Exploring Women's Political Empowerment and the Electoral Democracy Index
In political arenas, gender disparities are pervasive. Despite being granted equal rights, women still make up a smaller percentage of the workforce than men in most political organisations. Though women’s participation in parliament has never been as diverse and representative as it is in many countries today, according to Women in Parliament 2022, women are less likely than men to be heard and to have political influence, even in situations where they are present. Because of these, governments set up policies and laws with the sole purpose of politically empowering women.
Political empowerment can be defined as the process by which people who previously lacked the capacity and agency to participate in politics are given those capacities. When we talk about politics, we mean behaviours and viewpoints that have to do with government structures or that support government structures and policies.
In addition to being essential for inclusive government, empowering women in political positions holds the potential to result in more responsive and effective policymaking. Even though women's political empowerment is necessary and advantageous, there aren't many frameworks available to evaluate and identify the degree of current political power disparities, especially at the individual level. Furthermore, political empowerment, or the freedom to decide how and when to engage with political institutions, has not gotten as much scholarly attention as economic empowerment.
To study this, researchers investigate the Women Political Empowerment Index (WPEI) by conducting surveys with specific women. These surveys focus on the civil liberties of women, their rights and their political participation in their countries.
The importance of women's political empowerment to developed nations is becoming more widely acknowledged, and it is a top focus in international development cooperation. However, the political empowerment index can be impacted by the electoral democratic index.
The electoral democracy index (EDI) is one of V-DEM’s five democracy indices and is a score every nation receives on a scale of 0 to 1 which determines the level of democracy or if nations have more democracy than others. This depicts the degree to which political leaders are chosen through extensive voting rights in free and fair elections, along with the guarantee of freedoms of expression and association.
The index measures political culture, civil freedoms, and pluralism using sixty factors categorized into five groups. The index assigns each nation a numerical score, ranks it, and divides it into four regime types: dictatorships, hybrid regimes, defective democracies, and full democracies.
Countries with poor EDI have a lesser chance of achieving greater WPEI as women often struggle to be politically empowered because of electoral challenges. Wang et al. (2015) theorised that it is challenging to determine whether the right to civil rights always comes before the establishment of competitive elections for political leaders and so serves as a prerequisite for democratisation, or vice versa. They contend that when women's civil rights are strengthened, leaders must pay more to suppress their populace via two different "routes."
First, women are better equipped to speak out against the regime, organize movements, and join forces with other opposition groups or stand alone as more and more of them gain basic liberties like freedom of movement and property rights.
Second, as more women join the workforce, there is a widespread inclination for social policies, which have a higher chance of being implemented under a democratic tax system. An increasing middle class is another benefit of women's civil rights achievements, which has long been seen as a crucial component of democratization.
For scholars, decision-makers, and practitioners, these indices offer a fresh empirical foundation for comprehending the evolution and significance of women's political empowerment. The role of civil liberties and women's liberalisation in particular needs to be given more attention in democracy promotion efforts, as new research suggests that a nation must first ensure civil rights for both genders before transitioning to electoral democracy. These indices can be used to assess factors that shape women's empowerment as well as the effects of increasing women's rights.