Political Science, Department of
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
4-2021
Citation
The Journal of Politics 83:2 (April 2021), pp. 662–674.
doi: 10.1086/710017
Abstract
The salience of judicial institutions in democratic and nondemocratic countries has increased, making it important to have women on these powerful and visible decision-making bodies. Yet, women have only recently gained entrance to peak judicial bodies including constitutional and supreme courts. The appointment of the first woman to a high court is a historic landmark, breaking traditional ideas of who can and should be on the court. Using a global, longitudinal data set we show that certain explanatory factors matter differently in wealthy, stable democracies and in developing countries. The method of selecting high court justices exerts influence in wealthy, stable democracies but not newer ones. Further, our findings suggest that in both sets of countries, appointments to high courts are not made in a domestic vacuum and are influenced by international norms of having women participate in governing institutions.
Included in
Judges Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Political Science Commons
Comments
Copyright © 2021 Southern Political Science Association. Used by permission.