Political Parties, Issue Salience and the Appointment of Female Cabinet Members

Do parties relegate female ministers to portfolios that are politically less important for them? This paper contributes to this debate and examines whether the issue salience of parties for specific policy areas has an effect on the nomination of a female minister. Theoretically, the paper draws on the assumptions of feminist institutionalism and “homosocial reproduction” and expects that women are often excluded from the inner party networks that form the main pool of potential candidates for the most powerful and important political positions. Given that elites tend to reproduce themselves, (mostly male) party leaders will be more likely to select men for those portfolios that are highly salient for the party. Empirically, the paper analyzes the appointment of female cabinet members in the German states between 2006 and 2014. Quite surprisingly, the findings contradict the theoretical expectations and previous empirical results from a cross-national study: On the German subnational level the nomination of a female minister is more likely if the respective portfolio is highly salient for the governing party. Parties and their policy-preferences seem to be an important factor in explaining the share of women in subnational cabinets.