Women's access to positions power in the executive branch of governments has recently been in the focus of gender researchers interested in descriptive and substantive representation of women in politics. As Annsley et al. highlight, presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet members are among the most powerful positions in political systems (2014, 3). For Germany, studies have revealed that women's access to power in parliaments has slowly increased (Magin 2014), and in the federal cabinet, women's share today has reached over 30 percent. However, in the German system of federalism, power not only resides in the national cabinet, but in the state cabinets as well. In several policy areas, German state cabinets have exclusive authority. Furthermore, the Bundesrat - comprised of state ministers representing each state - has the power to veto legislation passed in the federal parliament in several other policy areas. So far, the state cabinets have not been in the focus of gender researchers assessing gender equality in German politics though. This study aims to shed light on women's access to positions in state cabinets, and especially on positions of power within them. In order to evaluate whether one can identify a sustainable rise to power in German state cabinets, or rather short-term successes, I conduct a longitudinal study analyzing the cabinets of all 16 German states since Reunification 1990, utilizing the Gender Power Score developed by Krook and O'Brien (2012).
