women in dutch parliament: what they did

Women in Dutch Parliament: what they did

Johan van Doornik, Arjan Nusselder, Maarten Marx

ILPS, University of Amsterdam

May 30, 2012

Johan van Doornik, Arjan Nusselder, Maarten Marx Women in Dutch Parliament: what they did

Introduction

Goal: To quantify the role of women MPs in the Dutch Parliament

Method: Analysis of the Dutch Parliamentary Proceedings

Count how often women spokeCluster these results in subject areas

Result: Comparison with Leyenaar: ’Political Empowerment ofWomen’

Description Dates CabinetsPioneers 1918-09-17 to 1948-07-26 Ruijs de Beerenbrouck I - Beel ITokens 1948-07-27 to 1977-06-07 Drees-Van Schaik - Den Uyl

Defenders 1977-06-08 to 1994-05-16 Van Agt I - Lubbers IIIPlayers 1994-05-17 to 2010-06-16 Kok I - Balkenende IV


Data Sources

Biografical information Dutch politicians: ParlementairDocumentatie Centrum http://www.parlement.com

Proceedings 1918-1995: Staten-Generaal Digitaalhttp://www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl

Proceedings 1995-2012: Officiele Bekendmakingenhttps://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl


Dutch parliamentary proceedings

Implicit information

standard phrases


Structure of our proceedings XML format

topicscenespeechparagraphparagraph

speechstage-directionparagraph

scenespeechparagraph

topicstage-directionscenespeechparagraph


Metrics

speech acts

percentage of all speech acts by women MPs over a certain time

topic participation

percentage of all topics with at least one speech act by a woman MP

normalized speech acts

percentage of all speech acts by women MPs over a certain timedivided by the percentage of women MPs≈ 1: women are equal to men with respect to number of speech acts< 1: women have less speech acts than men> 1: women have more speech acts than men


Speech Acts and Topic Participation

1918 1928 1938 1948 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2008

0102030405060708090

100

topic participationspeech actswomen MPs

year

[%]

Pioneers Tokens Defenders Players

Figure: The percentage of speech acts by women MPs (’speech acts’), thepercentage topics with at least one women MP participating in it (’topicparticipation’), and the percentage women MPs in parliament (’women MPs’)


Normalized percentage of speech acts by women MPs

1918 1928 1938 1948 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2008

0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1

1,2

1,4

1,6

year

[]

Pioneers Tokens Defenders Players

Figure: The percentage of speech acts by women MPs normalized by thepercentage of women MPs


Subject Areas

How do we determine what the women MPs spoke about?

We want to classify each speech act by subject area

No 100% accuracy possible: even human annotators would disagree.

The presence of a member of government in a debate as indicator ofthe subject area under discussion:

some topics do not involve government memberssome topics have multiple government membersgovernment members may speak on any subject areadepartment names change frequently (141 different titles), withshifting subject areas. We manually clustered them in 13 subjectareas:

minister van Justitie, staatssecretaris van Justitie, minister vanVeiligheid en Justitie: Justiceminister van Sociale Zaken en Volksgezondheid : Health and SocialAffairs

divide percentage of women speech acts by percentage of womenMPs: topical inclination


Topical Inclination of the Pioneers

Subject Area 1918 1922 1925 1929 1933 1937 1946Infrastructure, Environment, Housing 0,00 0,50 0,41 0,33 0,46 1,00 0,00

Finance 0,00 1,03 0,35 0,31 0,32 0,94 0,03Economy 0,00 1,15 2,29 1,13 0,50 0,71 0,00Justice 0,00 0,97 1,56 1,49 1,75 1,48 3,08

Common Affairs 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 1,06 0,46Agriculture, Fisheries, Shipping, Food 0,00 0,91 1,03 0,97 0,96 0,71 0,00

Social Affairs 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 2,14 1,77 0,51Defence 0,00 0,00 0,38 0,21 0,43 1,00 0,57

Local Affairs, Territories 0,00 1,00 1,00 0,82 0,89 0,9 0,73Foreign Affairs 0,00 0,18 1,06 0,90 1,00 0,39 0,14

Education, Arts, and Science 0,00 1,35 2,15 3,64 2,29 2,10 3,00


Topical Inclination of the Tokens

Subject Area 1948 1952 1956 1959 1963 1967 1971 1972Infrastructure, Environment, Housing 0,29 0,02 0,23 0,52 0,95 0,61 0,97 0,69

Finance 0,48 0,09 0,12 0,34 0,68 0,26 0,23 0,54Economy 0,38 0,09 0,26 0,50 0,88 0,55 0,32 0,45Justice 2,00 1,80 1,16 1,31 1,97 2,97 2,08 1,23

Common Affairs 0,48 0,18 0,19 0,42 0,51 0,41 0,65 0,90Agriculture, Fisheries, Shipping, Food 0,48 0,02 0,14 0,50 0,25 0,35 0,79 0,69

Social Affairs 1,43 1,02 1,67 1,28 1,12 1,47 1,20 1,48Health 1,90 1,29 1,26 0,61 0,83 1,26 1,55 2,40Defence 0,57 0,16 0,05 0,30 0,14 0,17 0,59 0,44

Local Affairs, Territories 0,43 0,56 0,58 0,36 0,76 0,79 0,73 0,93Foreign Affairs 1,10 1,53 0,19 0,44 0,88 0,36 0,39 0,58

International Development 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 1,95 0,27 0,91 0,40Education, Arts, and Science 3,71 2,71 2,40 2,30 1,76 1,48 1,16 1,30


Topical Inclination of the Defenders

Subject Area 1977 1981 1982 1986 1989Infrastructure, Environment, Housing 0,76 0,75 0,78 0,75 0,97

Finance 0,81 0,65 0,55 0,42 0,48Economy 0,85 1,07 0,65 0,9 0,78Justice 1,26 1,79 1,29 1,26 0,93

Common Affairs 0,51 0,89 0,46 0,54 0,56Agriculture, Fisheries, Shipping, Food 0,64 0,41 0,88 0,64 0,81

Social Affairs 1,09 1,34 1,43 1,46 1,07Health 2,86 2,14 1,82 1,92 1,18Defence 0,67 0,32 0,65 1,23 0,65

Local Affairs, Territories 0,65 0,7 0,92 0,88 0,80Foreign Affairs 0,64 0,43 0,66 0,51 0,72

International Development 1,20 0,88 0,75 2,37 0,95Education, Arts, and Science 1,53 1,47 0,85 0,76 0,96


Topical Inclination of the Players

Subject Area 1998 2002 2003 2006 2010Infrastructure, Environment, Housing 0,73 0,98 0,84 0,98 0,86

Finance 0,72 0,88 0,99 0,78 0,56Economy 0,92 1,09 0,9 0,97 1,31Justice 0,86 0,77 0,95 1,04 1,25

Common Affairs 0,26 0,80 0,59 0,92 0,76Agriculture, Fisheries, Shipping, Food 0,66 0,80 0,93 1,23 1,23

Social Affairs 0,69 1,20 1,33 1,19 0,87Health 1,58 1,69 1,60 1,75 1,99Defence 0,59 1,12 0,79 0,90 0,65

Local Affairs, Territories 0,66 0,93 0,66 0,77 0,76Foreign Affairs 0,56 0,81 0,63 0,64 0,42

International Development 0,96 n/a 0,96 0,7 n/aEducation, Arts, and Science 0,99 1,34 0,97 1,01 0,52


Conclusion

The speech act and topic participation data do seem to supportLeyenaar’s subdivision in four distinctive periods

The topical inclination data provides evidence to the main areas ofinterest and desinterest of women MPs

Weaknesses:

An MPs number of speech acts is only a weak relative measure ofperformanceNo distinction yet in speeches at the speaker’s chair andinterruptions of othersThe data may be skewed by one or two very active womenThe method of assigning a subject area to a speech act is far fromperfect


The End

Thank You!
