Circulation and permanecy of parliamentary elites from a gender perspective. The cortes valencianas’ case (1983-2011)

Abstract

The consolidation concerning to the incorporation of women to the public institutions requires the development of investigations that transcend to the mere presence or descriptive representation, contributing to elucidate the eventual incidence of factors that, still in stages of presence balanced between women and men, suppose an unequal effective exercise of the public office. In this sense, the comparative study on the trends of circulation and permanency of the parliamentary elites from the perspective of gender becomes in a cardinal object of analysis. The aim of the present work consists in the comparative measuring and analysis of the factors that implies a greater circulation and lower permanency in the parliamentary office by women in the Valencian Regional Parliament along the seven legislatures between 1983 and 2011. The research allows to the identification of some explanatory factors such as the organizational fragmentation, convergence and restructuring of political parties in the common ideological spectrum, the electoral results (factor opportunity), the change of leadership into the organizational and parliamentary level, as well as the changes in the government or opposition roles. The study considers the suitability to project similar works that allow to go further of the presence of the women as public offices, sophisticating the methodologies to be implemented and, in consequence, contributing to the conceptual update on the uneven exert institutional by reason of gender.