McDONAGH, Eileen
Political citizenship and democratization : the gender paradox - American Political Science Association, 2002
This research challenges models of democratization that claim liberal principles affirming the equality of rights-bearing individuals equably enhance the political inclusion of groups amrginalized by race, class, or gender. While such explanations may suffice for race and class, this study`s quantitative cross-national analysis of women`s contemporary officeholding patterns establishes that gender presents a counter case whereby women`s political citizenship is enhancing, first by government institutions that paradoxically affirm both individual equality and kinship group difference and, second, by state policies that paradoxically affirm both individual equality and women`s group difference. These findings challenge assumptions about the relationship between political citizenship and democratization, demonstrate how women`s political inclusion as voters and officeholders is stregthened not by either a sameness principle (asserting women`s euqlity to men as individuals) or a difference principle (asserting women`s group difference from men) but rather by paradoxical combination of both, and provide new views for assessing multiculturalism prospects within democratic states
Political citizenship and democratization : the gender paradox - American Political Science Association, 2002
This research challenges models of democratization that claim liberal principles affirming the equality of rights-bearing individuals equably enhance the political inclusion of groups amrginalized by race, class, or gender. While such explanations may suffice for race and class, this study`s quantitative cross-national analysis of women`s contemporary officeholding patterns establishes that gender presents a counter case whereby women`s political citizenship is enhancing, first by government institutions that paradoxically affirm both individual equality and kinship group difference and, second, by state policies that paradoxically affirm both individual equality and women`s group difference. These findings challenge assumptions about the relationship between political citizenship and democratization, demonstrate how women`s political inclusion as voters and officeholders is stregthened not by either a sameness principle (asserting women`s euqlity to men as individuals) or a difference principle (asserting women`s group difference from men) but rather by paradoxical combination of both, and provide new views for assessing multiculturalism prospects within democratic states
