Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Date of Graduation

12-19-2020

Publish

yes

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Department of Political Science

Advisor(s)

John Scherpereel

Melinda Adams

Jessica R. Adolino

Abstract

Increasing globalization and growing importance of the European Union has facilitated an important discussion about who makes policy decisions within the EU, specifically within the European Parliament. This thesis aims to discuss women’s representation within the EP at the committee level. By compiling a database of MEPs from 1st July 2014 to 18th January 2017, it looks into the question of whether or not committees are gendered. It argues that committees have gendered patterns, with women disproportionately focused within certain committees, that left parties have less gender discrepancies than right parties, and less women have committee leadership positions compared to men. A focused comparison of two committee chairs, Cecilia Wikström from Sweden and Jean Arthuis from France, addresses the argument that women govern differently than men within committees. Applying this research, it becomes evident that committees are gendered with more women on “less prestigious” committees. While it is unclear the effect of parties and differences in legislators between genders, it is proved that committee leadership during this time is almost equally distributed between male and female MEPs.

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