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Pathways to Substantive Representation

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Pathways to Substantive Representation Women Representing Women?: Pathways to Substantive Representation Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Christina Vassiliki Xydias, A.B., M.A. Graduate Program in Political Science The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Goldie A. Shabad, Advisor Richard P. Gunther Pamela M. Paxton Copyright by Christina Vassiliki Xydias 2010 Abstract My dissertation uses the case of women in the Bundestag (Germany’s lower legislative house) to foreground the tension between liberal democratic conceptions of political representation and identity-based representation. Unlike previous research, which has focused on establishing that female legislators advocate for women at greater rates than their male colleagues, I focus on variation among women. I show that party affiliation’s contribution to the variation among female legislators’ attention to women’s interests is not as strong as previous research has found, once we account for parties’ varying conceptions of what these interests are. Instead, several social markers in the German context (motherhood and marriage) as well as generational differences (in the form of cohort effects) distinguish among female legislators and contribute to understanding who will be more likely to advocate for women. In establishing this argument, I use material from interviews with 54 female and male members of the Bundestag and biographical information about the 340 women in the Bundestag between 1998-2009, as well as original content analyses of party platforms and parliamentary debate transcripts from three legislative terms (composed of 360 speeches across 40 debates, addressing 21 laws, spanning 1998-2008). ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my grandmothers and great aunt, Vasiliki Xydia, Vera Gorman, and Ingrid Hanson. iii Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the love and indefatigable support of Brian Hauser. Ola kala! Thanks also to my parents for their love, high expectations, and multilingualism. I am also grateful to the numerous faculty who have encouraged and challenged me, with particular thanks to: Goldie Shabad, Richard Gunther, Pamela Paxton, Clarissa Hayward, Irfan Nooruddin, Ted Hopf, Michael Neblo, Kazimierz Slomczynski, Charles Call, and the late Alan Zuckerman. Finally, I wish to acknowledge a variety of friends, colleagues, and institutions whose kindnesses, insights, and assistance have contributed to this document and to my wellbeing: the salo(o)ners, 799/801 Dennison in all of its incarnations, Autumn Lockwood Payton, Deborah Friedes Galili, Elizabeth Allyn Smith, Ryan Kennedy, Joshua K. Dubrow, Amelia Pfeiffer, the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Program at Ohio State, the Mershon Center, Ohio State’s Office of International Programs, and the Political Science Department at Union College. iv Vita June 1999.....................................................Pittsford Sutherland High School May 2003.....................................................A.B. Political Science, Brown University December 2005 ............................................M.A. Political Science, The Ohio State University 2003-2004....................................................University Fellowship, The Ohio State University 2004-2006....................................................Graduate Research Associate, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University 2006-2009....................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University 2009-2010....................................................Adjunct Faculty, Political Science Department, Union College (Schenectady, NY) v Publications “Inviting More Women to the Party: Women’s Substantive Representation and Gender Quotas in Germany” International Journal of Sociology (Winter 2007) “Gender Differences and Egalitarianism in Poland” in ed. Kazimierz Slomczynski and Sandy Marquart-Pyatt Continuity and Change in Social Life: Structural and Psychological Adjustment in Poland IFiS: Warsaw (2007) Fields of Study Major Field: Political Science vi Table of Contents Abstract...........................................................................................................................ii Dedication......................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................iv Vita .................................................................................................................................v List of Tables ..................................................................................................................x List of Figures...............................................................................................................xii Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................1 The research problem ................................................................................................1 Women have rights as individuals and as a group of women....................................14 Women’s interests ...................................................................................................19 Case study: the Bundestag .......................................................................................27 Road map ................................................................................................................33 Chapter 2: Women’s Substantive Representation...........................................................37 Introduction.............................................................................................................37 What is to be explained: women’s substantive representation ..................................40 Connections between descriptive and substantive representation: political theory.........................................................................................................49 Connections between descriptive and substantive representation: mechanisms proposed by empirical studies..................................................................................55 Social markers.........................................................................................................64 Additional crucial variables .....................................................................................69 Age and cohort ..................................................................................................70 Party affiliation..................................................................................................73 District characteristics........................................................................................75 vii Women’s groups and movements.......................................................................78 Summary of hypotheses.....................................................................................80 Conclusion.........................................................................................................81 Chapter 3: Content and Contestation: Selected Social Markers in Germany...................83 Introduction.............................................................................................................83 Social markers: content and contestation..................................................................87 Legal-historical context ...........................................................................................91 Motherhood.............................................................................................................99 Being married........................................................................................................ 112 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 117 Chapter 4: Members of the Bundestag ‘Reading the Party Script’................................ 120 Introduction........................................................................................................... 120 Theoretical expectations ........................................................................................ 125 Party platforms: the language of women’s interests................................................ 128 Left.................................................................................................................. 130 Alliance90/Green Party.................................................................................... 132 Social Democratic Party (SPD)........................................................................ 134 Christian Democratic and Christian Social Unions (CDU and CSU) ................ 136 Free Democratic Party (FDP)........................................................................... 138 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 142 Within-party comparisons between female and male legislators............................. 146 Attitudes towards the existence and content of women’s interests .................... 146 Attitudes towards gender quotas ...................................................................... 158 Across-party comparisons among female legislators.............................................
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