Cosponsorship in Women’s Issues in Turkish Parliament

Bill sponsorship and cosponsorship have become important part of parliamentary agenda setting activities in Turkish Parliament. In this paper, we examine the determinants of co-sponsorship activity in private member bills (PMBs). Most studies do not pay attention to the specific topic on which PMB’s is initiated. In this study we specifically focus on bills that target women as a constituency and consider whether the gender of primary sponsor matter for members of parliament (MPs) to cosponsor a women’s issue bill. We hypothesize that men will be more likely to cosponsor a bill if at least one of the primary sponsors is a man. We also test two other hypotheses based on general homophily model that expects MPs who are similar to each other are relatively likely to work together. We examine whether Turkish MPs are more likely to cosponsor PMBs when the primary sponsors are i) from the same party or ii) from the same district. Preliminary regression analysis reveal that Turkish parliamentarians are more likely to cosponsor women’s issues bills if the primary sponsor is from the same party.