The question of what determines and explains gender inequality in politics has interested students of gender and comparative politics for several decades now, but it has gained additional breath and importance with the change of focus from descriptive to substantive representation, as well as from the traditionally left political parties to parties of the right. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the democratization of Eastern Europe we can no longer limit our knowledge of gender equality, or the causes and consequences of women's representation, to the realms of Western cultures alone.
Moving beyond the traditional Western bias of most extant studies, Ekaterina R. Rashkova and Emilia Zankina present the first systematic comparative analysis on women's representation in ten democracies in South Eastern Europe. Coining an innovative conceptual approach, a phenomenon called substantive presence and using uniquely gathered data on women's political involvement at the legislative, executive and party level, Rashkova and Zankina disentangle the relationship between the institutional set up, the historical context and the level and type of women representation. Evidence shows that the more influential women politicians are found in parties of the right, as opposed to the traditionally expected parties of the left. Left political ideology is not a primary determinant of the level and magnitude of women's involvement in politics in the case of Southeastern Europe.
Gender and Politics in South Eastern Europe is a novel and valuable contribution to the literature on gender and politics and more broadly to the field of comparative politics.
About the Author: Ekaterina R. Rashkova is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research interests lie in electoral and party systems and the strategic behavior of political actors, institutions, party system development, party regulation and gender representation. Her work compares new and established democracies and has appeared in Comparative European Politics, International Political Science Review, Party Politics, Political Studies, and Representation as well as in several edited book volumes. She is one of the co-founders of the Comparative Politics Research Group Innsbruck and a co-editor of the European Political Science journal.
Emilia Zankina is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Politics and European Studies at the American University in Bulgaria. Her research examines democratization and elite transformation in Eastern Europe, populism, civil service reform, and gender political representation. In the past, Zankina has served as Associate Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Managing Editor of East European Politics and Societies, and Editor-in-Chief of the Newsletter of the Bulgarian Studies Association. Her work has appeared in Problems of Post-communism, Representation East European Politics, as well as in several edited book volumes.
