Gender and the collegial face of executive politics: priorities, presence, and power

This article shows, for the first time, gendered patterns in the organization and composition of collegial executive institutions below the level of the cabinet. Drawing on an original dataset of ministerial cabinet committees since the 1990s, we investigate how ministerial supply, gendered norms, and ideology affect committee priorities, women's presence, and access to power in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Committee priorities remain predominantly masculine, despite the increasing supply of women in all cases, but women's presence strengthens with increasing ministerial supply. However, women are regularly excluded from masculine committees and influential chairing positions on such committees. Ideology indirectly affects gendered priorities, presence and power through its effect on supply. These findings demonstrate the persistence and strength of gender as an entrenched feature of institutional design in executive politics and provide a basis for further research into how gender impacts collegiality and collective decision-making.