Party Institutionalization and Women's Representation in Democratic Brazil

Explains how weakly institutionalized and male-dominant parties undermine descriptive representation in Brazil's OLPR legislative elections.

Kristin N. Wylie (Author)

9781108429795, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 August 2018

290 pages, 11 b/w illus. 26 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.53 kg

'Wylie's book is a tour de force, presenting a nuanced and detailed account of a perplexing case, with implications for reigning paradigms in the comparative gender and politics literature, as well as the study of Brazilian politics.' Mona Lena Krook, Perspectives on Politics

Brazil's quality of democracy remains limited by enduring obstacles including the weakness of parties and underrepresentation of marginalized groups. Party Institutionalization and Women's Representation in Democratic Brazil theorizes the connections across those problems, explaining how weakly institutionalized and male-dominant parties interact to undermine descriptive representation in Brazil. This book draws on an original multilevel database of 27,653 legislative candidacies spanning six election cycles, over 100 interviews, and field observations from throughout Brazil. Wylie demonstrates that more inclusive participation in candidate-centered elections amidst raced-gendered structural inequities relies on institutionalized parties with the capacity to support women, and the will, heralded by party leadership, to do so. The book illustrates how women leaders in Brazil's more institutionalized parties enable white and Afro-descendant female aspirants to navigate the masculinized terrain of formal politics. It enhances our understanding of how parties mediate electoral rules, as well as institutional and party change in the context of weak but robustly gendered institutions.

1. A crisis of representation: the puzzle of women's underrepresentation in Brazil
2. Willing and able: party institutionalization, party leadership, and women's representation
3. Brazil's quota law and the challenges of institutional change amidst weak and gendered institutions
4. Overcoming gendered obstacles: voters, electoral rules, and parties
5. Electoral rules, party support, and women's unexpected successes in elections to the Brazilian Senate
6. Supermadres, Lutadoras, and technocrats: the bounded profiles of Brazil's female politicians
7. Intersections between race and fender in Brazil's 2014 Chamber of Deputies Elections
8. Theoretical implications and comparative perspectives.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Hispanic & Latino studies [JFSL4], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1]