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Comparing and Assessing Gender Effects in Political Leadership

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Comparative Political Leadership

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership series ((PSPL))

Abstract

Comparing the effect upon political leadership of physical features (sex) and socially attributed or derived characteristics and behaviour (gender) presents a number of theoretical and empirical difficulties. First, leaders are by definition distinctive and few in number. We cannot avoid seeing individuals, often very specific individuals. And we recognize them as being either male or female. This chapter starts from the assumption that there are minimal basic biological differences between men and women which we recognize in everyday life and which make it meaningful to talk about men and women and to apply the adjectives male and female to members of the respective groups. But do the physiological differences between men and women actually have any consequences in relation to leadership?

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Authors
  1. Anne Stevens
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Austria

    Ludger Helms (Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics) (Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics)

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© 2012 Anne Stevens

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Stevens, A. (2012). Comparing and Assessing Gender Effects in Political Leadership. In: Helms, L. (eds) Comparative Political Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137264916_10

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