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21. NATO and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Time to Bring It Home

Author:
Marriet Schuurman
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The year 2015 is a year of global reflection: celebrating the seventy years of the United Nations, the twenty years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for gender equality and women’s empowerment, the end year of the Millennium Development Goals, and the fifteenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). Together, these milestones urge us to reflect on what difference these groundbreak­ing international institutions and collective efforts have actually made.
Topic:
Gender Issues, United Nations, Feminism, and Diversity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. Ethnic Diversity, Gender, and National Leaders

Author:
Katherine W. Phillips, Nicholas A. Pearce, and Susan E. Perkins
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
National leaders have the ultimate responsibility to balance the needs of a diverse set of constituents in society while using their country’s unique set of resources to grow the economy and to gain comparative advantages. Salient to many observers, the United States of America, the world’s largest economy, has never had a female president or vice president and has had only forty-four women serve in the 224-year history of the U.S. Senate. Moreover, if women do make it into top-ranked government leadership positions, whether or not they perform notably different from their male counterparts still remains unknown. Though studies presented by several psychologists validate that women’s leadership styles differ from their male counterparts (i.e., more democratic, inclusive, participative and transformative), how this plays out nationally and in terms of setting national policy agendas and making key decisions for society is explained only anecdotally.[2] For example, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, affectionately known to her countrymen as the “Iron Lady,” was said to bring a “motherly sensitivity” to her post-war torn country, Liberia; Michelle Bachelet, the Republic of Chile’s first female national leader, won in 2006 on a campaign championing “gender equality” and “inclusion;” and most recently, Park Geun-hye won the presidential election in the Republic of Korea under the political platform of “disarming vicious cycles of distrust and building peace” with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.[3] These anecdotes all suggest an association with a gender-specific perception of governance, as well as a gender-specific expectation for substantive policy changes with a female taking the lead at the national level. To develop a better understanding of the unique contributions of female national leaders, this article uses global cross-national comparative leader data from 188 countries to explore the following questions: 1) How have global trends of national female leadership changed over time? and 2) Is there evidence that having a female—as compared to a male—leader has differential consequences for economic growth as ethnic diversity increases?
Topic:
Gender Issues, Economic growth, Feminism, and Diversity
Political Geography:
Global Focus