Exploring Female Legislators' Policy Agenda, Using a Dynamic Topic Model

Drawing on 100 years of legislative debate (1918-2018), this paper explores the evolution of women’s speech in the Irish parliament. We examine changes over time in the substantive topics addressed by women MPs and also explore developments in their rates of participation. Using a rich dataset of MP demographic characteristics (including education, occupational background and age) and political characteristics (such as party affiliation, career length, leadership experience, constituency profile and seat marginality etc.), we test whether there are independent gender differences in members’ speech patterns and emphasis. In particular, we examine the policy focus of female versus male MPs. To unveil these patterns MP speech content is analysed using a new dynamic topic modelling method. This method is applied to the full corpus of legislative speeches in Dail Eireann from 1918 to 2018 (from the foundation of the Irish state to the present day). Substantively, our findings suggest that women representatives’ agenda evolves over time and reacts to exogenous events such the rise of women’s movement and membership of the European Union and that, controlling for political and demographic characteristics, women’s policy focus is distinct from that of their male counterparts.