TITLE:
Women’s Participation in the Local Government as Voters, Candidates and Mayors in the North East Region of Romania
AUTHORS:
Andreea-Daniela Fedor, Corneliu Iațu
KEYWORDS:
Local Government, Female Voters, Female Candidates, Female Mayors, North-East Region
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.12 No.1,
January
29,
2022
ABSTRACT: Most of
the studies focus on the high representation of women in politics such as in
Parliament, Government or Euro Parliament, while little attention is given to
the local government despite its importance within the national politic system.
Therefore, the aim of this research is to better analyze, observe and understand the dynamics of women’s
participation at the electoral process in the local government as candidates and winners, but also as voters in the North East Region of Development of Romania. The focus is on the progress made
or not toward gender equality in political decision making in the 32 years of
democracy. More precisely, how substantial are the changes, after 7 elections,
regarding the number of women that chose to run for elections, to what extent
were they voted and how high is the success rate
of success when compared to the male-candidates. The methodology consists in
descriptive analysis of the
political representativity, depending on the identified evolution trends, correlated with the Regions of Romania and
political parties. To carry out this study, quantitative and qualitative
methods were combined. The analyzed data for the local election from 1996 to 2020 focus on the studied area-North
East Region which has
the highest level of female mayors when compared with the others. The results
show an under-representation of women in local government with a percentage of
6.34% female mayors, 1
percentage higher than at national level (5.33%). Moreover, 84.20% of administrative units have never had a female
mayor. Also, the women’s rates of success are lower (15.28% in 2020) when compared to their male counterparts
(22.26%)
(ROAEP).