The Status of Elected Women Representatives in Rural Assam, India: Their Performance in Local Self Government
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52152/22.3.1-25(2024)Keywords:
rural development, panchayati raj institutions, sustainable development goals, women reservation, elected women representativesAbstract
One of the important agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations is gender equality. Despite possessing constitutional privileges like 50 percent seat reservation for women in panchayat elections in Assam, India, their actual performance is still up for debate in many discussions. So, using the TOPSIS approach composite index on the performance of elected women representatives has developed. Then, using the ordinary least square method, their performance was assessed against key variables based on primary data collected from the Hailakandi Development Block of Hailakandi District of Southern Assam, India for identification of factors influencing their performances for policy changes.
References
Alipranti-Maratou, L., & Nikolaou, A. (2016). Reconciliation of work and family in Greece: Policy responses and dimensions of public debate. In Gender and well-being (pp. 201-220). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Asiedu, E., Branstette, C., Gaekwad-Babulal, N., & Malokele, N. (2018). The effect of women’s representation in parliament and the passing of gender sensitive policies. ASSA Annual Meeting (Philadelphia, 5-7 January). Retrieved from Https://Www.Aeaweb.Org/Conference
Behar, A., & Aiyar, Y. (2003). Networks of Panchayat women: Civil society space for political action. Economic and Political Weekly, 4936-4940.
Behar, A., & Kumar, Y. (2002). Decentralisation in Madhya Pradesh, India: From Panchayati Raj to Gram Swaraj (1995 to 2001). London, UK: Overseas Development Institute.
Bhaskar, M. (1997). Women panchayat members in Kerala: A profile. Economic and Political Weekly, 32(17), WS13-WS20.
Billava, N., & Nayak, N. S. (2016). Empowerment of women representatives in Panchayat Raj institutions:A thematic review. Journal of Politics and Governance, 5(4), 5-18.
Blair, H. (2000). Participation and accountability at the periphery: Democratic local governance in six countries. World Development, 28(1), 21-39.
Buch, N. (1998). Decentralised governance, women's participation and poverty eradication'. In Women and Political Empowerment. New Delhi, India: Institute of Social Sciences.
Chattopadhyay, R., & Duflo, E. (2004). Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomized policy experiment in India. Econometrica, 72(5), 1409-1443.
COE. (2003, March 12). Achieving balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making. Retrieved from https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=09000016805e0848
Dahlerup, D. (2005). Increasing women’s political representation: New trends in gender quotas. In Women in parliament: Beyond numbers (pp. 141-184). Stockholm, Sweden: International IDEA.
Darcy, R. (1994). Women, elections, and representation. London, UK: University of Nebraska Press.
Das, G. (2013). India grows at night: A liberal case for a strong state. London, England: Penguin UK.
Das, P. P. (2022). Participation of rural peoples in the planning process—A case study of Hailakandi development block of Southern Assam, India. Journal of Social Review and Development, 1(2), 32-36.
Dassonneville, R., & McAllister, I. (2018). Gender, political knowledge, and descriptive representation: The impact of long‐term socialization. American Journal of Political Science, 62(2), 249-265.
Duflo, E., & Topalova, P. (2004). Unappreciated service: Performance, perceptions, and women leaders in India. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=kRC3kQEACAAJ
Gadekar, U. (2016). Women representatives and political empowerment: Study of women Representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions. International Research Journal of Social Science, 5(5), 6-9.
Garg, A., & Sharma, A. (2020). Gambits for capacity building of women representatives in Panchayati Raj institutions. American Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Development (AJMRD), 2(3), 1-8.
Gochhayat, A. (2013). Political participation of women in Gram Panchayat elections in Odisha: A case study of Hindol Block in Dhenkanal District. International Journal of Rural Studies, 20(2), 1-7.
Hausmann, R., Tyson, L. D., Bekhouche, Y., & Zahidi, S. (2012). The global gender gap index 2012. The Global Gender Gap Report, 2012, 3-27.
Hust, E. (2002). Political representation and empowerment: Women in the institutions of local government in Orissa after the 73rd amendment to the Indian Constitution. Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics, (6). doi: 10.11588/hpsap.2002.6.2168
Hwang, C. L., & Yoon, K. (1981). Methods for multiple attribute decision making. In Multiple Attribute Decision Making: Methods and Applications a State-of-the-art Survey (pp. 58-191). doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-48318-9_3
Hwang, C. L., Lai, Y. J., & Liu, T. Y. (1993). A new approach for multiple objective decision making. Computers and Operational Research, 20(8), 889–899.
Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2003). Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Inter-Parliamentary Union. (2005). Women in politics: 1945–2005. Retrieved from http://archive.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmn45-05_en.pdf
Jayal, N. G. (2006). Engendering local democracy: The impact of quotas for women in India's panchayats. Democratisation, 13(1), 15-35.
Kadam, R. N. (2012). A study on the grama panchayat women members’participation in developmental initiatives: With special reference to Shivamogga district. International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, 1(3), 244-256.
Kaur, M., Bhardwaj, N., & Rathore, S. (2020). Role performance of women leaders in Panchayati Raj Institutions. Journal of Community Mobilization and Sustainable Development, 17(3), 989-996.
Kenworthy, L., & Malami, M. (1999). Gender inequality in political representation: A worldwide comparative analysis. Social Forces, 78(1), 235-268.
Krishnaswamy, P. (2001, Aug). Women Panchayati leaders: More sinned against than sinning. New Indian Expres.
Kumar, S., & Ghosh, A. K. (2024). Elected women representatives in local rural governments in India: Assessing the impact and challenges. Retrieved from https://policycommons.net/artifacts/11322636/elected-women-representatives-in-local-rural-governments-in-india/12210972/
Lamoen, I. V., & Jeuken, Y. (2004). Preliminary country study the Netherlands. Vienna, Austria: Institute for Human Sciences.
Lombardo, E., & Meier, P. (2009). Power and Gender: Policy frames on gender inequality in politics in the Netherlands and Spain. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 30(4), 357-380.
Makwana, R. H. (2012). Women empowerment through Panchayati Raj. New Delhi, India: ABD Publishers.
Margaras, V. (2020). Women in local and regional government: Still a long way from achieving parity. Retrieved from https://policycommons.net/artifacts/1337304/women-in-local-and-regional-government/1945026/
Martínez‐Córdoba, P. J., Benito, B., & García‐Sánchez, I. M. (2023). Women's management in local government: The effects of substantive representation on welfare service efficiency. Social Policy & Administration, 57(3), 272-286.
Matland, R. E. (1998). Women's representation in national legislatures: Developed and developing countries. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 23(1), 109-125.
Matland, R. E., & Brown, D. D. (1992). District magnitude's effect on female representation in US state legislatures. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17(4), 469-492.
Meier, P., & Paantjens, M. (2004). Updated preliminary report on the European Union: Political participation. Vienna, Austria: The Institute for Human Sciences.
Meier, P., Lombardo, E., Bustelo, M., & Maloutas, M. P. (2004, June). Women in political decision-making and gender mainstreaming: Obvious partners?. In Paper for the 2nd Pan-European Conference on EU Politics of the ECPR Standing Group on the EU, Bologna (pp. 24-26). Retrieved from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=b69f7dde9eae1e8891f45bfe9b598e5d7f004919
Mishra, S. (1997). Women and the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act: A critical appraisal. Social Action (New Delhi), 47(1), 16-30.
Monika. (2021, September). Women’s representation in India: Reservations and beyond. feminism in India. Retrieved from https://feminisminindia.com/2021/09/16/womens-representation-in-india-in-reservations-and-beyond/
Moore, G., & Shackman, G. (1996). Gender and authority: A cross-national study. Social Science Quarterly, 77(2), 273-288.
Myers, R. (2002). Local government, decentralization and gender. In the Caribbean Conference on Local Government Decentralization. Georgetown, Guyana: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI).
Narasimhan, S. (1999). Empowering women: An alternative strategy from rural India. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Narayana, D. (2005). Local governance without capacity building: Ten years of Panchayati Raj. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(26), 2822-2832.
Nilekani, J. (2010). Reservation for women in Karnataka gram panchayats: The implications of non-random reservation and the effect of women leaders (Senior Honors Thesis, Yale University, New Haven, CT). Retrieved from http://thaddunning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Janhavi-Nilekani-Economics-Senior-Essay.pdf
Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2001). Cultural obstacles to equal representation. J. Democracy, 12, 126.
O’brien, D. Z., & Rickne, J. (2016). Gender quotas and women's political leadership. American Political Science Review, 110(1), 112-126.
Ofei-Aboagye, E. (2000). Promoting the participation of women in local governance and development: The case of Ghana. Maastricht, Netherlands: European Centre for Development Policy Management.
Ohene-Konadu, G. (2001). Gender analysis and interpretation of barriers to women's participation in Ghana's decentralised local government system. Cape Town, South Africa: African Gender Institute, South Africa (AGI).
Osman, S., & Abdulai, B. B. (2018). Obstacles to women representation and participation in local governance: A case study of Sissala East District of Ghana. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(10), 132-140.
Pai, S. (2001). Social capital, Panchayats and grass roots democracy: Politics of Dalit assertion in Uttar Pradesh. Economic and Political Weekly, 36(8), 645-654.
Palanithurai, G. (2001). Report of the workshop on networking of associations of elected women representatives in local bodies. Gandhigram, India: Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Panchayati Raj Studies.
Palanithurai, G. (2002). Impediments to empowerment of women: experiences of elected women representatives in Panchayats in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 63(1), 37-49.
Panda, S. (1996). Emerging pattern of leadership among rural women in Orissa. Indian journal of public administration, 42(4), 720-728.
Panday, P. K. (2011). Local government system in Bangladesh: How far is it decentralised?. Lex Localis-Journal of Local Self-Government, 9(3), 205-230.
Pantelidou-Maloutas, M., Hadjiyanni, A., Kamoutsi, F., Maratou-Alipranti, L., Thanopoulou, M., Tsiganou, J., . . . Tsanira, E. (2004). Country Study: Greece. In MAGEEQ Research Report. Vienna, Austria: Institute for Human Sciences.
Pattanaik, S. N. (2010). Rural women, Panchayati Raj, and development. New Delhi, India: Arise Publishers & Distributors.
Paxton, P. (1997). Women in national legislatures: A cross-national analysis. Social Science Research, 26(4), 442-464.
Paxton, P., & Kunovich, S. (2003). Women's political representation: The importance of ideology. Social forces, 82(1), 87-113.
Priebe, J. (2017). Political reservation and female empowerment: Evidence from Maharashtra, India. Oxford Development Studies, 45(4), 499-521.
Reynolds, A., Reilly, B., & Ellis, A. (2008). Electoral system design: The new international IDEA handbook. Stockholm, Sweden: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Squires, J., & Wickham-Jones, M. (2001). Women in parliament: A comparative analysis. Manchester, England: Equal Opportunities Commission.
UN Women. (2023). UN Women review of national legal frameworks. Retrieved from https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2023/02/legal-frameworks-for-gender-responsive-procurement
Welch, S. (1977). Women as political animals? A test of some explanations for male-female political participation differences. American Journal of Political Science, 21(4), 711-730.
Yoon, K. (1987). A reconciliation among discrete compromise solutions. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 38(3), 277-286.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Lex localis - Journal of Local Self-Government
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.