Mulheres líderes partidárias: estudo sobre os entraves e incentivos à representação de mulheres em nível local

Abstract

The space occupied by women in Brazilian political parties is an underdeveloped research agenda nowadays. Taking into account the need to look at subnational governments, this investigation will focus on the study of women’s representation in political parties in Brazilian counties. The aim is to verify patterns that allow larger representation of women in political parties at the local level and also the association between organizational characteristics of the parties that would favor a better electoral performance. To do so, I sought to analyze the existence of connections between three dimensions: (1) women's electoral performance; (2) women's presence on party governing bodies and in positions that can access power and resources; and (3) political parties' organizational features. The main argument is that there is some sort of connection between these three dimensions: parties with more favorable organizational characteristics to women's representation would also be the parties with larger presence of women in governing bodies and ruling positions and would as well be the ones that elect more women. The study consists of a comparative analysis of a few cases, seeking to identify variations that may indicate the existence of associations between variables. The Brazilian political parties chosen to verify the hypothesis’ coherence were MDB, PSD, PP, PTC, DC and PRTB. The resoults points to singularities in the functioning of intitucional mechanisms at the local level and do indicate the need to understand the feedback process between women's presence and the adoption of institutional devices favorable to women through research based on the trajectories analysis.