In person icon Gendered Rules, Parties and Norms? Cabinet Appointments in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This panel explores the role of formal and informal rules, norms, and institutions in shaping women’s appointment to cabinets in various parliamentary democracies around the world. Most of the existing literature on cabinet formation focuses on the demographic and political backgrounds of ministerial appointments to test for factors that can help to explain when women are more (or less) likely to be selected. The starting point for this panel is that, while large-N studies indicate that patterns of ministerial recruitment may be gendered, they cannot tell us how the rules and norms of cabinet recruitment work to advantage or disadvantage women. By employing qualitative, small-N, and process-tracing approaches, the papers on this panel explore how the formal rules, informal norms, and common practices of ministerial selection vary across party and within countries over time in ways that create gendered patterns of cabinet appointments that facilitate or inhibit the appointment of women.