Glass Cliffs or Partisan Pressure? Examining Gender and Party Leader Tenures and Exits
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| Author | Brenda O’Neill,Scott Pruysers,David K Stewart |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719880316 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719880316
Political Studies
2021, Vol. 69(2) 257 –277
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321719880316
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Glass Cliffs or Partisan
Pressure? Examining
Gender and Party Leader
Tenures and Exits
Brenda O’Neill1, Scott Pruysers2,3
and David K Stewart1
Abstract
This article adds to our understanding of the gendered impact of informal rules and norms for
party leaders. Specifically, it examines the gendered nature of party leader tenures and exits.
Using original data collected on party leader experiences in Canada, we test for the existence of
gender differences in leader tenures and exits, and examine two potential explanations for any
differences. We find that leader tenures and exits are indeed gendered but only within parties
with the potential to form government, ones where the political stakes are highest. Within these
major parties, women’s tenures as party leaders are significantly shorter than men’s and they
are significantly more likely to be forced to resign from the position. We find clear evidence of
the existence of the glass cliff phenomenon in major parties but unclear evidence of its role in
women’s shorter tenures. Instead, women’s shorter tenures are explained by the harsher set of
standards being applied to women party leaders.
Keywords
gender, glass cliff, role congruity theory of prejudice, party leader tenures and exits, informal
political party processes
Accepted: 12 September 2019
When men succeed, it is considered business as usual. When they stumble or fail, their gender
does not bear the brunt of their defeat. Not so for women. Perched on the pinnacle of power, they
realize it is built of sand. Women are not allowed to fail.
(Sharpe, 2015)
1University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
2Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
3Currently at: Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Corresponding author:
Brenda O’Neill, Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary
T2N 1N4, AB, Canada.
Email: bloneill@ucalgary.ca
880316PCX0010.1177/0032321719880316Political StudiesO’Neill et al.
research-article2019
Article
258 Political Studies 69(2)
Introduction: Gender and Party Leadership
Are women leaders not allowed to fail? Or is it that they are set up to fail, more likely to
be appointed to power when parties are in crisis? Or is it possibly a bit of both? An
increasing number of women hold political positions that have traditionally been held by
men, a phenomenon that is attracting considerable research attention. Recent studies
examining women’s global experiences as political leaders (Jalalzai, 2013; Murray, 2010)
and their appointment to cabinet positions (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson,
2016; Franceschet et al., 2017; O’Brien et al., 2015) offer an important window into when
and how women access political power. Women, however, continue to remain relatively
absent as political party leaders, a key stepping stone to executive leadership in parlia-
mentary systems. Significant attention has recently been devoted to examining party
leaders generally (e.g. Cross and Blais, 2012; Pilet and Cross, 2014) yet we know remark-
ably little about the gendered nature of women’s experiences as party leaders and how
these compare with men’s (for exceptions, see Beckwith, 2015; Cross and Blais, 2012;
O’Brien, 2015; O’Neill and Stewart, 2009). This relative absence might be explained by
the fact that women’s numbers at this elite level remain low. With so few cases, it can be
hard to render definitive conclusions. But by turning the lens to a single country – Canada
– one with multiple levels of government, numerous political parties, and a significant
number of women party leaders in both competitive and less-than competitive parties, we
advance our understanding of how intra-party informal norms and practices gender wom-
en’s representation at the elite political level.
There is every reason to believe that women and men holding the highest offices in
political parties face gendered political opportunity structures, given their experiences gen-
erally within political parties. Candidate recruitment within parties has been the subject of
much investigation. As shown by Cheng and Tavits (2011), informal intra-party norms and
processes play a key role in shaping the number of women running for office and thus their
levels of representation (see also Cross and Pruysers, 2019). Similarly, Verge and Claveria
(2018) show that men are more likely to benefit from the political resources provided by
political parties – and in particular holding party office – than women, all else being equal.
Gendered norms and processes have also been identified at elite party levels. Folke and
Rickne (2016) argue that glass ceilings help to explain women’s difficulties in rising to posi-
tions of political power within political parties. Beckwith (2015) offers a post-crisis model
of gendered leadership opportunities within parties, one in which senior men are removed
from contention and junior men defer their participation thereby opening up opportunities
for senior women to challenge the leadership. And, finally, O’Brien’s (2015) recent study of
71 parties across 11 parliamentary democracies between 1965 and 2013 notes the impor-
tance of electoral performance for women’s tenures as party leaders, shorter than men’s
when the party is performing poorly and longer when its performance is improving.
There is much discussion in the literature on political parties of both the growing sig-
nificance of party leaders and the pre-eminent role that they play (e.g. Cross and Blais,
2012; Horiuchi et al., 2015). According to Cross and Blais (2012: 3), understanding the
selection process for party leaders is ‘important not only in the general sense of under-
standing who has authority over a crucial aspect of democratic decision-making within a
state but also in terms of understanding the allocation and use of power within parties’.
Party leaders’ roles in modern liberal democracies is multi-faceted. Leaders in govern-
ment determine cabinet composition (O’Brien et al., 2015) and shape the country’s policy
direction. Within intra-party politics, party leaders are often involved in candidate selec-
tion and setting campaign platforms. Party leaders play a primary role in campaigns and
in electoral outcomes (Banducci and Karp, 2000), especially in light of the increasing
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