When Is Gender on Party Agendas?: Manifestos and (De-)Democratization in Greece, Portugal, and Spain

Ana Catalano Weeks; Paloma  Caravantes; Ana Espírito-Santo; Emanuela Lombardo; Maria Stratigaki; Sami Gul

doi:10.1080/13608746.2024.2412746

When Is Gender on Party Agendas? Manifestos and (De-)Democratization in Greece, Portugal, and Spain

Ana Catalano Weeks, Paloma Caravantes, Ana Espírito-Santo, Emanuela Lombardo, Maria Stratigaki, Sami Gul

Politics, Languages & International Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

When do political parties give attention to gender-related political interests, and what determines their positions? We argue that progress in gender equality commitments is an essential component of democratisation, and backsliding in these indicates democratic decay. Using original data coded from party manifestos in Greece, Portugal, and Spain over recent decades, we investigate the role of party ideology and critical junctures in the political context. We find that left-wing parties give more attention to gender-related interests than other parties. Far-right parties also give significant attention to some interests and stand out for traditional positions. Further, the economic recession significantly decreased attention to gender-related interests. Our results suggest that economic crises and associated far-right party strength fuel gender backsliding and de-democratisation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	561-593
Number of pages	33
Journal	South European Society and Politics
Volume	30
Issue number	4
Early online date	18 Oct 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2024.2412746
Publication status	Published - 31 Dec 2025

Acknowledgements

We thank Nuno Garoupa, Nathalie Giger, Margarita Le\u00F3n, and participants at the Workshop on The Right and (In)Equality: Myth and Reality (University of Konstanz), for helpful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. We thank the APSA Women, Gender, & Politics Research Section for a small grant which supported our data collection. We also wish to thank the editors of this special issue and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Funding

Emanuela Lombardo thanks members of the CCINDLE project and of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence for thought-provoking debates and acknowledges Spain\u2019s Ministry of Universities (Mobility for Requalification of Academic Staff MV24/21 29675) for funding her sabbatical. Paloma Caravantes thanks the State Research Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the \u2018Juan de la Cierva\u2019 postdoctoral fellowship (FJC2020-042827-I) and the European Commission for funding under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship program (101067130). The work was supported by the American Political Science Association’s Women, Gender, & Politics Research Section, the European Commission [CCINDLE, 101061256], and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship [LODGE, 101067130].

Funders	Funder number
European Commission
Spain’s Ministry of Universities	MV24/21 29675
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion	FJC2020-042827-I
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions	101067130

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 5 Gender Equality
SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

Keywords

Gender
democratisation
party manifestos
political parties
quantitative methods
recession
structural topic model

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Sociology and Political Science

Access to Document

10.1080/13608746.2024.2412746Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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