Feminist scholarship is warning of a backlash against gender equality and women’s political inclusion. But if anti-gender backlash constitutes democratic deconsolidation, why has it been possible to declare a democracy consolidated without women’s democratic inclusion? Fadhilah Primandari revisits our understanding of democratic consolidation and asks whether it is biased towards men’s political domination
The term 'democratic consolidation' was first popularised towards the end of what Samuel Huntington called the 'third wave' of democratisation. Convinced of democracy’s desirability, democracy scholars during this time began to discuss whether, and how to ascertain, when a new democracy is no longer vulnerable to breakdown. Since then, scholars have associated analyses of 'democratic consolidation' with this question. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan claim a democracy has consolidated if it has become 'the only game in town'.
Democratic scholarship has produced various methods and thresholds to determine whether a democracy has consolidated. Huntington suggested the two-turnover test. Some scholars, such as Timothy Power and Mark Gasiorowski, and Milan Svolik, argued that time is a better predictor of democratic durability. Others have used democratic attitudes as indicators of citizens’ acceptance or rejection of democracy.
Another common method is to observe the presence of anti-democratic actors and behaviour. The availability of democratic indices such as Polity and V-Dem has increasingly enhanced efforts to assess democratic consolidation.
Measurements of democratic consolidation have rarely considered women’s political inclusion. This is deeply troubling given that inclusion is one of democracy’s core principles. Most democracy scholars would agree that democracy requires women.
Yet, when it comes to democracy’s consolidation, we seem to relegate questions around women and gender as secondary.
Empirical findings have shown that democratic transitions and post-transition politics guarantee neither women’s inclusion nor gender equality progress. However, if our criteria of democracy neglect women, it is unsurprising that processes we call 'democratic' may not lead to women’s inclusion.
Democratic transitions and post-transition politics guarantee neither women’s inclusion nor gender equality progress
The problem is not just empirical; it is also conceptual and methodological. This echoes a problem Pamela Paxton raised more than two decades ago: despite the recognition that women’s political inclusion is necessary for democracy, it has not always been included in the operationalisation of democracy-related concepts.
If democracy requires women’s inclusion, we cannot treat it as democracy’s possible outcome, which may or may not happen. It should be part of our definition of democracy. Paxton shows that simply considering women’s suffrage can alter timelines of democratic transition. Similarly, gender considerations may challenge our previous conclusions about a democracy’s consolidation.
As an illustration, let’s use Huntington’s two-turnover test, which has remained influential in studies of democratic transition and consolidation.
Huntington proposed the two-turnover test in the early 1990s. As its name suggests, the test requires two electoral turnovers, counted from the first election following a country’s transition to democracy. It demands that the winners of the first election lose to a rival and peacefully transfer their power.
Before this second alternation of power takes place, even if the first ruler was re-elected democratically, a democracy cannot be said to have passed the test. Huntington argues that this threshold is a 'tough test for democracy'.
Women’s (perceived) irrelevance was evident when Huntington claimed the US passed the two-turnover test in the 1840s. The lowering of property requirement for the vote during this period only applied to white men. Additionally, neither the enslavement of Black people nor the forced removal of Native Americans seems to negate the status of US democracy.
Huntington's two-turnover test omitted equal gender political inclusion from its precondition and its consideration of electoral victories. The test therefore risks presenting men’s political domination as proof of a democracy’s consolidation
Huntington did not just omit equal gender political inclusion from the test’s precondition, which is democracy. It was also absent from the test’s consideration of electoral victories. For the test, it does not matter if turnovers occurred only among men. If the test supposedly provides evidence of a polity’s acceptance of democracy, it risks presenting men’s political domination as proof of a democracy’s consolidation.
Considering women’s political inclusion in the two-turnover test may change our understanding of when a country passed the test. For example, requiring women’s suffrage (and not only men’s) in the test’s precondition will mean that we can only start counting turnovers in the US from 1920. Our timeline will shift further when we consider that racial voting discrimination was only outlawed in 1965. And when we require the turnover of a previously man-held presidential seat to a woman as a threshold, the US has not yet passed the test.
'Gendering' democratic consolidation may not only change our empirical conclusions; it may also unsettle our methods’ theoretical assumptions. For example, gender considerations may challenge the two-turnover test’s premise that it takes only two turnovers to ascertain widespread acceptance of both men and women leaders. The UK underwent nine government turnovers after 1928, the year women’s full suffrage was passed, before Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister. Even more 'gender-equal' countries such as Norway and Sweden took more than two turnovers before electing their first female executive leaders.
And when women do run and win in elections, it does not mean that political institutions work equally for men and women. Political parties, campaigns, and parliaments are gendered institutions, and often work to privilege masculinity. The 'thin' nature of the two-turnover test fails to capture this.
When women win in elections, it does not mean that political institutions work equally for men and women. Political parties and parliaments are gendered institutions, and often work to privilege masculinity
Assessments of democratic consolidation are, essentially, specific claims about democracy. They connote a level of sufficiency — and risk complacency. They treat certain events, spaces, and people as indicators — representations, symbols — of what a 'secure' democracy looks like. But whose democracy is made 'secure'?
The two-turnover test is just one example of how our understanding of democratic consolidation may be biased towards men. Does gender bias also exist in other methods of assessing democratic consolidation? It's highly possible.
No.117 in a Loop thread on the Science of Democracy. Look out for the 🦋 to read more
