Critical acts without a critical mass: The substantive representation of women in the Turkish parliament

Parliamentary Affairs

Volumn 61, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 461-475

  Ayata, Aye Güne ^a   Tütüncü, Fatma ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 46349100106     PISSN: 00312290     EISSN: 14602482     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pa/gsn012     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. M. Sawer, 'Parliamentary Representation of Women: From Discourses of Justice to Strategies of Accountability', International Political Science Review, 7(2), 2000, pp. 361-80.
2. J. Lovenduski, 'Women and Politics: Minority Representation or Critical Mass?', Parliamentary Affairs, 54, 2001, pp. 743-58.
3. A.P. Griffiths, 'How can One Person Represent Another', The Aristotelian Society, 34, 1960, pp. 187-208.
4. The following analysis relates to the 1999 and 2002 parliaments, where the level of women representatives was 4%.
5. L. Wängnerud, 'Testing the Politics of Presence: Women's Representation in the Swedish Riksdag', Scandinavian Political Studies, 23, 2000, pp. 67-91.
6. Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways, Turkish Civil and Penal Codes from a Gender Perspective: The Success of Two Nationwide Campaigns, 2005.
7. R. Inglehart and P. Norris, Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World, Cambridge, 2003.
8. All interviews were conducted in April and May 2006.
9. S. Childs, 'In their Own Words: New Labour Women and the Substantive Representation of Women', British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 3(2), 2001, pp. 173-190.
10. Seventy per cent of women MPs we interviewed stated that they were invited into political parties when they had no intention of holding an office. One woman MP's words are emblematic in this regard: 'I entered into politics in 1995 with a last minute decision after seven separate conversations with the leader of one political party. I was not ready ...I was not interested in politics'. Another colleague expressed a similar story about another political party: 'I entered into politics with an invitation in 1995; it was a last minute decision. At that time I was the governor of a city'. In the same spirit, one woman MP explained: 'In 1995 I was invited by one party, but when the Constitutional Court cancelled the representative status at the national level, I could not be a representative. Then I went back to my post at the academy. Then, in 1999, another party invited me and I became a politician'.
11. G. Dorronsoro and E. Massicard, 'Being a Member of Parliament in Contemporary Turkey', European Journal of Turkish Studies, 3, 2005, 1-43, http://www.ejts.org/document502.html
12. L. Wängnerud, op. cit., p. 70.
13. S. Childs, 'Attitudinally Feminist? The New Labour Women MPs and the Substantive Representation of Women', Politics, 21(3), 2001, p. 179.
14. A. Ayata and F. Tütüncü, 'The Party Politics of Justice and Development Party and the Predicaments of Women at the Intersection of the Westernist, Islamist and Feminist Discourses', British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 35(3), 2008.
15. Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways, op. cit.
16. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, 31 October 2001.
17. Ibid., 25 October 2001.
18. Ibid., 24 October 2001.
19. Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways, op. cit., pp. 9-10.
20. TBMM Tutanak Dergisi, 14 September 2004.
21. Ibid., 15 September 2004.
22. Ibid., 26 September 2004.
23. Women for Women's Human Rights - New Ways, op. cit., pp. 14-15.
24. A. Phillips, Feminism and Politics, Oxford, 1998, p. 2.