, leadership, development, and political participation. For her analysis, Fleschenberg has selected Asian countries where women have been able to achieve the positions of president, prime minister, or main opposition leader: Bangladesh, Burma, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
In Chapter 3, Jude Howell looks at the various obstacles that contribute to women’s under-representation in politics in China. She begins with an overview of the nature and extent of women’s political participation in China. She then presents several key challenges facing women by highlighting the social processes and political culture as well as institutional and structural barriers to women’s representation. Finally, some of the opportunities for promoting women’s political participation are analyzed. She is quite optimistic about the potential growth of women’s political participation because there is not only an increasing awareness of the gender gap in political representation at all levels of party/government hierarchies, but primarily because the opportunities for influencing the political process in China are greater than ever before.
In Chapter 4, Lichun Chiang discusses women legislators as agents of change in Taiwan. The notion of politics as a male realm is being challenged by the increasing presence of female politicians in parliamentary politics. She demonstrates how women bring new perspectives that can influence public policy because of women’s special life experiences, and how consequently electing more women can lead to the changed substance of politics by virtue of the input of different perspectives on policy proposals. She provides evidence regarding the nature of the differences between female and male legislators. Her study shows that female legislators clearly show their policy preferences as different from male lawmakers so that, as a consequence, women’s presence in the Taiwanese Congress has had an impact on the legislative agenda. She argues that women serving in the national assembly have distinct policy priorities, particularly in the area of women’s issues. She has found that in comparison to men female legislators show a greater commitment to the pursuit of feminist initiatives and legislation incorporating issues of traditional concern to women, including wel-fare, health, and education.
