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Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access originally published online on March 10, 2008
Parliamentary Affairs 2008 61(3):476-489; doi:10.1093/pa/gsn011
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Parliamentary Affairs issue: The Political Representation of Women [View the issue table of contents]

‘Is the Mere Presence of a Strong Female Candidate Enough to Increase the Substantive Representation of Women?’1

Rainbow Murray

This article posits that the mere presence of a strong female candidate may increase the substantive representation of women. Using the case study of Ségolène Royal in the 2007 French presidential elections, this article argues that if being female appears to confer an electoral advantage, this might lead to a ‘policy contagion’ effect, with male rivals feminising their own agendas in order to compete with a woman. This hypothesis is tested on candidate manifestos to see if Royal's candidacy has led to the increased substantive representation of women. If so, a conclusion can be drawn that women's presence can have a positive effect on the substantive representation of women, regardless of whether or not women succeed in winning office.


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