ABSTRACT

Women and Representation in Local Government opens up an opportunity to critique and move beyond suppositions and labels in relation to women in local government.

Presenting a wealth of new empirical material, this book brings together international experts to examine and compare the presence of women at this level and features case studies on the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, Uganda, China, Australia and New Zealand. Divided into four main sections, each explores a key theme related to the subject of women and representation in local government and engages with contemporary gender theory and the broader literature on women and politics. The contributors explore local government as a gendered environment; critiquing strategies to address the limited number of elected female members in local government and examine the impact of significant recent changes on local government through a gender lens.

Addressing key questions of how gender equality can be achieved in this sector, it will be of strong interest to students and academics working in the fields of gender studies, local government and international politics.

chapter |17 pages

Gender and municipal politics

Problems, perspectives and possibilities

part |37 pages

Women's representation in local government

chapter |16 pages

Moving through the pipeline

Women's representation in municipal government in the New England region of the United States

chapter |19 pages

Women in local assemblies – rare guests or (almost) equal partners?

An analysis of the causes of women's under-representation in the German county councils

part |55 pages

Strategies to increase women's representation in local government

chapter |17 pages

Women and local politics in Spain

Exploring gender regimes and biased party candidate selection processes

chapter |19 pages

Making it happen in practice

Organized efforts to recruit rural women for local government leadership

chapter |17 pages

Missing from the picture

Women's initiatives in English local government

part |46 pages

Making a difference?

chapter |14 pages

How gender shapes local party politics

The case of Belgium

chapter |13 pages

Critical acts and critical contexts

Understanding the substantive representation of women at the regional level in France

chapter |17 pages

Transforming local politics?

The impact of gender quotas in Finland

part |51 pages

Gender and a changing local government sector

chapter |18 pages

Gendering local government amalgamations

An Australian case study

chapter |14 pages

Women in New Zealand local government

The effects of reform on women's presence in leadership