Accessing Power in New Democracies

Abstract

This article seeks to improve our understanding of how women are gaining access to political power in third wave democracies. I extend the study of factors that affect the supply of and demand for female cabinet ministers from Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe, analyzing twelve new democracies from 1992 to 2008. I find that a high percentage of women’s enrollment in higher education correlates not only with the high percentage of women appointed to ministerial positions but also with a higher rate of appointments to prestigious posts.

Keywords

cabinet appointments gender and the executive third wave democracies postcommunist Europe

While much work has been done to address women’s political representation in the legislative branch, the phenomenon of women gaining access to the executive branch has attracted much less attention. Only in the recent years, scholars have tried to fill in the knowledge gap and elucidate the patterns of women’s appointments to cabinets, especially outside of the established postindustrial democracies (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005, 2009; Jalalzai 2004, 2008; Krook and O’Brien 2012). The concept of representation itself has been challenged in this past decade in terms of “where,” “when,” and “how” it takes place (Celis et al. 2008; Mackay 2008; McBride and Mazur 2010; Weldon 2002), in turn shifting the attention to cabinet structures as powerful institutions. This new conceptualization of representation supports the idea that the increase of women in cabinet positions presents an opportunity for improving women’s representation in politics and increasing egalitarianism in formal political institutions. After all, representation is one of the main concerns in a democratic system of government.

New democracies in the twenty-first century have presented an interesting puzzle to explore when it comes to the appointment of marginalized groups to cabinet positions. Unlike the existing mature democracies in the postindustrial world, the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America have provided a brand new and a much more efficient path to power for women, defying the traditional way of entering politics through the electoral process. Less than 15 percent of female ministers in postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe have previously served as members of Parliament (MPs), suggesting that the legislature is not the main source of supply when it comes to appointing women to cabinet positions. In addition, as Figure 1 vividly illustrates, in the past five years, the growth rate of women ministers in Central and Eastern Europe is much higher than the steady and slow growth rate of women in Parliament. Therefore, assessing legislative patterns of women’s representation does not provide an accurate depiction of the dynamics of cabinet appointments in the new democracies. There is a need to locate women political actors outside of Parliament to fully understand their representation in politics and also to identify the new possibilities of accessing political power in developing democracies.

Figure 1.

The different growth patterns of women’s representation in Parliament and cabinets.

Central and Eastern Europe, unlike Western Europe (Reynolds 1999), is one of the regions that presents surprising evidence when it comes to women’s appointments to cabinet positions. In 2008, women in Central and Eastern Europe made up 19 percent of cabinet positions marking significant growth from 1992 when only 4.5 percent of ministers were female and even from 2000 when women occupied 8.2 percent of the ministerial posts. In some countries such as Estonia and Croatia, women have occupied 33 percent of cabinets in 2002 and 2005, respectively, setting new records for women’s presence in cabinet positions in the region. Not only have women in Central and Eastern Europe been appointed to cabinets in the postcommunist era, but also they have been in charge of highly prestigious ministries such as Foreign Affairs (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland), Defense (Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovenia), Interior (Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia), and Finance (Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia).

This article seeks to examine reasons behind the surge of women’s representation in cabinets in postcommunist Europe by assessing the conditions under which women join cabinets and the types of portfolios they receive. What factors contribute to the appointment of women to cabinet positions in the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe? More importantly, is this simply a regional phenomenon or does it have much broader relevance for the “third wave democracies” around the world? Regime transition occurs so rarely in regional patterns that most of the time we do not have the privilege to test hypotheses in different geographical settings. This study takes advantage of the existing work on Latin American democracies to extend the research to twelve countries in the Central and Eastern Europe region (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), with the goal of improving theoretical understanding of women’s appointments to cabinet positions. To draw cross-regional comparisons, this study also tests among others similar hypotheses that have been previously tested in the new Latin American democracies about supply and demand factors that may affect women’s representation in cabinets.¹ Existing comparative work has consistently drawn similarities between the two regions considering their comparable path to regime transition (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998; Waylen 1994, 2007). Both regions became part of what is known as “third wave democracies” (Huntington 1991) and have ever since been simultaneously analyzed in terms of outcomes and dynamics of transitional politics (Diamond 1999; Linz and Stepan 1996; Przeworski 1991). Do the same determinants of the appointment of women to cabinets such as time, percentage of women in Parliament, rate of education, and party ideology matter in postcommunist Europe as they do in Latin America?

In addition, this article goes beyond previous studies of ministerial appointments by testing institutional variables such as the type of governmental system and the role that an international organization such as the European Union (EU) plays in domestic politics. Central and Eastern Europe countries consist of both parliamentary and semipresidential systems, providing an excellent opportunity to examine the revolving question of the discipline on whether one system produces more democratic and egalitarian results than the other, in this case providing women with more opportunities to access political power.² Furthermore, the countries of the region have undergone a process of EU membership, which starts with aspiration and moves through candidacy, accession, and finally arriving to full membership. This study includes countries that have gone through each stage of membership as well as countries like Albania that are still aspirant and looking forward to candidacy. This provides an excellent opportunity to assess whether international organizations like the EU have an effect on increasing equality in domestic institutions and consequently improving the quality of democracy in the region.

The article is organized as follows. The first section briefly reviews prior research addressing the factors why leaders appoint women to cabinets to provide the basis for this study’s hypotheses. Following a description of the data, variables, and methods, I present the results of the statistical analysis. Finally, I sum up the main arguments and discuss this study’s broader implications.

Theoretical Approaches to Women and Cabinet Appointments

Cabinet appointments have been at the center of various studies examining the evolution of cabinet systems, the nature and characteristics of ministerial careers, and the recruitment of ministers to office (Blondel and Mueller-Rommel 1988, 1993, 2001; Blondel and Thiebault 1991; Laver and Shepsle 1996; Luebbert 1984; Rose 1987; Strom 1990; Woldendorp, Keman, and Budge 2000). However, until recently, only few studies have taken a particular approach to examine the appointment of women to cabinets and their careers (Borrelli 2002; Davis 1997; Kobayashi 2004; Reynolds 1999; Studlar and Moncrief 1999). The majority of studies examining women in cabinets have focused in well-established democracies, providing little variation for comparisons among regime types. Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson’s (2005) assessment of the factors behind the appointment of female ministers to cabinets remains the only cross-national regional analysis of up and coming democracies. They utilize the general recruitment model devised for Western European democracies (Norris 1987, 1997) to assess the supply and demand factors that may play a role in the appointment of female ministers to Latin American cabinets. The supply aspect of the recruitment refers primarily to the availability of possible qualified female politicians to be appointed to cabinets, while the demand component refers more to the formal rules of the game and the incentives for the selector to choose a woman versus a man for a cabinet post.

Figure 2.

The average percentage of women in cabinets (1992–2008) in Central and Eastern Europe.

This study, in a similar fashion to the one conducted in Latin America, adopts the recruitment model for various reasons. First, to draw cross-regional comparisons and confirm, refine, or reject hypotheses, it is necessary to construct a parallel model to the one tested in the new Latin American democracies. Second, the recruitment model allows for a direct comparison between the established Western democracies and the new Central and Eastern Europe democracies. Third, the model provides for the examination of both formal and informal structures within each domestic political framework and beyond, expanding our understanding of what matters when it comes to women’s representation in politics.

The Supply of Female Ministers

The supply of female ministers, as with the supply of viable electoral candidates, has to do with the availability and willingness of women to serve in public office that may depend on various socioeconomic factors. Education has been considered an important factor when it comes to supplying political parties with qualified candidates. Similarly, ministerial positions require a well-educated and experienced individual to serve in the cabinet (Davis 1997; Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2009). Thus, I expect that in cases when women have advanced education, they would be more likely to be appointed to cabinets and to receive more prestigious posts.

Another factor that is considered influential for women’s engagement in politics is their participation in the labor force. Some scholars have argued that when women work outside of home, they are more likely to become actively involved in politics and consequently more viable political actors (Kenworthy and Malamy 1999; Norris 1987). There has been some evidence demonstrating that participation in the labor force only has a positive impact in industrialized societies (Matland 1998), hence the case of Central and Eastern Europe is an interesting testing ground considering the communist legacy of high rates of labor participation. Thus, in general, we expect that as the percentage of women in the labor force increases, so will the number of women appointed to cabinets and the probability that they will receive a top-ranking post.

The presence of women in legislatures can also have an effect on the appointment of women to cabinet positions. Even though in postcommunist Europe, the Parliament does not serve as the main supplier of cabinet appointees, literature suggests that women legislators tend to act on behalf of women and pressure governments for more inclusion and equality even at the executive level (Carroll 2001; Childs 2001; Diaz 2005; Reingold 2000; Wängnerud 2000). Furthermore, the presence of women in Parliaments can have an indirect effect in changing the public perceptions and attitudes about women in power, making it not only acceptable but also perhaps appealing for leaders to appoint women to cabinets (Davis 1997). Therefore, we expect that when women’s presence in Parliament is higher, the probability that women will be appointed to cabinets and will receive high-prestige portfolios will also increase.

The Demand for Female Ministers

The demand for women ministers is determined by the political rules and dynamics that guide the appointments to cabinet posts as well as the incentives that may exist to encourage the prime minister to select a female minister over a just as well-qualified male contender. In terms of political dynamics, it is well known, at least in established postindustrial democracies that left-wing parties/coalitions are more likely to engage in actions that promote social justice, to support women friendly policies and to be represented by more women in politics (Beckwith 1985; Caul 1999; McBride and Mazur 2010; Norris 1987; Waylen 2007). This is a particularly interesting phenomenon to examine in Central and Eastern Europe because the left and right ideological divide in terms of issues such as equal representation has not been as clear-cut as in Western Europe (Vachudova and Hooghe 2009). Right-wing parties are the newly created ones and are always striving to portray themselves as more progressive and prodemocratic reform, consequently more likely to adopt equality measures than their well-established Western counterparts. Conversely, it is arguable that communist successor parties have more established structures and selection procedures as well as deeper roots in the electorate than some of the newer parties that can sometimes favor women (Waylen 2007). In addition, they may have modeled themselves after the social-democratic sister parties in Western Europe, having a higher proportion of women MPs than the other parties (Matland and Montgomery 2003). Therefore, we expect that when there is a left coalition in power, the probability that women will be appointed to cabinets and that they will receive prestigious posts will increase.

An additional demand factor that may affect the prime minister’s decision to appoint a woman to the cabinet may be the de facto electoral results. When a majority government is created, the prime minister has more discretion to reach out to marginalized groups for appointments, not fearing a vote of no confidence in Parliament. In postcommunist Europe, the existence of majority governments has been a rare phenomenon,³ as most cabinets have been constructed by wide coalitions and many times unstable minor governments have also been the norm. Moreover, in all new Central and Eastern Europe democracies examined here, the Parliament needs to approve a government with a vote of investiture, indicating the reliance of the prime minister on the Parliament. The survival of governments in the region depends on the confidence of Parliament (Krouwel 2003). We expect the probability that women will be appointed to cabinets and receive top ministerial posts to increase when the prime minister has a secure majority in Parliament.

A factor that needs to be taken into consideration in Central and Eastern Europe democracies, unlike in Latin America, is the different type of relationship that the president and the prime minister share with regard to cabinet formation. That relationship is partly determined by the constitution but practices can differ above and beyond what the constitution stipulates (Blondel 2007, 58). Unlike Latin American democracies, the Central and Eastern Europe region has had a mixture of parliamentary and semipresidential systems that have demonstrated different degrees of presidential authority on cabinet formation over time. In the early years of the postcommunist era, some presidents were more influential than others (Blondel 2007, 62; Protsyk 2005). Previous work has demonstrated that presidential systems in general are more likely to appoint women to cabinet positions for they do not fear losing the support of the legislature and therefore have more discretion when it comes to cabinet appointments (Blondel 1985). More particularly, semipresidential systems have been seen as more likely to enhance democratic values, because the president is directly elected and represents the society as a whole while the prime minister is appointed by the Parliament, which represents only a fragment of the electorate. Furthermore, the president is not reliant on the Parliament, which gives him or her more discretion to appoint individuals from marginalized groups. Thus, when the president plays a role in deciding the makeup of the cabinet, we expect the probability that a woman would be appointed to a cabinet position and receive a prestigious post to increase.

Effects of Time on the Demand for Women Ministers

There are reasons to suspect that women’s appointments to cabinets may be affected by time (Hughes and Paxton 2007; Paxton, Hughes, and Green 2006; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter 2010). It has been argued that we should expect the probability of women to be appointed to cabinets to increase because they have become visible in politics (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005). However, during the communist regime, Central and Eastern Europe women, even though symbolically, were present and visible in political life. Therefore, a measure referring to women’s visibility in politics would not provide any additional insight for understanding the patterns of women’s appointments to cabinet posts in the postcommunist time period. There may, however, be a time effect in terms of how popular it has become to appoint a woman to a cabinet position. Historical institutionalists refer to the choices made during the so-called “critical junctures” in history, leading to self-reinforcing path-dependent processes (Arthur 1988; Thelen and Steinmo 1992). Looking at the drastic upsurge that has taken place in postcommunist Europe with regard to the appointment of women to cabinets, it can be argued that after various successive cabinets comprised a solid percentage of women, a cabinet comprised solely of men was no longer an option, considering the possible costly consequences in the next electoral cycle. This may be specifically relevant in postcommunist Europe in the 1990s experiencing a period of regime transformation and state formation.

The transnational norms and expectations regarding women’s participation in politics have also changed over time. The international women’s movement has experienced rapid growth over time in size and strength (Berkovitch 1999; D’Itri 1999), illustrated by the wide participation of 180 countries at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. Transnational advocacy networks such as international women’s movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have worked hard for the past few decades to put pressure on international organizations such as the United Nations on issues of gender equality and political inclusion and to create a rapid institutionalization effect (Desai 2002; Htun 2003; Jaquette and Wolchik 1998; Mackie 2001; Paxton, Hughes, and Green 2006; True and Mintrom 2001).

The transnational feminist networks have played an important role in “norm emergence” theorized as the first step in the norm life cycle where norm entrepreneurs persuade relevant actors to question the “appropriateness” of a particular issue and to recast its common interpretation (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Indeed, actors within the international women’s movement have been able to globally institutionalize the issue of equal rights for men and women. The norm of women’s inclusion in politics has reached a “threshold point” where international organizations are now putting pressure on national governments to comply. These strong external pressures may undermine the usual cost–benefit analysis that leaders engage in when making political appointments as they have rapidly made it too costly not to appoint women to top governmental positions. Therefore, we expect that women in Central and Eastern Europe will reach a higher percentage in cabinets and gain access to prestigious posts over time as a result of institutionalization dynamics.

In time, we expect that as societies become overall more educated and developed, they will also become more acceptable of women in positions of power (Studlar and Moncrief 1997). By looking at data from World Values Survey, the percentage of Central and Eastern Europeans that strongly agree with the statement that “men make better political leaders than women do” dropped from 26 percent in 1998 to 12 percent in 2008, suggesting a considerable shift in public perceptions of women in positions of leadership over time.⁴ Thus, we expect that as the overall development level in the society increases, so will the probability that women will be appointed to cabinets.

An additional component that may affect the demand for women in cabinets across time is the degree of regime maturity. The more evolved the democracy, the more likely it is to have established egalitarian political institutions as well as to provide more opportunities for women to participate in politics (Matland and Montgomery 2003). The expansion of political rights may allow women greater access to political power (Paxton and Hughes 2007). The new Central and Eastern Europe democracies demonstrated divergent trajectories during the period of regime transition, with some achieving better quality of democracy much faster than others. Therefore, we expect that the better the quality of democracy, the higher the odds that women would be appointed to cabinets and access high-prestige posts.

In Central and Eastern Europe besides the general pressure coming from the United Nation’s efforts to increase women’s active participation in politics, there has been an even more distinctive pressure for equality coming from the EU. The EU set specific membership conditions for Central and Eastern Europe countries at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 with the first one requiring the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities (Grabbe 2006). Therefore, women’s rights as part of human rights would be guaranteed if a country were to gain membership. Thus, we would expect the new EU member states to fare better in terms of women’s appointments to cabinets than candidate or aspirant countries considering their strong desire for membership.

Data and Method

The unit of observation for this study is the country-year and the spatiotemporal domain covers the cabinet composition of twelve Central and Eastern Europe countries from 1992 to 2008. By 1992, all the twelve countries under study had transitioned away from the communist system and entered a path toward democracy. The data were compiled utilizing the U.S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Countries of the World and Their Leaders Yearbooks. This is a yearly publication that until 1995 also provided a midyear supplemental update to ensure the accurate recording of members of national cabinets. Considering the very high turnover of ministers in most countries in Central and Eastern Europe during the phase of democratic consolidation, yearly data are necessary to accurately capture the changes in cabinets.⁵ Only members who served for six months or longer were recorded to capture the meaningful appointments of women to cabinet positions.⁶ Only individuals with the title of minister were recorded, and ministers without portfolio were excluded from the analysis. For each minister, their portfolio and gender were recorded.⁷ To categorize ministries according to prestige, I utilize the survey data from Druckman and Roberts (2008). The authors conducted expert surveys in fourteen Eastern European countries on the subject of portfolio salience over the years 1990–2002 and assigned numerical values of 1 and up if the ministry was considered above average in importance, 0.5–1 if it was average and below, and 0.5 if it was below average.⁸ In my data, I code each ministry differently with regard to prestige based on the survey results. Any ministry that was rated 1.11 or above (according to the authors’ explanation, 11% above average), I consider high prestige; the ministries that were rated between 0.5 and 1.1, I consider medium prestige; and below 0.5 are regarded as low prestige.⁹ For example, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare is coded as high-prestige ministry in Lithuania (1.20) but as a medium-prestige ministry in Poland (0.98).¹⁰ The survey data enable us to better account for national variation, providing us with a valid measure of portfolio salience distribution in Central and Eastern Europe.

Dependent Variables

The first dependent variable to be explained in this study is the likelihood that the cabinet contains at least one woman minister. This variable is designed to capture the basic factors that may play a role in improving women’s representation in the executive branch. I use a dichotomous measure coded “1” if a cabinet has at least one woman present in a particular calendar year. Yet, this variable does not give us any insight in terms of growth rate of women ministers and therefore I utilize the percentage of women ministers in cabinet to go a step further and determine what factors may be significant in explaining the surge in women’s appointments to Central and Eastern and European cabinets. I calculate the proportion of women ministers in cabinets to take in consideration the variation in cabinet size.¹¹ While the two variables described provide us with some understanding of the entrance of women to ministerial positions as well as the growth rate over time, they do not provide a qualitative aspect of women’s representation in cabinets. In postcommunist Europe, women have become increasingly involved in high-prestige cabinet positions. As Figure 3 illustrates, unlike women in many postindustrial democracies (Reynolds 1999), Central and Eastern Europe women have become much more visible in medium- and high-prestige cabinets in the past decade.

Figure 3.

The number of women holding ministerial positions over time.

Women have been best represented in medium-prestige ministries. Between 1992 and 2008, 57 percent of all female appointments to cabinets have been to a medium-prestige ministry. This is not to say that women have achieved a desired level of equality because in 2007 there were only seven women holding high-prestige ministries in the whole Central and Eastern Europe region.¹² A glass ceiling between medium- and high-prestige ministries may have been constructed in this newly democratized region and that while it may seem higher than in other regions of the world, it is nevertheless a barrier to women’s representation in politics. Therefore, I employ a measure of whether women have been appointed to high-prestige cabinet posts or not. As demonstrated in Latin American cases, in Central and Eastern Europe, female ministers have very rarely served concurrently in prestigious ministries and therefore a dichotomous measure is more appropriate. This measure allows us to explore what factors may play a role in increasing the probability of women’s appointments to the “nerve center” of cabinets.

Independent Variables

Existing literature suggests that advanced education may have a positive effect on the appointment of women to cabinets. Women’s education is measured here by the percentage of women enrolled in tertiary education.¹³ Participation in the workforce has also been considered meaningful for assessing the supply aspect of women’s appointments to the executive. I measure workforce participation by the percentage of women, fifteen and up, joining the workforce,¹⁴ because there is no particular data capturing women’s employment in different types of professional careers. To test whether the presence of women in legislatures matters, I measure women’s descriptive representation by the percentage of women elected to the lower chamber in each electoral cycle.¹⁵

To measure party ideology, I look at whether the prime minister leading the cabinet belongs to a liberal left-wing party or not. Every other party ideology is considered as nonleft without making any distinctions between central and right-wing parties to avoid creating ad hoc ideological categories across the region.¹⁶ A dichotomous measure is employed and coded “1” when a left-wing party prime minister is in power. To test the effect of majority governments, I construct a dichotomous measure that addresses the proportion of seats that the prime minister’s party occupies in the Parliament.¹⁷ When the prime minister’s party controls 55 percent or more of the parliamentary seats, I consider that a secure majority and expect the prime minister to be less cautious about appointment selection and therefore place more women into cabinet positions. In any other case, I expect the prime minister to act much more apprehensively when it comes to cabinet appointments in general and women’s appointment to cabinet and prestigious posts more particularly.

To test the effect of the type of governmental system, I go beyond the simple division between pure parliamentary and semipresidential system and utilize the empirical data provided by Blondel (2007). He argues that semipresidentialism alone is no longer a sufficient category to determine the role that prime ministers and presidents share in some Central and Eastern Europe democracies.¹⁸ The practical interpretation of the vague constitutional rules is many times much more telling of the role that the two leaders play with regard to executive decision making. He divides the role of the presidents in three groups: purely representative head of state, a president who is more involved in the choice of prime minister and the building of governmental coalitions, and the “semi-presidential” president who is concerned with affecting policy beyond having a say on the formation of cabinet (Blondel 2007, 63). I develop a dichotomous measure to capture the two categories that demonstrate some evidence of presidential involvement in cabinet formation and code those cases as “1” and code the rest of the cases as “0.”¹⁹

To test for the time effect, I create a dummy variable capturing the first and second half of our data set’s time span, and I expect that as it gets closer to today, the likelihood of women’s appointment to cabinet improves. For measuring the effect of the overall development and education of societies over time, I utilize the Human Development Index (HDI),²⁰ which provides insights with regard to health, education, and standards of living. Finally, to test for the effect of regime maturity, I utilize the Freedom House democracy score, which measures democracy based on two dimensions: political rights and civil liberties. The Freedom House democracy score varies from 1 to 7 where 1 refers to democratic and 7 as nondemocratic.²¹ I select this particular index for two main reasons. First, the Freedom House index provides a full set of scores for the period under analysis. Second, considering the regional nature of this study, the Freedom House index provides the necessary variation for analysis, while alternative scores do not provide sufficient differentiation necessary for meaningful comparison. I expect that as the values of democracy near 1, the odds of appointing women to cabinet and prestigious ministerial posts increase.²² To test the effect of EU membership on the appointment of women to cabinet positions, I create two dummy variables. The first variable captures EU membership and I code it as 1 in cases when countries have gained entrance to the EU and 0 when they have not. The second dummy variable captures the in-between time of candidacy. I code the variable as 1 when countries have officially gained the status of candidate and 0 in all other instances (when they are still aspirant or have already become members). These measures are appropriate considering the within and across country variation in the data.

To test the hypotheses in this study, I draw on generalized estimating equations (GEE) procedure, which extends the generalized linear model (GLM) to allow for analysis of repeated measurements or other correlated observations (Hardin and Hilbe 2003; Liang and Zeger 1986). Instead of maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) or ordinary least squares (OLS), GEE uses quasi-likelihood estimation. This is an appropriate procedure for the panel data used in this analysis as it allows for the correction of serial autocorrelation.

Results

Table 1 summarizes results for the regression of the various independent variables on the presence of at least one woman in cabinet, the percentage of women ministers as well as the position of women within the cabinet. Models 1 and 3 have logistic coefficients as the dependent variable follows a binary distribution, while Model 2 produces OLS coefficients with a specified Gaussian distribution and identity link. The results in Table 1 present an interesting set of inferences. In Models 1 and 2, with the exception of one, the supply variables are statistically significant, even though at different levels. As expected, holding all other variables constant, in Model 1 for each unit increase in the percentage of women enrolled in tertiary education, a country is 30 percent more likely to have at least one woman in cabinet. While the percentage of women in the labor force exerted a statistically significant effect, the coefficient is negative defying our expectations that as the percentage of women working increases so does the percentage of female ministers in cabinets. This finding reinstates the previous research that labor participation is irrelevant outside of industrialized countries (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005; Matland 1998). We must keep in mind, though, that women’s labor participation in this study, as in other research projects on women in the executive branch, does not directly measure the types of jobs that usually propel women to political positions. In postcommunist Europe, this is particularly meaningful because unlike in Western democracies, women have been part of the labor force for more than seventy years. Therefore, an increase of female participation in the labor force may not have the same drastic effects in terms of women becoming more aware and involved in politics as it has had in countries where women were excluded from the labor market for decades. It is arguable, though, that labor force inclusion does not matter for women’s appointments to cabinets but perhaps the type or the prestige of their occupation would have an impact on the number of women in cabinets and the types of post they receive.

Table 1.

Determinants of the Appointment of Women to Cabinets and Prestigious Positions.

Variables	At least one woman in cabinet (M1)^a	Percentage of female ministers in cabinet (M2)^b	At least one woman in high-prestige ministry (M3)^a
Supply variables
Enrollment in tertiary education	0.252*** (0.069)	0.431*** (0.08)	0.301* (0.118)
% in labor force	−0.165** (0.061)	−0.358* (0.154)	−0.010 (0.069)
% in legislature	0.082^† (0.049)	0.215 (0.145)	−0.001 (0.049)
Demand variables
Left party prime minister	−0.327 (0.505)	−.048 (1.072)	0.446 (0.371)
Secure majority	−0.716 (1.098)	1.783 (3.217)	2.997 (1.857)
Governmental system	0.986* (0.479)	2.330^† (1.466)	−1.592 (0.650)
Human Development Index	14.584** (4.707)	36.234*** (11.257)	4.650 (2.919)
Quality of democracy	−5.731** (2.207)	−5.460 (6.721)	4.600 (3.211)
Control variables
EU membership	−1.053 (1.494)	−1.330 (1.649)	−1.101^† (0.698)
EU candidate status			0.825* (0.409)
1992–2000	−1.871** (0.936)	−6.841*** (2.042)	−0.326 (0.634)
Women in cabinet (t − 1)			0.004 (0.177)
Constant	−11.289 (7.115)	−20.812 (14.529)	−24.347 (8.582)
Observations (N)	191	191	191
Wald χ²	444.37	6,436.98	50.36
p > χ²	.0000	.0000	.0000

Standard errors in parentheses. M1= Model 1; M2= Model 2; M3= Model 3; EU = European Union; OLS = ordinary least squares.

Estimates produced using Stata xtgee command and specifying binomial distribution, logit link, and AR(2) correlation. Coefficients should be interpreted as logit coefficients.

Estimates produced using Stata xtgee command and specifying Gaussian distribution, identity link, and AR(2) correlation. Coefficients should be interpreted as OLS coefficients.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Women’s presence in Parliament is only significant in Model 1. A high percentage of women in Parliament only predicts the inclusion of at least one woman in cabinet. In Model 1, all else being equal, for each unit increase in the percentage of women in Parliament, a country is 8 percent more likely to have at least one woman in cabinet. While the statistical insignificance of women’s representation in Parliament defies our expectations, based on the findings, we can conclude that women MPs do play a role in the initial entrance of women to cabinets. Thus, women’s representation in Parliament matters for the first step toward women’s inclusion in cabinets and in increasing the degree of egalitarianism in the executive branch.

The demand variables, especially the ones looking at the makeup of governmental coalitions and the ideological stance of the prime minister, do not reach statistical significance, defying our expectations. In the case of a prime minister belonging to a left-wing party is not a meaningful factor for appointing women to ministerial positions. Moreover, even though statistically insignificant, interesting are the negative signs of the coefficients telling us that a left party prime minister in postcommunist Europe, unlike in Western postindustrial democracies, is less likely than a nonleft party prime minister to appoint women to cabinets. This finding may speak to the still undefined ideological spectrum within the Central and Eastern Europe political party competition. Left-wing parties are still trying to redefine themselves in the postcommunist time period, lacking some of the characteristic qualities that Western European left parties usually demonstrate.

The presence of a majority government is also not significant. The type of governmental system, though, is statistically significant in both Models 1 and 2. Confirming our expectations, semipresidential systems in comparison with pure parliamentary ones are less likely to appoint an all-male cabinet and more likely to have a higher percentage of women in cabinets. In Model 2, all else being equal, moving from a parliamentary system to a presidential system, the percentage of women in cabinets increases by approximately 2.33 percent. In general, presidents are more likely to appoint women to cabinets because they are not dependent on wide parliamentary approval (Blondel 1985) but perhaps the negotiations that take place between the prime minister and president to construct a cabinet may also create an opening for interest groups to negotiate the appointment of more women in the ministerial positions. This is an important finding in this study highlighting the important role of formal institutions in establishing egalitarian norms. Semipresidentialism has been widely analyzed on whether it fosters regime stability or not, but it has not been questioned on the quality of democracy it provides in comparison with the parliamentary system. Is semipresidentialism more conducive to democracy? In this study, I find strong evidence that women are more likely to occupy ministerial positions in semipresidential systems than in parliamentary systems, supporting the claim that semipresidential systems indeed are more likely to foster equal participation in politics. This finding may further reinforce current literature suggesting that the presidents are usually more connected to the people and target a national constituency because they are directly elected rather than appointed by a majority in Parliament (Cheibub 2006; Shapiro, Kumar, and Jacobs 2000). During the electoral process, presidents make wide claims and connect to the constituency in a way that prime ministers do not have an opportunity to do.

The HDI as expected is significant and positively affects the probability of women being appointed to cabinets. The more developed a country, the more likely it is that it will have a higher percentage of women in cabinets. The degree of democratic development is only statistically significant in the first model, and contrary to our hypothesis, it negatively affects the appointment of women to cabinet positions. In Model 2, for every unit increase in the democracy score, we should see a 5.406 percent decrease in the percentage of female ministers in cabinets, holding all other variables at their means. This analysis suggests that a more established democracy has a higher probability of having an all-male cabinet. This is a very surprising finding as democracy is perceived to provide more opportunities for equal representation and consequently increase the presence of women in the executive. However, we have seen similar results with regard to women’s political representation in Parliaments. Many times, emergent democracies are less concerned with egalitarian norms as the focus is mostly on economic development and other types of reform. In time, we should see a positive effect of democratic regime on equal representation (Hughes and Paxton 2007). It is arguable that the seventeen-year time span utilized in this analysis may not capture the long-term effects that established democracies may have on women’s appointments to cabinets.

The results of Models 1 and 2 reveal a strong and significant robust effect of time with negative coefficients suggesting that present-day cabinets are more likely to have at least one woman present and boast higher percentages of women ministers. In Model 1, holding all other variables at their means, in comparison with the most recent time period (2000–2008), cabinets were 6.5 times less likely to have at least one female minister. Similarly, in Model 2, holding all other variables constant, we can say that from 1992 to 2000, women comprised 6.8 percent less cabinet positions than they do in the most recent time frame.

In contrast to Models 1 and 2, in Model 3 only two factors exert statistical significance to predict that at least one woman occupies a high-prestige ministry, the EU membership status, and the percentage of tertiary education. Unlike the Latin American cases, women’s presence in Parliament does not make a difference when it comes to women occupying prestigious ministerial posts in Central and Eastern Europe.²³ The time effect is also not a significant factor for appointment of women to prestigious ministries in Central and Eastern Europe. A determining factor for appointment of women to the nerve center of cabinets in postcommunist Europe is the percentage of women achieving tertiary education, suggesting that in countries where women are highly educated, they are more likely to hold positions of power in the executive branch.

Another interesting finding in Model 3 provides insight on the role that international organizations may play in improving equal representation in formal institutions. The EU membership slightly reaches statistical significance in the model, but it has a negative coefficient, showing that nonmember countries are more likely to appoint women to prestigious positions in cabinet, contrary to our belief that membership may bring qualitative changes in egalitarianism in the political process. Although if we look at candidate countries that are on the way to becoming members, we notice that the variable is statistically significant at .02 level with a positive coefficient. Candidate countries are 8 percent more likely than member and nonmember countries to have at least one woman in a prestigious ministry. This finding demonstrates that Central and Eastern Europe countries appoint qualified well-educated women to prestigious posts during the accession period to appeal to the EU, but because it is a symbolic action, the effect does not last after membership. The expectation that international organizations provide an incentive for increasing equality is supported in this research, but the long-lasting effect that is sometimes expected is not found. Further research that includes a wider time span will be needed to better explain women’s appointment to prestigious cabinet positions in postcommunist Europe.

Discussion

In this study, I examine what factors may explain the upsurge of the appointment of women to cabinet positions in the new democracies. Previous scholarship has offered a variety of explanations, but they have mostly been based on postindustrial established democracies, consequently having little impact on empirical work in “third wave” democracies. I focus on the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe region and show that as in Latin America, while the domestic environment is gradually changing to become more acceptable of women in positions of leadership, international pressure and incentives for institutionalizing gender equality norms have empowered women to be appointed to some of the highest positions in cabinets. Unlike well-established democracies, countries that have recently entered the path of democratization have been more compliant toward international conditions considering their inferior economic and political status in world politics. Perhaps as the existing conditionality literature on Central and Eastern Europe suggests,²⁴ to gain more legitimacy and leverage from international organizations, domestic leaders have appointed women to cabinet positions despite the demand variables accounted for in this study. This finding confirms existing work arguing that “a combination of pressure for conformity, desire to enhance international legitimation, and the desire of state leaders to enhance their self-esteem” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 895) leads to the adoption of a new norm, in this case the increase of egalitarianism in cabinet structures.

Even though it has been argued that tokenism would be the outcome of the international pressures for compliance, in Central and Eastern Europe, I find compelling evidence that external conditions placed on domestic actors have played the role of “critical junctures,” especially as they have been imposed upon during the very politically flexible regime transition period. Therefore, the upsurge of women in cabinet positions today is a path-dependent feature of the process of cabinet appointments. For example, despite the type of governmental coalitions, the ideological leaning of a prime minister or the overall development within a country, as time has passed the presence of women in cabinets, has continuously increased and they have gained access to ministries such as Defense and Interior in Slovenia and Foreign Affairs and Finance in Poland. Some degree of symbolism is found in this study when examining the effect of EU membership on women’s appointments to prestigious ministries. The results demonstrate that EU incentives make a difference for appointing women to high-prestige ministries when a country is going through accession, but they reverse back to the status quo once countries achieve membership. Thus, it is arguable that compliance with international organizations has limited effects on the ultimate goal of propelling women to the same level of power as men in the executive branch. Nonetheless, as with legislative recruitment, even short-term appointments may have long-term effects on changing popular perceptions of women’s abilities to govern and lead.

This study, unlike the Latin American cases, predicts that a higher enrollment of women in tertiary education has an important impact on the odds that women will occupy prestigious ministerial positions at a higher rate. The analysis suggests that indeed prime ministers are selecting well-qualified women to positions of power and that a higher supply of educated women has a certain effect on increasing women’s political representation in politics. The Latin American analysis does not show education to matter however, the study is primarily concerned with secondary education which may not have a direct effect on the supply of female ministers. Tertiary education employed for measurement in this analysis is more indicative of the available female contenders for ministerial posts. This finding reinstates the importance of the supply variables, which, with a few exceptions,²⁵ have not been thoroughly analyzed.

Some of the universal factors that have mattered for the appointment of women to cabinets in other regions of the world including Western European democracies, such as women’s descriptive representation and the overall development of a country (HDI; Davis 1997; Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005; Siaroff 2000; Studlar and Moncrief 1997), also matter in Central and Eastern Europe for increasing the percentage of women in cabinets. The effect of a left party prime minister or the presence of a secure majority government is not significant in all the three models tested in this study. The typical support of left parties for women in positions of power is not significant in Central and Eastern Europe because the left parties are trying to detach themselves from the communist legacy, which heavily targeted the inclusion of women in politics.

An interesting and significant finding in this study is that semipresidential systems in Central and Eastern Europe have had a much more significant effect on the odds of appointing women to cabinet and increasing the percentage of female ministers than parliamentary systems. The fading role of the president in the region may mean that less egalitarian political institutions will instead be present. Now that Central and Eastern Europe countries are no longer struggling with regime survival, the question of regime performance must be posed. In this study, I find evidence to support the claim that semipresidential systems are more egalitarian and provide women with better opportunities to climb the political ladder within the executive branch.

In comparison with Latin American countries, while Central and Eastern Europe democracies have their own profile when it comes to women’s appointments to cabinets, there are broad generalizations that we can draw across the two regions. In both cases, there is a strong time effect that is suggestive of the external pressures that third wave democracies have faced to become more inclusive of marginalized groups. Time matters for the entrance of women in cabinets and for increasing the percentages of women in the executive in both regions suggesting a more international institutionalization effect. This analysis concludes that contrary to the expectations, international pressure has actually produced positive results when it comes to the inclusion of women in cabinets. This is not to say that domestic factors are not relevant. In both regions, a higher rate of education and development has had a significant effect on the increase of the percentage of cabinet positions that women occupy. Furthermore, the election of a higher percentage of women to Parliament also significantly improves the odds of women entering the executive branch.

Another important comparison between the two regions with regard to the determinants of the appointment of women to cabinets is the effect of the participation of women in the labor force. In both regions, the percentage of women working does not have the expected positive impact. This common finding further ties these two regions as highly comparable because both fall outside of industrialized countries. Noticeable in Latin America is the effect of the left party in power, which is absent in Central and Eastern Europe. This differentiation points out to the different life spans of democratic regimes between the two regions. Most Latin American democracies have had a longer time span than Central and Eastern Europe democracies to establish stable political institutions, including more structured political party competition. Thus, the analysis may be more complete in the case of Latin America, while in Central and Eastern Europe, some of the determinants may still be unfolding.

This article provides the first cross-national analysis of the determinants behind the appointment of women to cabinets in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the first comparison between two regions comprised “third wave” democracies. Hopefully, future research will benefit from the findings in this study and will continue to investigate the extenuating effect of the various factors affecting women’s appointments to cabinet positions, especially prestigious positions. Much work remains to be done in explicating and understanding the path of women’s careers in the executive branch in postcommunist Europe. Future research must further question whether gender plays a role in determining representation in cabinets, particularly in the highly regarded posts. As the focus on women’s political representation in the executive expands, it is plausible to expect more comprehensive explanations to fundamental questions about power distribution in the higher levels of governance.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Dr. Michelle Taylor-Robinson, and the three anonymous reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments on the manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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