Women's Leadership

Including women in local councils is strongly negatively associated with the prevalence of both petty and grand forms of corruption. This reduction in corruption is primarily experienced among women. A study suggests that female representatives seek to further two separate political agendas once they attain public office: 1) the improvement of public service delivery in sectors that tend to primarily benefit women, and 2) the breakup of male-dominated collusive networks.

Main points:

• Increased representation of women in elected office can reduce both petty and grand corruption. 
• Women in elected office reduce corruption both because they are risk averse and because they have a different political agenda than men.
• Women in elected office reduce petty corruption in their efforts to improve public service delivery and grand corruption because it is detrimental to their political careers. 
• Women in elected office reduce the rate of bribery for public services, particularly for women. 
• Donors can promote women’s representation and reduced corruption through supporting the anti-corruption agendas chosen by women.

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South Africa has made great strides in establishing a constitutional and legislative framework for building a participatory democracy. This paper seeks to explore the extent to which existing participatory mechanisms enable active participation by women in municipal processes, and possible alternative approaches and models to strengthen this. A gap in studies thus far reveals the need to examine to what extent current participation mechanisms accommodate equity issues by enabling marginalized or vulnerable groups to participate in governance, and women living in poverty, in particular. The paper commences with an assessment of the existing policy framework for public participation, and then – drawing on literature and case studies on approaches and models for strengthening women's participation – puts forward recommendations in this regard.

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Although Sri Lanka has 51% women, their participation in local governance as well as in the national parliament is 5% in total. The strong social development indicator of women in areas such as health and education has not translated into their increased political participation. As such, this study focuses on the level of women’s participation in local governance and explores why there is a low level of political participation of women in local governance. Both quantitative and qualitative methods comprising of questionnaire survey, interviews and focus group discussions were employed in this study. The findings show organized collective involvement of women was effective only in social welfare, livelihood and social security than political participation. The study also reveals that the low level of political participation by women is attributable to biological, economic, psychological, religious and political factors. Overall, it was found that although women are interested in participating in local governance, they have a lack of space for political participation.

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Women are underrepresented in most elected and appointed positions in local government in the United States. This essay details what we know about women’s representation in cities and counties, with a discussion of the factors associated with women’s higher or lower levels of representation. The effects of women’s lack of parity are then discussed including policy attitudes, the policy process, and policy outcomes. In sum, this essay organizes knowledge on women in local government, identifies gaps in what we know, and promotes future investigations to expand our knowledge of gender politics, local politics and governance, and public policy.

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Gender quotas have diffused rapidly around the globe in recent decades, suggesting widespread and dramatic transformations in women's access to political power. Yet, quotas often face serious challenges following their introduction, resulting in a gap between quota requirements and electoral outcomes. To explore these dynamics, this article develops a theoretical account of how and why political elites resist the changes called for by quota reforms. It argues that three tools predicated upon women's exclusion from the political sphere – false universalism and political principles, male power and political survival, and gender and leadership norms – are often mobilized to render quotas illegitimate, making resistance understandable and, indeed, even desirable on a host of grounds. The article then catalogues trends in resistance at different stages of the electoral process, integrating materials from case studies around the world – and exposing a wide range of strategies, often creative, to subvert the impact of quota policies. Adopting gender quotas may thus be only the beginning – rather than the end – of a long and contested process to empower women as political actors.

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The Second Annual Summer School for Young Leaders from African Political Parties took place in Kigali, Rwanda, on 6–8 June 2018. The overall theme was ‘Youth participation in political processes: emerging trends of the negative aspects of money in politics’.

The Summer School unfolded in a context that recognized that youth participation in politics, especially by young women, either in the form of direct representation in political structures or within less formal modes of political engagement, remains limited across Africa.

These low levels of active participation and influence by young people unfold in a situation where young people constitute a very large and growing proportion of the general population.

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