Accessing power in parliamentary democracies: Women and cabinet appointments in Western Europe, 1968-199

This study seeks to explain why women have been successful in accessing the highest echelons of political power in some parts of the world--notably Scandinavia--while remaining virtual absent from the centers of decision-making authority in others. This study focuses on the pinnacle of power in fifteen West European parliamentary democracies, cabinet ministries. In order to examine the factors that explain why women are or are not appointed, an original database was constructed of all cabinet appointments in these fifteen countries made between 1968 and 1992.;Cabinet ministries are appointed positions. Because most of the literature on women and recruitment focuses on elections, this work represents a significant departure in the study of women and politics. With that said, however, it is important to note that there are many ways that the electoral fate of women--as well as elections themselves--shape the likelihood that women will be appointed to cabinet ministries. In this study we note an electoral cycle of appointments such that women are much more likely to be appointed immediately following an election than during a midterm reshuffle. Analysis presented here suggests that this is a result of persistent patterns of tokenism.;Elections shape the likelihood of women being appointed in other ways as well. Because the vast majority of all cabinet ministers are recruited from among the ranks of parliamentarians, the number of women elected to national legislatures significantly defines the "pool of eligibles." However, one of the most interesting findings of this study is that the best predictor of how many women are appointed is not the number of women from the party or parties of government, as prior characterizations of the process of recruitment and promotion might suggest, but the number of women in the parliament as a whole. This suggests either that parties may be engaging in a process of competitive bidding for women's support by using the appointment of women to at least appear more egalitarian or that greater numbers of women in the parliament affect changes in intra-parliamentary dynamics in ways that allow the contributions of women to become more visible, effective, or valued (that is, because of the development of a critical mass). Both interpretations of this unlikely finding, however, suggest that women in Western Europe--regardless of party affiliation--have common interests, that all women benefit from more women (even women of different political affiliations) being elected.;Finally, many have suggested that the high levels of women in government in Scandinavia are the result of the egalitarian political culture. While not refuting that political culture may play a role in whether or not women have access to political office, this work suggests that there are strong reasons to suspect that there are also institutional reasons for women's presence or absence. By elaborating on the characterizations of the process of elite selection described by others, this work lays out a generalist-specialist continuum of institutional recruitment norms on which all cabinet systems can be placed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).