Institutional Powers and Pathways to Cabinet: Female Ministers in Anglo-American Systems

In Anglo-American systems, female executives lead in a gendered institutional environment characterized by “masculinities,” and two types of masculinity – individualist and fraternal – define leadership opportunities, obstacles, and choices. Individualist masculinity requires independence, autonomy, and competition/conflict, whereas fraternal masculinity calls for collective engagement, community-wide perspective, and consensus. Both the individualist and fraternal masculinities that permeate the environment of cabinet are deeply rooted in the governmental institutions and political parties of Anglo nations. Individualist masculinity is most apparent in adversarial institutions, which concentrate power in the executive and rely on combat between two major parties. Fraternal masculinity appears in two-party systems where leaders need to negotiate with various factions within their parties. At different junctures in political development, these two masculinities can coexist, conflict, or one becomes dominant. Fluctuations in the gendered nature of the executive create particular pathways, direct the progress, and shape the performance of female ministers in distinctive ways. This paper employs multiple methods of institutional analysis: sociological, historical, discursive, and (to a lesser extent) rational choice. It constitutes part of a book-length project on women in various roles as political executives in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Data include parliamentary records, government documents, public opinion polls, news sources, leaders’ memoirs and diaries, and extensive elite interviews conducted by the author in all six countries.