Pathways to Premiership project launches

The inaugural meeting of the Pathways to the Premiership team took place in September 2017 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Team members from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia met over three ways to discuss various aspects of data collection, storage, analysis, and dissemination for the multi-year project. The P2P team are developing several databases to understand why women politicians have been successful in becoming premier at the subnational level. The Gendered Pathways to Political Leadership Model will explore the role that institutional, individual, and representational factors play in women’s advancement in provincial- and state-level politics. The original Gendered Representative Context Index will take a closer look at representational factors that might facilitate a strong pipeline of capable women politicians for the premiership. During the meetings, the P2P team met with government partners to discuss their expectations for the research project. The goal is to generate insights that policymakers can use in their own efforts to increase the number of women in elected office.