Political Representation in a (Post-) Pandemic Era: Gendered speech dynamics in the Ugandan Parliament before, during, and after Covid-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented global health crisis and propelled nations into new poverty crises, jeopardizing hard-won development gains in the world’s most vulnerable and poor countries. These twin public health and poverty crises are intimately connected to policy domains that tend to be prioritized by women citizens and women politicians: public health and poverty alleviation (Clayton et al. 2019; Clayton and Zetterberg 2018; Swiss, Fallon, and Burgos 2012). In this study, we ask what happens to gendered dynamics in parliament when a crisis suddenly and dramatically shifts global attention towards issues historically prioritized by women, such as poverty alleviation, healthcare, and gender equality. We focus on Uganda, a country that issued one of the longest and hardest COVID lockdowns, including the world’s longest shutdown of schools (20 months). As a result, gendered inequalities, sexual violence, teen pregnancies, and child labor appear to have increased dramatically while access to maternal health and family planning was significantly reduced. Drawing on data covering a complete set of Ugandan Hansards from 1998 to 2022, we apply automated text analytic techniques to explore whether gender dynamics in the Ugandan parliamentary debates changed as a result of COVID-19. Are women emerging as leaders in the wake of this crisis and gaining political power due to their knowledge and expertise within these policy domains, or are men taking over these previously lower-status issues and closing down spaces for women’s political power? More specifically, we will analyze men and women legislators’ speeches in parliament to explore speaking time and gender gaps in issue attention, including attention to health, education, poverty alleviation, and gender inequality, before, during, and after the COVID-19 shock.