From Descriptive Representation To Substantive Representation : An Empirical Study On The Performance Of Female Npc In China

Since the first UN World Conference on Women,the representation of women in political decision-making bodies and their influence on political decision-making bodies have become increasingly prominent.Guaranteing the number and proportion of female representatives in the legislature is the basic premise to promote them to inject a female perspective into the construction of gender-sensitive parliament and fully represent the interests of voters.The Electoral Law of China also explicitly emphasized that the increase in the number and proportion of female representatives in people’s congresses at all levels should be ensured as an important indicator of gender equality in the field of political participation,so as to promote female representatives to actively perform their duties.Therefore,this paper first defines the representativeness of female representatives to the National People’s Congress by combining the representativeness theory and gender theory,and constructs two dimensions: descriptive representation and substantive representation.Then,Anhui Province,Yunnan Province and Jiangxi Province were selected to collect and sort out the basic information of 575 female representatives to the 13 th National People’s Congress(2018-2022),more than 2,600 proposals submitted and reports on the performance of their duties.With the help of the cases of three provinces,this paper attempts to analyze the following contents: In the dimension of descriptive representation,the change of the proportion of female representatives to the National People’s Congress in three provinces and its influencing factors;In the substantive dimension,the performance and influencing factors of female representatives to the National People’s Congress in the three provinces on general public issues,gender-sensitive issues and caring issues;Whether there are some influencing factors between descriptive representation and substantive representation,and how to integrate both the dimensions to promote the to promote the representation of women representatives to the National People’s Congress.Through the case study of three provinces,first,the author finds that gender quota policy,representative selection and recommendation system and gender equality culture are the important factors affecting the proportion of female representatives to the National People’s Congress in three provinces.Secondly,when studying the substantive behavior of women representatives to the National People’s Congress,the author finds that women representatives from three provinces not only can take care of the overall public interests,but also have outstanding performance in expressing the interests of women groups and vulnerable groups,in which their political identity,professional attributes and individual experience will affect their topic content expression and presentation.Finally,when analyzing the relationship between descriptive representation and substantive representation,individual attributes,conceptual cognition and external system will influence the transformation from descriptive representation to substantive representation.To sum up,this paper believes that in order to improve the performance of female representatives to the People’s Congress,we need to break through the traditional number theory,that is,we should pay attention to both the proportion of female representatives to the People’s Congress and the performance of female representatives to the People’s Congress.To improve the performance of female deputies to the People’s Congress on the whole,it is necessary to formulate appropriate gender quota policies based on the actual situation and full research.More attention should be paid to the individual attributes of deputies and the impact of external mechanisms on the substantive performance of their duties,so as to enrich the connotation of the performance of female deputies to the People’s Congress and highlight their political value.