The Effect on Women’s Representation Since it is established that the culture of a state has an affect on the overall attitude towards women in politics, the next question remains: what effect does this have on the proportion of women getting elected? As seen in Figure 1-Attitudes and Representation, “egalitarian attitudes toward women leaders are strongly related to the proportion of women elected to the lower houses of national parliaments (r = .57; sig. = .01)” (134). The diagram essentially shows that an egalitarian culture generally leads to better representation of women in politics. Table 2-The Impact of Social, Institutional, and Cultural Factors on the Proportion of Women in Parliament further emphasizes this theory as it shows
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Although the authors provided some evidence, the idea of attitude was still left very vague. How is attitude measured? Does attitude vary depending on ethnicity or income status? There could have been more detail provided in that section. In addition, the “Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map of the World” was limited in that only certain countries were listed. Finland was able to be analyzed based off of this graphic, but Greece was not featured at all. Although I could have assumed where Greece fell on the image based off of prior research, more countries should have been listed. Finally, the independent and dependent variables can easily get mixed up at times due to the complexity of the theory, so it would be helpful if Norris & Inglehart had that information clearly written in certain subparts of the …show more content…
The authors begin by making the argument that structural factors and political institutions are vital indicators of women’s political representation, but then find proof that these two explanations cannot stand alone. In terms of Finland and Greece, this part of the theory works for structural factors, but is not applicable in terms of political institutions. It is then made evident that the culture of a state, the independent variable, is the most reliable factor when determining its representation of women in politics, which proves evident in the cases of Finland and Greece. Over time, it can also be seen that post-industrial societies have shifted into having more egalitarian attitudes which favor women in politics, whereas post-communist societies have not. Due to the findings of Norris & Inglehart’s theory, it may seem difficult to ever have full equality in the political sector, because how does one change the culture of a society? (137). However, due to the “secular trends in value change associated with modernization,” especially in regards to younger people, it is likely that women will naturally become more represented throughout governments, which has already become apparent in Finland and Greece
Although the authors provided some evidence, the idea of attitude was still left very vague. How is attitude measured? Does attitude vary depending on ethnicity or income status? There could have been more detail provided in that section. In addition, the “Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map of the World” was limited in that only certain countries were listed. Finland was able to be analyzed based off of this graphic, but Greece was not featured at all. Although I could have assumed where Greece fell on the image based off of prior research, more countries should have been listed. Finally, the independent and dependent variables can easily get mixed up at times due to the complexity of the theory, so it would be helpful if Norris & Inglehart had that information clearly written in certain subparts of the …show more content…
The authors begin by making the argument that structural factors and political institutions are vital indicators of women’s political representation, but then find proof that these two explanations cannot stand alone. In terms of Finland and Greece, this part of the theory works for structural factors, but is not applicable in terms of political institutions. It is then made evident that the culture of a state, the independent variable, is the most reliable factor when determining its representation of women in politics, which proves evident in the cases of Finland and Greece. Over time, it can also be seen that post-industrial societies have shifted into having more egalitarian attitudes which favor women in politics, whereas post-communist societies have not. Due to the findings of Norris & Inglehart’s theory, it may seem difficult to ever have full equality in the political sector, because how does one change the culture of a society? (137). However, due to the “secular trends in value change associated with modernization,” especially in regards to younger people, it is likely that women will naturally become more represented throughout governments, which has already become apparent in Finland and Greece