|
|
Occasional Paper Series | Visiting
Fellowships | Current Research
| Past Research
Our research aims to bring a critical feminist perspective to bear on
women's political and public participation in the UK and Ireland. Our
projects analyse women's presence in public office and women's voice in
decision making. We address emerging issues and questions about the status
and impact of political women and women in leadership positions. Our research
agenda places a special focus on the following themes:
- Devolution, constitutional change and women's political participation
- Public attitudes towards women in politics and public life
- Media representations of women in politcs
- Debates on political representation: gender sensitive or gender blind?
- Women in parliaments
Occasional
papers series
Dr Karen Ross, a former visiting professor with CAWP has edited a series
of occasional papers on women in politics by scholars from across the
globe. Abstracts of the papers, and the entire papers themselves, can
be found here. If you wish to submit a paper for consideration for
our series, please follow this link
for details.
Return
to top
Visiting Fellowships
We are also taking applications for visiting fellowships, available to
those who wish to study women and politics; further details are available
here.
Return to top
CURRENT RESEARCH
Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON)
Over the next five years, CAWP will participate in the integrated
project Reconstituting Democracy in Europe (RECON), funded by the
EU under the 6th Framework Programme. Led by the Arena Centre for European
Studies at the University of Oslo, this integrated project involves 20
partner institutions in 12 European countries.
RECON seeks to clarify whether democracy is possible under conditions
of pluralism, diversity and complex multilevel governance. To this end,
it will test three different options for the reconstitution of democracy
in the European context, assessing which approach is the most viable,
both in empirical and normative terms. Within this project, CAWP will
coordinate work package 4, entitled Justice, Democracy and Gender.
The core objective of this work package is three-fold:
- To explore the status of gender equality within the enlarged EU;
- To analyse and explain the differentiated impact of EU-gender policies
in the old and the new Member States; and
- To arrive at a normative assessment of gender equality measures in
relation to alternative notions of justice linked to the three models
of reconstituting democracy in Europe.
With regard to the empirical component, this work package will elaborate
and analyse the scope and the potential of EU's gender policy and its
various effects in the Member States focusing on the three chosen policy
areas:
- Women's representation in decision-making
- The gender pay gap and
- Gender based violence and trafficking in women.
Work on this part of the project will be carried out together with researchers
at two other partner institutions - the Arena Centre in Oslo and the Eötvös
Lórand University in Budapest - and in close co-operation with
other parts of RECON. For more information on this project, please visit
the RECON website at www.reconproject.eu
As part of our commitments to RECON, CAWP Director Prof. Yvonne Galligan
and Senior Research Fellow, Sara Clavero have published a paper entitled,
'Researching Gender Democracy in the EU: Challenges & Prospects'.
The paper outlines a research programme for the study of democracy in
the European Union (EU) from a gender perspective. It takes as its point
of departure the recent turn to deliberative democracy in the field of
EU studies, and more particularly, the claim that these theories can provide
a response to current debates on the problem of the democratic deficit
within this complex polity. The paper then discusses the relevance of
deliberative democracy to research on gender in the EU and the main challenges
that arise in trying to operationalise its main theoretical tenets. Drawing
on feminist revisions of deliberative democracy theory, as well as on
previous applications of these theories to empirical research, the paper
proposes a set of indicators that can be used for an assessment of gender
and democratic deliberation in this supranational arena. The full text
can be downloaded here.
Yvonne & Sara's second RECON working paper is entitled 'Assessing
Gender Democracy in the European Union: A Methodological Framework'. This
paper presents a methodological framework for assessing the quality of
democracy in the EU from a gender perspective. After describing the general
background to the development of this methodology, the paper discusses
a set of questions that need to be addressed in the course of this research.
These include: What do we exactly mean by 'gender democracy'? What are
the purposes of this assessment? How can we move from abstract concepts
such as 'gender democracy' to observable indicators? Once a set of indicators
has been derived, how should we use these in an assessment context? In
addressing these questions, the paper presents a variety of methodologies
that have been adopted in established assessments of democratic performance,
critically discussing their strengths and weaknesses as well as their
applicability for an assessment of gender and democracy. This survey exercise
exposes the complexities involved in the design and implementation of
a methodology for a gender-sensitive assessment of democracy and the difficult
choices encountered by the researchers at every step of the way. The full
text can be found here.
Yvonne & Sara have published an article in the Public Service Review:
European Union - Issue 17 which is based on their RECON research. Entitled
'Minding the Gap' the article examines how gender democracy is being supported
in Europe. The article can be accessed here.
Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP)
Over the next three years, CAWP will participate in the multinational
research project PIDOP, which is funded by the European Commission under
the Seventh Framework Programme. The project is examining the processes
which influence democratic ownership and participation in eight European
states - Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey
and the UK.
The project draws on the disciplines of Psychology, Politics, Sociology,
Anthropology, Social Policy and Education to examine macro-level contextual
factors (including historical, political, electoral, economic and policy
factors), proximal social factors (including familial, educational and
media factors) and psychological factors (including motivational, cognitive,
attitudinal and identity factors) which facilitate and/or inhibit civic
and political engagement and participation. As part of the project, a
multi-level process model of civic and political engagement and participation
is being constructed to explain how and why different forms and interpretations
of democratic ownership and participation develop or are hampered among
citizens living in different European countries and contexts.
Young people, women, minorities and migrants are being examined as four
specific groups at risk of political disengagement. The research is exploring
the differences as well as the overlap between civic and political engagement,
and both direct and representative participation.
Within this project, Prof. Yvonne Galligan will coordinate Work Package
3, which is formulating theoretically motivated research questions from
the perspective of political science for investigation in the empirical
work packages. It is also interpreting the findings which emerge from
those work packages at a theoretical level, the aim being to develop a
macro-level political theory of participation. For more information please
visit the PIDOP
website.
Return
to top
PAST RESEARCH
Independent Gender Equality Audit and Fianna Fail Gender Equality Action
Plan 2004-2014
In 2004 the Centre became independent consultants to the Steering Group
for Fianna Fail's Gender Equality Action Plan. The reports findings identify
a range of obstacles to women's more active political involvement in the
party- such as the lack of a support network for women considering political
careers, childcare issues and not being chosen for winnable seats. In
addition to attracting more women into Fianna Fail ranks, the party also
aims to have women comprising one third of all party officers at cumann,
comhairle ceanntair and comhairle Dail cheanntair levels by 2014. To view
the report pdf form click here>>>>Fianna
Fail Report
Joint projects
Along with the Institute of
Governance and partners in Italy and ten eastern and central European
countries, we are undertaking a study of women's participation and representation
in politics in EU candidate countries and how preparation for accession
may be influencing women's civic and political participation. This undertaking,
funded by the European Commission, is the most significant of CAWP's research
projects and will continue until 2005. More
details are available here.
We are also working with Uganda's Makerere University to improve affirmative
action programmes for women in politics in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia
and Eritrea. The major output is a regional publication, distributed in
the eight countries of East and Central Africa summarising best practice
and the pitfalls of affirmative action programmes in the region, and recommendations
for mainstreaming women into political decision making.
The women in parliaments project is an international study on women's
parliamentary presence in developed and emerging democracies jointly co-ordinated
by Dr Yvonne Galligan, Director of CAWP and Dr Manon Tremblay, Director
of the Research Centre on Women and Politics, University of Ottawa, Canada.
Women on corporate
boards
In addition to these projects dealing with women and politics, CAWP was
contracted by the International Women's Forum-Ireland to study women and
decision making in the corporate sector. The
important research publication "Women and Corporate Governance in
Ireland" was launched by Michael Buckley, CEO of AIB, on Thursday
22 January 2004 in the National Museum, Kildare Street, Dublin. While
surveys of women on corporate boards are carried out annually in the US
and the UK, this study is the first of its kind in Ireland. The report
includes results of benchmarking of the gender balance on Irish corporate
boards and a survey of board chairmen and women directors on barriers
to women's corporate progress and strategies for overcoming these. The
research was conducted by Prof. Yvonne Galligan, Director of CAWP. Report
in pdf here.
Other research
news
Bronagh Rice has carried out some research with young people in Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to gauge their perceptions of, and
explanations for the under-representation of women in politics in Ireland.
She has then analysed what these views and explanations mean for the future
of women's political participation. Her paper can be accessed here.
Closer to home, public attitudes in Northern Ireland towards women in
political participation and leadership (designed as a module in the Nothern
Ireland Life and Times survey) have been surveyed. The results of this
survey were published in March 2003. Press release
>>>>.
Return
to top.
|
