Women in Presidential Cabinets 2 PDF

the executive “is the source of nearly all substantive legislation, much
of which is not even debated in Congress because it is enacted under

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emergency powers” (Archer and Shugart 1997: 118). The executive

branch initiates less legislation (even on national issues) than the leg-
islative branch, however bills authored by ministers are far more likely
to become law and consequently the executive is the source of most laws
(Avellaneda et al. 2012).
The president appoints and can dismiss ministers at his discretion. With
the 1991 Constitution, the Congress also can dismiss ministers via a cen-
sure motion (Archer and Shugart 1997: 119). There is a long history of par-
ties sharing power within the cabinet, beginning during the National Front
period (1958–1974) when the Liberal and Conservative parties were re-
quired to have equal numbers of seats in the cabinet. The tradition of power
sharing was continued through the 1980s, though ministers from opposi-
tion parties tend to serve for shorter amounts of time than ministers from
the president’s party (Botero 2013: 6, 9, 14). As Botero (2013: 2) argues,
“[P]‌residents use the composition of their cabinets as a bargaining tool
both to persuade the members within the Executive to work toward his
preferred policies and also to influence the Legislature to lend support
to those policies as well.” President Pastrana, of the Conservative Party
(1998–2002), won election with support from independent voters and
dissident Liberals.31 His vice-president was a Liberal, and he selected sev-
eral Liberals for his cabinet to form a coalition government (Cepeda Ulloa
and Posada-Carbó 1999: 450; Roll 2001: 156). In 2002 Álvaro Uribe won
the presidency in the first round as a Liberal Party dissident, under the
independent coalition movement banner Primero Colombia. His cabinet ap-
pointments signaled that he would govern independently from the tradi-
tional parties. His appointments also attracted attention because six of his
thirteen initial ministers were women (46%), including the minister of de-
fense, and fighting the guerrillas had been a major component of his cam-
paign (Cepeda Ulloa and Posada-Carbó 2003; Botero 2007: 107). In 2006
Uribe was reelected under the Primero Colombia banner, again winning in
the first round. But Primero Colombia became inactive after each election,
and it did not hold seats in the Congress, which complicated his relations
with the legislature. In his second term he appointed more ministers with
U.S. or applicable copyright law.
connections to political parties to secure support for his policies (Botero

2007: 103, 108).
31. Taylor et al. (2008: 277) explain that, “Despite having the explicit support of the
PC in all his political ventures, Pastrana promoted himself as a member of movimientos
suprapartidistas—supraparty movements.”
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The democratic regime was installed in 1958 under the National
Front agreement that limited competition to the two traditional par-
ties: Liberals and Conservatives (founded respectively in 1815 and 1849).

The National Front ended in 1974, and since then other parties could
run in elections and have won increasing numbers of seats in the legis-
latures, though they have not typically provided voters with truly new
policy options (Archer 1995; Moreno 2005; Botero 2007).32 Despite the
long dominance of the two traditional parties, internal party fragmenta-
tion has been the norm. Scholars argue that two features of Colombian
electoral institutions create a high level of factionalization within parties
and limit the partisan powers of the president: the inability of parties
to control their party label, and electoral rules that promote competi-
tion between multiple lists within one party (Archer 1995; Archer and
Shugart 1997: 110; Moreno and Escobar-Lemmon 2008).33 In recent years
the traditional parties are described as being in decline (Cepeda Ulloa
and Posada-Carbó 2003: 786–87). That decline, along with adoption of
a majority/run-off system for electing the president, have made it more
plausible for an independent or a renegade who defects from a traditional
party (what Siavelis and Morgenstern [2008] call a “free-wheeling inde-
pendent”) to win the presidency, as occurred with Álvaro Uribe in 2002
(Taylor et al. 2008: 279).
Costa Rica
Elections for all national offices are held every four years: president, two
vice-presidents, and fifty-seven members of the unicameral Legislative
Assembly.34 Neither the president nor deputies in the congress can be im-
mediately reelected.35 To win the presidency without a run-off a candidate
must receive at least 40% of the vote, though until 2002 run-offs were
32. Several changes in party registration laws have been enacted to facilitate popu-
lar participation in elections, though these changes may have promoted the creation
of parties by prominent political figures more than permanent parties (see Moreno
2005: 492; Roll 2001: 156).
33. The 2006 Ley de Bancadas to enhance party control of their backbenchers, and
new electoral rules requiring parties to only field one list, were intended to enhance
party unity (Botero 2007: 101).
34. Deputies are elected by closed-list proportional representation, with the seven
provinces as electoral districts. Average district magnitude is 8.1. Municipal councils
are elected at the same time as the congress and president.
35. From 1969 until 2004 presidents were banned from reelection, but the rules
were amended in 2004 by a Supreme Court ruling to permit past presidents to seek re-
election after at least two terms have past (Vargas Cullell 2006: 117; Wilson 2007: 714).
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not necessary (Jones 1995; Wilson 2003). Mayors are also elected, though
those elections are offset from national elections by ten months.36
Costa Rica has a unitary political system with virtually all policy made
by the national government (Costa Rica Country Report 2004: 2; Vargas
Cullell 2007: 126). Local (cantonal) governments are involved primarily
in implementing policies set by the national government. There are seven
provinces, but there is no policymaking or implementing power at the pro-
vincial level, and no provincial governors or legislatures. Direct, popular
election of mayors began in 2002, and before that time it was rare for poli-
ticians who held office in the national government to have held local office.
Due to the ban on immediate reelection to the Assembly, deputies who
aspire to continue in politics typically want to be appointed to an execu-
tive branch post (i.e., minister, vice minister, agency executive president,
ambassador) which is typically only possible if their party wins the presi-
dency (Taylor 1992; Carey 1996).37 As Carey (1997: 206) explains, “[T]‌he
combination of both presidential and legislative term limits means that in-
cumbent Costa Rican presidents are constitutionally guaranteed not to con-
trol the sources of post-Assembly patronage that are most desired among
incumbent legislators. Incumbent presidents, then, have limited carrots
with which to entice (or sticks with which to coerce) legislators to respond
to their demands.” People who Costa Ricans would consider to be career
politicians move back and forth from the government to the private sector.
Another important aspect of Costa Rican electoral rules is the successful
gender quota law. A 40% gender quota was passed into law in 1998, though
it was not implemented until after the Supreme Elections Tribunal issued a
ruling in 1999 clarifying that parties must comply with the law or their lists
would not be allowed on the ballot (Jones 2004: 1208). Before implementa-
tion of that law women held, at most, 14% of the Assembly seats; afterward
women have consistently held at least 33% of the seats. In 2009 a 50%
“zipper” quota was passed that took effect for the 2014 election (www.quo-
taproject.org). Costa Rican women obtained the right to vote in the 1949
Constitution, and the first woman was elected to the Assembly in 1953.
Women began to pressure for greater representation in government in the
1980s, and in 1986 a woman became vice-president, with a norm develop-
ing since that time that presidential ballots should include a woman vice-
presidential candidate (though when Laura Chinchilla ran for president
36. Until 2002 mayors were elected concurrently with the congress. Beginning in 2002
they were directly elected with the offset in elections to promote a focus on local issues.
37. Reelection rates for the Assembly, after sitting out at least one term, are very
low. More than 80% of deputies are commonly sitting in the Assembly for the first time
(Wilson 2007: 714).
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her two vice-presidential running mates were men). Women’s movement
pressure for a greater role in politics began to gain ground with the pas-
sage of the Law of Real Equality in 1990, which benefited from the back-
ing of President Oscar Arias (PLN 1986–90) (Saint-Germain and Morgan
1991). This law required political parties to build into their statutes rules
to ensure that women would have effective representation, though the law
did not specify how this was to be accomplished (Jones 2004: 1207). The
four largest parties have gender quota rules, ranging from a minimum of
40% women to a parity rule for their party lists (www.quotaproject.org).
Costa Rica’s president is arguably the weakest in Latin America in formal
powers (Yashar 1995: 91–92; Vargas Cullell 2007: 124–26). In addition,
lack of immediate reelection means that the president is not the dominant
player in his/her political party, which creates an informal limit on the
power of the president (Carey 1997: 199, 203, 205–6; Yashar 1995: 83). The
president can initiate legislation in concert with the relevant cabinet min-
ister, but the president has no decree powers. Treaties and conventions ne-
gotiated by the executive must be approved by the Assembly. The president
can veto legislation (though the president cannot veto the budget), but the
entire bill must be vetoed, and a pocket veto is not available. A two-thirds
vote of the Assembly is required to override a veto. The president has no
real emergency powers, as emergency power actions require immediate ap-
proval by two-thirds of the Assembly. The president can call the Assembly
into special session, which is a regular occurrence, and during those ses-
sions the president determines what bills will be on the Assembly’s agenda.
However, even this power is limited as the president has no control over
amendments and cannot compel the Assembly to act on the bill (Carey
1997: 201–3; Schwindt-Bayer 2008). It is quite common for bills initiated by
the executive branch to die in committee (Taylor-Robinson and Ross 2011).
The president’s ability to implement his or her policy agenda is further
hampered by the Supreme Court’s power to declare laws unconstitutional.
Since the creation of a special constitutional bench (Sala IV) in 1989 the
court has been very active, particularly when an organized group in society
opposes a policy (Vargas Cullell 2007: 125; Wilson and Rodríguez Cordero
2006; Wilson 2011). Combined with the fragmentation of the party system
that began around 2000, which has complicated the executive’s ability to
get policies passed, politics have become increasingly criticized for grid-
lock (Gutierrez Saxe and Straface 2008; Straface 2008). According to Carey,
“Presidents are frequently left to rely on what Richard Neustadt calls ‘the
power to persuade,’ ” (Carey 1997: 215), so presidents and their ministers
have to be successful liaisons with the Assembly if the administration is to
succeed with its legislative agenda (see Taylor-Robinson and Ross 2011).
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The president appoints, and has complete autonomy to dismiss cabinet
ministers (Carey 1997: 202; Constitution Art. 139). Presidents often ap-
point as ministers people who were involved in the policy development ap-
paratus of their campaign because they are regarded as people whose views
are close to the views of the president, and because they are people whose
loyalty the president can count on (Martinez Rosón 2011). As part of the
attempt of the 1949 Constitution to limit the power of the president, much
of the action attributed to the president must be co-signed with the appro-
priate minister (Vargas Cullell 2007: 119). However, since ministers know
that they got their job because the president selected them, and due to the
long-established cultural norm of deference to the president, this check on
the power of the president has not been effective. The constitution grants
the Assembly the power to interpellate, censure, and impeach cabinet min-
isters, but this is rarely used (Carey 1997: 201; Vargas Cullell 2007: 120).38
Costa Rican cabinets are single party, with the occasional minister ap-
pointed from a party other than the president’s party (Carey 1997: 210;
Vargas Cullell 2007: 120). The president’s party has almost always had a
majority or at least a plurality in the Assembly, though for the administra-
tions included in this study the size of the plurality was smaller than in
prior years.39 When the president’s party lacks a majority in the Assembly
cabinet posts have not been used as a tool for building a coalition.
For much of the period since the installation of the democratic regime
two parties dominated elections: Liberación Nacional (PLN), and Unidad
Social Cristiana (PUSC), and the three presidents in our study were elected
from these two parties. The PUSC formed out of an anti-PLN coalition that
became a single party in 1983. The PLN adopted this name in 1951 and
dominated Costa Rican politics until the 1980s. The party historically had
a social democratic ideology, with a platform that included extensive social
welfare programs, though since the 1980s the requirements of structural
adjustment programs imposed on Costa Rica by international lending or-
ganizations moved the party toward a more conservative stance (Yashar
1995; Alfaro Salas 2001: 40–43). The PUSC has a social Christian ideol-
ogy, though its origination from an alliance of anti-PLN parties, includ-
ing parties representing the traditional oligarchy, caused the party to be
38. Censure is a way for the Assembly to formally express “disapproval for minis-
terial conduct or policy” and requires a majority vote. Impeachment requires a two-
thirds vote (Carey 1997: 201n1; Constitution Art. 121).
39. In earlier administrations when the president’s party lacked a majority it typi-
cally was short one or two seats (Carey 1997: 203–4). In the Rodríguez administration
(PUSC 1998–2002) his party had twenty-seven of fifty-seven seats. President Pacheco
(PUSC 2002–06) had only nineteen seats. President Arias (PLN 2006–10) had twenty-
five of fifty-seven seats.
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more conservative. Both are “catch all” parties (Yashar 1995; Alfaro Salas
2001: 72–73; Vargas Cullell 2007: 117). One or two small leftist parties com-
peted in elections at the national level and typically won a few Assembly
seats. A few provincial parties were able to win a seat in the Assembly.
Since 2000 the PUSC has fallen on hard times (Lehoucq 2005; Wilson
2003, 2007). The electoral hegemony of the PLN has also been called into
question since the debt crisis of the 1980s required the party to backpedal
on many of its social democratic welfare state policies (Yashar 1995: 97–
98). For the 2002 election a new party, Acción Ciudadana (PAC) split from
the PLN and became the other major political force (Wilson 2003: 513),
with its importance confirmed in 2014 when its candidate won the presi-
dential elections. Several small parties, some provincial and some national
and ideologically based (both conservative and leftist), now win seats in the
Assembly. The 2006 election is viewed as significant for marking the end
of the two-party system with a centrist ideology (Vargas Cullell 2007: 113,
117; Wilson 2007: 712). Party system fragmentation has made the execu-
tive branch task of building a coalition of Assembly votes to pass legislation
more complicated.
United States
Elections are held every four years for president and vice-president, with
concurrent elections for both chambers of Congress.40 Midterm elec-
tions are also held for the House of Representatives, and for a third of the
Senate. Election of the president is a multistep process: Votes are cast in
each state, states then send delegates to the Electoral College based on the
outcome of the presidential ballot in their state. Delegates to the Electoral
College have traditionally been allocated on a winner-take-all basis so the
candidate who obtains a plurality of votes in that state obtains all its elec-
tors.41 Votes are counted in the Electoral College (though it does not actu-
ally meet as a body), and if a candidate obtains a majority of the vote that
candidate becomes president. If no candidate receives an absolute major-
ity in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives determines who
40. The 435 members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms and are
elected by plurality from single member districts. The 100-member Senate has a six-
year term, with one-third renewed every two years. Two senators per state are elected
by plurality in a statewide election.
41. Maine and Nebraska allow division of the state’s electoral votes based on con-
gressional districts. Electors are not bound to vote a particular way by federal law, and
while defections are rare, some states have passed faithless elector laws.
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will become president (per the Twelfth Amendment). Since passage of the
Twenty-Second Amendment in 1947, presidential reelection has been lim-
ited to one time. Presidents typically select their vice-presidential running

mate to balance the ticket to appeal to multiple regions of the country.
The norm in Congress is to build a career there, though some members of
the House move on to the Senate, and some run for governor of their state.
Reelection rates are high, particularly in the House, where it is common for
90% of members to run for reelection, and for about 90% to win (Ornstein
et al. 2013: Table 2.7). Part of the reason for building a career in a chamber
is the norm tying seniority to power within the chamber, which makes it
costly for a member of Congress to join the cabinet, as they must resign
their seat to do so. Consequently, few members of a president’s cabinet
come directly from the Congress. Governors, state legislators, and mayors
are also directly elected, and holding state or local level office is often an
important part of building a political career both for members of Congress,
and for cabinet secretaries.
Women obtained the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment
to the Constitution in 1920, with the first woman serving in the House of
Representatives in 1917.42 However, the US record in electing women lags
behind that of many other advanced industrial democracies, which is par-
ticularly interesting given the progress made by women in the United States
in educational achievement and in the business world. There is no gender
quota law in the United States, and no parties have quotas. It was not until
the 2008 Democratic Primary, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as
the front-runners, that a major party had a woman as a serious contender
to win the presidential nomination.43 A woman has only been the vice-
presidential candidate two times (Democratic Party in 1984; Republican
Party in 2008), and neither ticket was elected. The election of 1992 was
declared the “year of the woman” because record numbers of women suc-
cessfully ran for office, with perhaps the most notable effect in the Senate
where seats held by women increased from two to six (out of 100 senators)
(Reingold 2008: 2). In 2003 Democrat Nancy Pelosi became House Minority
Leader and became the first woman party leader in Congress. When her
party won a majority in the House in 2007, Pelosi was elected Speaker of
42. Wyoming territory granted women the right to vote in 1869.

43. In 1972 Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for the Democratic Party nomi-
nation. Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress. In her
memoir she wrote, “The mere fact that a black woman dared to run for President, seri-
ously, not expecting to win but sincerely trying to, is what it was all about” (cited in
Mandel 2007: 285). See Mandel (2007) for a history of women attempting to obtain
their party’s nomination for president in the United States.
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the House, becoming the first woman to hold that post. In the 2014 election
women won 19.3% of the seats in the House, and 20% in the Senate.
The US president is weak in terms of formal legislative powers. The

constitution does not give the executive branch the right to directly initi-
ate legislation. However, the president is still expected to set the agenda
on key policy topics of the day (though Congress can set its own agenda
and prevent proposals from the president from getting onto the agenda)
(Rudalevige 2002: 2; Wood 2009: 108–9). Kingdon (1995: 23) wrote that
“no other single actor in the political system has quite the capability of the
president to set agendas” (also see Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Scholars
of US politics have devoted much work to assessing the success rate of
presidents both in setting the agenda and in obtaining their preferred poli-
cies, exploring the impact of divided government, presidential popularity,
media attention, and party polarization (see for instance Neustadt 1960;
Wildavsky 1966; Edwards and Wood 1999; Fleisher et al. 2000; Bond et
al. 2003; Druckman and Holmes 2004; Cohen 2009). The power of the
US president is typically described as the “power to persuade” (Neustadt
1960)—the public, interest groups, Congress—or sometimes to activate
latent support for a policy that already exists, or serve as a facilitator for
change (Edwards 2009: 10–12).
The president does have a strong veto, as a two-thirds vote in both
chambers of Congress is required to override a veto, but it is not a line-
item veto. In addition, while presidents lack decree authority to initiate
new legislative programs, they can issue executive orders, which are used
for a variety of strategic reasons related to executive-legislative relations
(Waterman 2009: 483). Presidents also have tried to make use of sign-
ing statements to work around Congress (Cooper 2002; Wood 2009: 119).
But when presidents legislate in these ways the policy can be overturned
by the next administration, lacking the permanence of law. The Congress
and Supreme Court both have a history of exercising their constitutional
powers to check the executive branch (and each other). In addition, the
strong federal nature of the political system, which means that much fed-
eral policy is implemented at least partially by state governments and bu-
reaucracies, limits the policymaking autonomy of presidents.
The procedure for cabinet secretary appointment in the US places an im-
portant qualification on the separation-of-origin trait of presidential sys-

tems (Shugart and Carey 1992: 106–7). The president nominates cabinet sec-
retaries (and can dismiss them), but the US Constitution requires that the
Senate approve appointments (see Krutz et al. 1998; Bond et al. 2009 for de-
tails of the process). History has shown that this is not a pro forma approval,
as secretaries-designate have failed to receive the required approval (see
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Borrelli 2002), and presidents have withdrawn nominations (or secretaries-
designate have withdrawn themselves) whenever strong opposition became
apparent or media coverage revealed embarrassing details, and party polar-

ization is argued to be the reason for increased conflict over nominations and
delays in approvals (Bond et al. 2009).44 However, presidents do use their
nomination authority, and their capacity to appoint many top-level offices
within cabinet departments and other executive branch agencies, to influ-
ence the implementation of policy (Lewis 2008). Cabinet appointments are
also important for the president because studies have shown that almost half
of the legislative initiatives that come out of the executive branch are drafted
by cabinet departments and executive agencies, rather than by agents in the
White House Office, and this is particularly likely to be true for initiatives
that involve technically complex issues (Rudalevige 2002). Because of the
need to lead a bureaucracy of career bureaucrats who have been protected
by civil service guarantees for more than a century, presidents make exten-
sive use of political appointments at the top of the bureaucracy. They also
put much emphasis on selecting cabinet secretaries who will be loyal to the
president and to the president’s policy agenda, even though maintaining
that loyalty after a secretary is appointed often proves difficult due to the in-
dependent political stature of many secretaries and the pressure secretaries
feel from interest groups, Congress, and civil servants in their department
(Edwards 2001; Pfiffner 2009: 93–94). Finally, while US presidents have not
formed coalition cabinets, it is not uncommon for a president to appoint one
or two secretaries from the opposition party.
A stable two-party system has been in place for more than a century,
with the Democratic and Republican parties winning all presidential elec-
tions, virtually all seats in Congress, and almost all state governorships. On
rare occasions an independent or a person who has broken with their party
wins a seat in Congress, or a governorship. On a few occasions a third-
party candidate for president has been a real player in a presidential elec-
tion (e.g., Ralph Nader in 2000, Ross Perot in the 1992 election, George
Wallace in 1968). However, such candidates are not so much serious con-
tenders to win, but rather pose the threat of taking votes away from one of
the traditional parties’ candidates, which could cause the Electoral College
vote to be inconclusive so the election would be decided by the House of
44. Bond et al. (2009: 229) explain that Senators now face “intense pressure from
their allies outside of the legislative branch to oppose a nominee who will be in a posi-
tion to make policy in an area important to the group” though they also clarify that
they expect the Senate will engage in greater scrutiny of judicial appointments, and of
appointments to independent agencies, than of cabinet appointments (p. 232).
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Representatives. Single member district elections for Congress and state
legislatures, paired with the Electoral College rules for most states whereby
the presidential candidate with the most votes in the state wins all the
state’s Electoral College votes, create strong disincentives for factions to
break off from a traditional party and form a new party. Consequently com-
petitions for the presidential nomination of each party are typically hard
fought, through a lengthy primary season, often with the result of pulling
the party’s nominee away from the center of the political spectrum, thus
making it hard for candidates to appeal to the growing pool of more centrist
“independent” voters to win the general election. Also, mid-term elections
for Congress typically punish the president’s party, so that the opposition
party gains seats in both chambers, often leading to different parties con-
trolling the executive and legislative branches (Ornstein et al. 2013: Tables
2–4). A consequence of the strong incentives to not create splinter parties
is that both major parties have typically contained ideologically diverse
elected officials and supporters, which has often aided presidents whose
party had only a minority of seats in Congress to form majority coalitions
in support of specific bills without forming a formal coalition. A decline in
intra-party ideological diversity since the 1990s and increased party polar-
ization have made it more difficult in recent times for presidents to form
cross-party coalitions (Fleisher et al. 2000: 7).
These five countries all have presidential democratic systems, yet the vari-
ance they provide in formal and informal institutions allows us to examine
through a comparative politics lens whether and how women are being in-
tegrated or incorporated into politics at the highest level of the executive
branch. Variance across the countries in organizational structure, electoral
and legislative rules, and party systems differentially impacts career devel-
opment of political elites—both men and women. In Part II of this book
we compare the backgrounds, political experience, and group connections
of men and women in these presidential cabinets to provide an empirical
assessment of whether the expanded number of women in presidential
cabinets is evidence of elite circulation or if the women conform to the
male norm. Part III of the book explores the treatment and effectiveness
of women compared to men. This two-step analysis positions us to assess
whether the increasing numbers of women in cabinets of these presiden-

tial democracies are but numerous tokens, or whether there is compelling
evidence of genuine integration with women, or at least some women, now
operating as power players at the highest levels of executive branch politics.
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CHAPTER 3
Defining the basis
for comparing ministers
D o women bring different educational backgrounds, employment, po-

litical experience and connections, or group links to the cabinet when
compared to their male colleagues? Do men and women bring equal num-
bers of political capital resources (PCRs) to the administration? Are men
and women treated equally and are they equally effective once they are ap-
pointed to the cabinet?
As explained in chapter 1, representation in government of women—or
of any historically underrepresented group—is a healthy sign for democ-
racy because it signals that they are recognized as full political citizens of
their country. There also is an expectation that women will bring different
insights to government, helping to set a more diverse policy agenda and
providing new perspectives to policy debates: this is because the life experi-
ences of women differ from the experiences of men (Escobar-Lemmon and
Taylor-Robinson 2014). The question of whether the women now being ap-
pointed to presidential cabinets in greater numbers and in increasingly di-
verse posts actually differ from their male colleagues in their backgrounds
and credentials is empirically testable. Additionally, whether women are
treated equally and are able to be equally effective determines whether they
are able to represent a different perspective. Thus, it is also important to

empirically assess their ability to be successful once they enter the cabinet.
For women to have the same résumé as men, or a substantively equiva-
lent résumé with regard to knowledge, skills, and contacts, does not mean
that those women necessarily have had the same experiences as men.
Women with the same education, work, and group connection background
as men may have had quite different experiences than male counterparts: as
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women build their careers they are often newcomers to the workforce, to a
particular occupation, or to politics, and have to contend with being alone
or a member of a very small minority (possibly even a token) or having to

break a glass ceiling to enter a previously forbidden education, work, or po-
litical space. Many had to enter worlds that had historically been dominated
by men, and confront the challenges presented by that situation. Thus,
a male and female minister who both served in the national legislature,
for instance, may not have fully equivalent experiences. Women’s experi-
ences are also profoundly influenced by socially constructed roles expected
of women, as mother, spouse, and worker (see Beckwith 2014a: 20 for a
concise discussion of how women’s experiences “are constructed by human
agency, and hence cannot be treated as essentialist”). We may also have
cases where the specializations of men and women within the same profes-
sion may not be fully equivalent. For instance, male ministers coming from
academia might be more likely to come out of male-dominated disciplines
such as economics or engineering while female ministers might hold PhDs
in social work or education.
Rigorous psychological characterization and comparison of women’s
and men’s experiences might well prove exceedingly complex and are
beyond the scope of an analysis that lacks in-depth interviews with every
minister. However, we can straightforwardly examine and systematically
measure the extent to which the women and men appointed to the highest
levels of the executive branch come from different educational and work
backgrounds, and the extent to which their prior political experience or po-
litical connections differ. We can also determine whether they have links to
the same or to different types of interest groups or sectors, and in particu-
lar whether women bring to the cabinet connections to women’s groups.
Although this might not tell us about their lived work environment, the
existence (or lack thereof) of patterns in careers in and of itself serves as an
important signal to aspirants of what credentials they might need if they
hope to one day enter the cabinet. We can then explore how credentials are
related to minister success, and if the relationship is the same for women
as for men, across different types of posts.
An analysis of the public credentials (e.g., what might be found on a CV
or mentioned in a press release) is also an important undertaking, as this
information is used by actors looking for cues about the direction a presi-
dential administration will take. Lobbyists and the groups they represent
may be less concerned with whether a minister experienced discrimination
on the job and more concerned with whether he or she has a reputation for
being friendly to their interests: perhaps they have worked in that sector,
served as a lobbyist, or served on a related board of directors.
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i s t e r sCOMMISSION
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This chapter begins with a brief summary of previous studies about
cabinet minister credentials. We then explain how we created our data set.
Finally, we introduce the different partitions of the data set we will use
throughout the book to assess whether women and men in these presiden-
tial cabinets have similar or different backgrounds and experience the same
or different treatment/success in their posts.
PREVIOUS STUDIES COMPARING CREDENTIALS

OF MEN AND WOMEN IN CABINETS
Pioneering and extensive comparative research about women in Western

Europe’s parliamentary cabinets was conducted by Davis (1997). Davis ex-
plored whether women were more likely to be appointed in specialist than in
generalist systems. More recent work has explored representation of women
in the parliamentary cabinets of Australia (Moon and Fountain 1997),
Canadian provinces (Studlar and Moncrief 1997, 1999), Japan (Kobayashi
2004), Scandinavia (Bergquist 2011), the United Kingdom, Germany, and
Spain (Buckley and Galligan 2011), and larger sets of advanced industrial-
ized nations (Siaroff 2000; Clavería 2013). Findings indicate that women
are more likely to be appointed to parliamentary cabinets when minis-
ters can come from outside parliament and when technical credentials are
valued more than years of experience in parliament.1 Specialist systems, and
the option of appointments from outside parliament, advantage women be-
cause generalist systems typically require years of experience in parliament
before an MP will be considered even for a junior cabinet post, and women
are relative newcomers to parliament. Also, generalist systems typically
place great value on oratory skills, and studies show women backbenchers
are less likely to speak out (Davis 1997).2
This finding about parliamentary cabinets might not apply in presiden-
tial countries because presidential cabinets have no legal rule or traditional
norm that cabinet members be selected from the legislature. As we will
1. Buckley and Galligan (2011) and Bergquist (2011) also find that party principals
of gender equality or public gender equality machineries are associated with greater
representation of women in cabinets.

2. Davis (1997) also explored whether the propensity of women MPs to specialize
in social welfare issues, or to be assigned to standing committees that handle social
welfare topics (due to their genuine interest in those issues or because women are ste-
reotyped as best suited for those topics), which are less commonly the topic of parlia-
mentary debates than topics such as defense or finance, may explain why women are
less likely to be noticed in parliamentary debates (also see Skard and Haavio-Mannila
1985: 73–75).
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show in c hapter 4, many cabinet members in presidential systems come
from the private sector and there are few cabinet ministers (at least in the
countries and administrations in our data set) who were elected to congress
prior to being appointed to the cabinet. Moreover, those who come directly
from the legislature must often resign their seat, meaning that in contrast
to parliamentary systems where ministers can simultaneously be part of
the legislative and executive branches, in presidential systems they must
pick. Also, while in parliamentary systems the cabinet and prime minister
must receive a vote of confidence to install the government, in presidential
systems the executive is chosen independently of the legislative branch.
Thus, presidents have wider latitude in their ability to hire and fire mem-
bers of their cabinet.3 While we recognize that there is a larger literature
on women’s appointment to cabinets in parliamentary systems, because of
important differences between presidential and parliamentary systems, we
only build on that literature in instances where we believe the differences
between the systems are not critical and draw instead on other literatures
for inspiration where the differences are highly salient.
Borrelli (2002), studied secretaries-designate for the US cabinet to ex-
plore “the nominees’ credentials and alliances to see whether they might
be expected to demonstrate an awareness of women as a distinctive pres-
idential constituency” (p. 5). Borrelli’s (2002, 2010) findings differ from
the norm for parliamentary cabinets. In the United States more women
secretaries were generalists, while a greater percentage of men are special-
ists or liaisons to constituencies of the administration, though this began
to change in the Clinton administrations (1993–2001). Martin (1997: 61)
did not use the term “generalist,” but she also found that fewer women
than men had experience in the department they were appointed to head.4
Borrelli views this as important because generalists are “more depen-
dent on the president for political advancement” while specialists and li-
aisons have “the political resources to act as independent power brokers”
3. The US cabinet is a partial exception because the Senate must approve cabinet
appointments. Even in systems where formal approval by a legislature is not neces-
sary we still expect that presidents anticipate the reaction to their nominees and that
heightened public scrutiny (even without a confirmation hearing) causes some indi-
viduals to decline a request to serve in the cabinet. Thus, while the US system may
seem more different because of the formal confirmation hearings, that does not mean
we cannot compare it to the other countries or generalize from it. Even in Chile where
there are pre-electoral coalitions presidents have some latitude in ministerial appoint-
ments because they are not at risk of a vote of no confidence.
4. The lack of experience in the department that women in the United States direct
is particularly interesting in light of Martin’s findings that “nearly equal percentages of
men and women have had some executive branch experience (57 percent for women,
62 percent for men)” (1997: 61).
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(2002: 54). Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson (2009) studied wom-
en’s careers in presidential cabinets in eighteen Latin American democ-
racies and found that there are still gendered patterns to appointments,
though that appears to be changing. In their study of the subset of women
who switched cabinet posts compared to a similar set of men who switched
posts, a greater proportion of women than men had specialist credentials
related to their second post. This indicates that Latin American presiden-
tial cabinets may have more in common with parliamentary cabinets, at
least in terms of women more commonly being specialists than general-
ists, although the reasons for this commonality may be different in the two
types of systems. In Africa as well women have tended to make inroads
into the cabinet due to policy or professional expertise, and working with
professional organizations and activist movements (Arriola and Johnson
2014: 4; also see Bauer and Okpotor 2013).
Regardless of whether women who are specialists or technocrats are
more likely to be appointed than women who are perceived as general-
ists, our hypothesis based on several literatures reviewed in chapter 1
is that women specialists/technocrats will only differ from their male
specialist/technocrat colleagues in terms of their sex. We have the same
expectation for women generalists when compared to men general-
ists. If presidents appoint people to their cabinet to obtain important
PCRs, both female and male appointees will be expected to bring such
resources to the table.
DATA SOURCES AND CODING MINISTER CREDENTIALS
We coded minister background on numerous characteristics: education, oc-

cupation, and post-related experience (presented in chapter 4), political expe-
rience and connections (chapter 5), and group links (chapter 6). To construct
résumés of the ministers we conducted web searches, utilizing government
websites, newspaper reports, and personal and university webpages.5 Both
5. Common sources of web based information were: ministry webpages that often
include an official biography of the minister, newspaper coverage of president’s cabinet
appointments that typically includes commentary on the backgrounds and credentials

of the ministers, webpages from organizations, businesses, and universities where
former ministers are currently employed that often include résumés or biographical
descriptions of their members/employees, and candidate webpages when former min-
isters later ran for office. Some ministers received awards from international organiza-
tions and award press releases include biographical information. We also consulted The
International Who’s Who 1991–2006; Who’s Who in Latin America 1993 and 1997; Who’s
Who in the World 2002.
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authors coded each minister on all variables, and when there was disagree-
ment we met to discuss refinements to our coding rules to resolve these
problems (i.e., special or borderline cases) in a systematic fashion. All the

characteristics in this analysis are coded as binary variables, meaning a min-
ister was either judged to have a given characteristic or not.
This analysis is based on publicly available information. There could be
additional qualifications making a person suited to their post that are not
widely known. If anything, we err on the side of underestimating the preva-
lence of such publicly unknown characteristics of ministers with the aim of
assuring that any bias would be against finding spurious relationships. In
addition, our missing a characteristic likely meant the media missed it as
well. Our logic is that publicly known characteristics are the ones that send
signals to citizens, client groups, and the international community about
ministers’ qualifications, as well as “about the policy intentions and over-
all position a government will take” (Annesley et al. 2014: 8; also Laver and
Shepsle 1996: 13). As Martin (1997: 51) wrote describing presidential ap-
pointments in the United States, “The people the president selects for seats
at the cabinet table or as heads of governmental agencies to help shape and
move his new legislative agenda receive close scrutiny and are the focus of a
barrage of news reports and editorials.” Fortunately, previous studies typi-
cally drew their data from newspaper coverage and “Who’s Who” sources,
and thus were also limited to publicly available information about ministers
(e.g., Cohen 1988b; Borrelli 2002), which makes it appropriate to compare
our results with theirs.
If information was not available to code a minister for a particular
characteristic, the individual is coded as missing on that variable alone,
and consequently the “n” for our analyses is not the same for all vari-
ables.6 Fortunately, for most background characteristics it was possible
to find information to code almost all ministers, and for almost all min-
isters it was possible to find information to code all background charac-
teristics. Educational background was a notable exception with missing
data: for example we could not code whether ministers had a graduate
degree for up to 34% of the ministers in some countries,7 forcing us to
exclude educational background from the multivariate analysis in Part III
of the book. However, because education can be an important part of the
training providing a minister the PCR of policy expertise, and because it
6. In the statistical analysis in subsequent chapters this leads to the exclusion of the
minister from the model.
7. We may know based on a person’s title or occupation (e.g., lawyer, doctor) that
they have a university degree, but not know the specific university, extent of post-
graduate education, or academic fields studied.

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is one of the ways in which prior studies have found women and men to
differ, we present the information we have in Part II, with the caution
that any sex differences detected should be viewed with awareness of the
missing data.8
OVERVIEW OF TYPES OF ANALYSIS PRESENTED

THROUGHOUT THE BOOK
We build on the typology of political capital resources (PCRs) developed

from the study of US cabinets that argues presidents need policy expertise,
political skills, and support resources for their administration to succeed
in making and implementing their policy agenda (Wyszomirski 1989: 46).
Is it the norm for ministers to have credentials that make them a source of
all three PCRs? Do the PCRs men and women bring to the administration
help predict their treatment/effectiveness? Do the answers differ between
men and women in our data set as a whole? Do they differ by initial versus
replacement appointees, by country, or by type of post? We conduct ag-
gregate comparisons and also look at each country separately, as the five
countries in our study have different political histories, party systems, and
political structures (see chapter 2 for descriptions), any of which could
have caused different norms to evolve in relation to the expected qualifica-
tions for cabinet ministers.
We look at initial and replacement ministers as separate groups because
the literature expects presidents to consider different factors when ap-
pointing their initial cabinet than when replacing ministers. International
norms have developed that there should be more women in government
(Krook and True 2012; Jacob et al. 2014). But does this pressure only
apply to initial cabinets? The initial cabinet will be covered by the media
and photographed as a group and in recent times, because diversity (sex,
race, ethnicity) is expected, presidents (and prime ministers) may sense
that they must appoint a certain number of women or else be censured by
the press or the public (Carroll 1984; Martin 1989, 1997; Davis 1997: 21,
72, 76, 115n11; Htun and Jones 2001; Baldez 2002: 181; Franceschet 2008;
Leyenaar 2008: 3, 2014: 4; Luna et al. 2008; Ríos Tobar 2008; Borrelli 2010;
8. Of the 447 ministers we are lacking data on the university they attended for 78
(57 men, 21 women). The proportion of the men and women with missing information
(17% and 19% respectively) is not statistically distinguishable. We lack information on
whether 100 of the 447 ministers (81 men, 19 women) hold a graduate degree or not,
but again the proportion missing for each sex (24% for men, 17% for women) is not
statistically distinguishable.
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Krook and O’Brien 2012; Tremblay and Stockemer 2013: 527). Scholars
argue that women are appointed to initial cabinets as a symbol of renewal
(Lois and Diz 2013). US presidents have typically appointed women to their
cabinet to address a gender gap that is widening in the electorate (Borrelli
2002: 74). But the diversity of the cabinet is only obvious when a group
photo is shown, and people are likely to lose interest in the cabinet as a
group after the initial appointments are made. In terms of minister cre-
dentials, literature that is primarily about cabinets of US presidents (most
without a gender focus) indicates that presidents eventually focus less on
building links to constituencies and more on administrative skill in order
to implement policy or pave the way to a reelection campaign (Mann and
Smith 1981; Cohen 1988b: 113–16; Wyszomirski 1989: 47; Nicholls 1991;
Borrelli 2002: 42). Over time, US presidents also apparently become more
comfortable with appointing people from Washington, DC—careerists in
the bureaucracy, members of congress, lobbyists (Martin 1997: 62). Thus,
it is important to explore whether the credentials and PCRs found in ini-
tial cabinets differ from those of replacement ministers, and whether or
not there are sex differences within the groups of initial or replacement
ministers.
We also want to study whether credentials and treatment differ across
types of cabinet posts. To do this we first systematized types of portfolios
by employing readily available information regarding the portfolio domain.
We grouped together like posts across time and across countries regardless
of differences in the name of the ministry. In some cases this is straight-
forward as a ministry has a discrete policy domain, and every country has
a similarly named ministry (e.g., education, foreign relations). For other
policy areas we were able to determine that the policy domain of portfo-
lios was relatively similar across countries despite differences in names; this
was done by studying the mission statements, dependent agencies, and or-
ganizational structures of current cabinet ministries (e.g., health, justice/
security, transportation and public works). For some portfolios we formed
groups based on what appeared to be the predominant mission of the minis-
try, even though some components of the ministry’s policy purview did not
completely overlap across time or across countries. This exercise produced
sixteen types of portfolios. We then consulted with country experts regard-
ing the placement of ministries into each of these sixteen types.9 Not all
9. We thank David Altman, Claudia Avellaneda, Jon Bond, MaryAnne Borrelli,
Felipe Botero, Ernesto Calvo, Miguel De Luca, George Edwards, Susan Franceschet,
Erik Godwin, Jonathan Hartlyn, Mark Jones, Patricio Navia, Sebastian Saiegh, Peter
Siavelis, Jorge Vargas Cullell, and Bruce Wilson for their help and advice on how to
combine portfolios within countries. Any errors in the categorization remain our own.

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sixteen categories are present in each country, and in a few instances a coun-
try had more than one ministry in a category (e.g., in the United States both
the Departments of Justice and of Homeland Security are in the justice and
public security category). This exercise addresses different nomenclature
used for portfolios across countries, as well as the merging and separation
of some portfolios that occurs over time in each country (see table 3.1 for a
listing of the sixteen portfolios and all included ministries).
Because sixteen types of portfolios is a large number compared to the
number of ministers in our data set, we partition cabinet portfolios into
broad categories that are commonly utilized in the literature about cabi-
nets. These broad categories acknowledge that not all cabinet posts are the
same: portfolios differ in the substance of the policy area(s) they cover,
gender norms or stereotypes associated with the post, the prestige that
comes with the appointment, and the degree to which the post may be
publicly visible or conflict-ridden. Using broad categories for compari-
sons also allows us to perform statistically meaningful comparisons even
with the limited number of people in our data set appointed to specific
portfolios.
One way we partition portfolios is into Economics/Social Welfare/
Central categories. This three-part grouping builds on the broad categories
Keman (1991) used to study appointments to parliamentary cabinets in
Western Europe.10 Portfolios are grouped as follows:
• Economics Ministries (172 ministers)—manage the national economy

or regulate or oversee sectors of the economy: agriculture; commerce
and industry; energy, mining, and environment; finance/treasury; plan-
ning; public works and transportation.
10. Our “Central” category resembles what Mulcahy and Wyszomirski (cited as

forthcoming in Wyszomirski 1989: 50) call the “national policy responsibility” type
of cabinet department, which refers to posts that “manage comprehensive national
concerns” such as diplomatic relations, defense, finance, legal affairs. The other cat-
egories in their typology are “constituency-oriented policy concerns” and “issue-area
concerns.” Our three categories are also similar to the three categories used by Altman
(2008: 264–65) in his study of Chilean cabinet appointments: “political ministries”
(defense, foreign affairs, interior, secretary of government, secretary of the presi-
dency) which he notes are all actually located in the presidential palace; “Economic
ministries” (agriculture, budget, economy and energy, mining, planning, public works,
transport), and “Social ministries” (education, health, housing, justice, national pat-
rimony, women, work and social welfare). These categories largely parallel our own,
with the notable exception of justice, which Altman places in the “Social ministries”
category. Tremblay and Stockemer (2013: 534–35) for a study of Canada partitioned
portfolios into five categories: economic, political, socioeconomic, socio-cultural, and
“other.” Their political category resembles our Central category.
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Table 3.1 SIXTEEN TYPES OF CABINET PORTFOLIOS ACROSS COUNTRIES
AND ADMINISTRATIONS
Agriculture
Chile Agriculture Lagos & Bachelet
Colombia Agriculture & Livestock Pastrana
Colombia Agriculture Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Agriculture Rodríguez & Pacheco
Costa Rica Production & Agriculture Arias 2
US Agriculture Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Commerce and Industry
Argentina Production Duhalde & Fernández in
Dec. 2008
Colombia Foreign Trade Pastrana & Uribe 1
Colombia Industry & Commerce Uribe 1&2
Colombia Trade, Industry & Tourism Uribe 2
Colombia Development Pastrana
Colombia Economic Development Pastrana
Costa Rica Tourism Pacheco & Arias 2
Costa Rica Economic Policy/Planning Arias 2
Costa Rica Trade & Industry Pacheco
Costa Rica Economics, Industry, Com. & Rodríguez
Foreign Commerce
Costa Rica Economy Rodríguez
US Commerce Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Culture
Chile Culture & Arts Bachelet
Colombia Culture Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Culture Rodríguez
Costa Rica Culture, Youth & Sports Pacheco
Costa Rica Culture & Youth Arias 2
Defense
Argentina Defense de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner, &
Fernández
Chile Defense Lagos & Bachelet
Colombia Defense Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
US Defense Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Education
Argentina Education de la Rúa & Fernández

Argentina Education, Science & Technology Duhalde & Kirchner
Argentina Science, Technology & Productive Fernández
Innovation
Chile Education Lagos & Bachelet
Colombia Education Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Public Education Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
Costa Rica Science & Technology Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Education Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARRIBEAN (ECLAC LIBRARY) (continued)
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Table 3.1 CONTINUED
Energy, Mining, and Environment

Chile Environment Bachelet
Chile Public Lands Bachelet
Chile Energy Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Mines Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Mines & Energy Bachelet
Colombia Environment, Housing & Land Pastrana
Development
Colombia Environment Uribe 1
Colombia Environment, Housing & Uribe 1&2
Territorial Development
Colombia Mines & Energy Pastrana & Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Environment & Energy Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Energy Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
US Interior Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Finance/Treasury
Argentina Economics & Finance de la Rúa
Argentina Economics de la Rúa, Duhalde & Kirchner
Argentina Economics & Production Kirchner & Fernández
(until Dec. 2008)
Chile Finance Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Economy, Public Works & Bachelet
Reconstruction
Chile Economics Lagos
Colombia Finance Pastrana & Uribe 2
Colombia Finance & Public Credit Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Finance Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Treasury Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Foreign Relations
Argentina Foreign Relations & International de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
Commerce Fernández
Chile Foreign Relations Lagos & Bachelet
Colombia Foreign Relations Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Foreign Relations/Foreign Affairs Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
Costa Rica Foreign Trade Pacheco & Arias 2
US State Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Health
Argentina Health de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
Fernández
Argentina Social Development & de la Rúa & Duhalde
Environment
Argentina Social Welfare Duhalde
Argentina Social Development Kirchner & Fernández
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Table 3.1 CONTINUED
Chile Health Lagos & Bachelet

Colombia Public Health Pastrana
Colombia Social Protection Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Public Health Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
Costa Rica Coordination for the Social Area Pacheco
US Health & Human Services Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
US Veterans Affairs Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Housing and Urban Development
Argentina Infrastructure & Housing de la Rúa
Chile Housing Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Housing, Urban Development & Lagos
Public Lands
Costa Rica Housing Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Housing & Urban Development Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Justice and Public Security
Argentina Interior de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
Fernández
Argentina Justice de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
Fernández
Argentina Justice & Human Rights de la Rúa, Kirchner & Fernández
Argentina Security Duhalde
Argentina Justice, Security & Human Rights Kirchner
Chile Interior Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Justice Lagos & Bachelet
Colombia Government/Interior Pastrana
Colombia Interior Pastrana
Colombia Justice Pastrana
Colombia Interior & Justice Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Interior, Police & Public Security Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
Costa Rica Justice Rodríguez & Pacheco
US Attorney General/Justice Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
US Homeland Security Bush 1&2
Labor and Social Security
Argentina Labor de la Rúa & Duhalde
Argentina Labor, Employment & Kirchner & Fernández
Social Security
Chile Labor & Social Security Lagos & Bachelet

Colombia Labor Pastrana
Costa Rica Labor & Social Security Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Labor Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Planning
Chile Planning & Cooperation Lagos & Bachelet
Costa Rica Planning Pacheco & Arias 2
(continued)
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Table 3.1 CONTINUED
Presidency and Communication

Argentina Chief of Staff de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
Fernández
Argentina Secretary General of de la Rúa, Duhalde, Kirchner,
the Presidency Fernández
Chile Secretary General of the Presidency Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Secretary General of Government Lagos & Bachelet
Costa Rica Presidency & Planning Rodríguez
Costa Rica Presidency Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
Public Works and Transportation
Argentina Planning, Public Investment & Kirchner & Fernández
Services
Chile Public Works Lagos & Bachelet
Chile Transport & Telecommunications Bachelet
Colombia Transportation Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
Colombia Communications Pastrana, Uribe 1&2
Costa Rica Public Works & Transportation Rodríguez, Pacheco & Arias 2
US Transportation Clinton 1&2, Bush 1&2
Women’s Issues
Chile National Women’s Service Lagos & Bachelet
(SERNAM)
Costa Rica Condition of Women Rodríguez & Pacheco
Costa Rica Women’s Affairs Pacheco
• Social Welfare Ministries (124 ministers)—oversee social welfare pro-

grams: education; health; housing and urban development; labor and
social security; women’s issues.
• Central Ministries (138 ministers)—direct the cabinet, national and
international affairs: defense; foreign relations; justice and public secu-
rity; presidency and communications.11
Another way we divide portfolios is into stereotypically mas-

culine or feminine policy domains, which does not correlate per-
fectly with economics vs. social welfare posts (Escobar-L emmon and
11. This categorization leaves out the culture ministry as unclassifiable into any
of the three categories, so thirteen ministers are not included in analysis using this
categorization.
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Taylor-Robinson 2009; Annesley and Gains 2010; Krook and O’Brien
2012).12 Stereotypically feminine policy domain posts are those whose
jurisdiction encompasses policy related to the private sphere, such as

home and family, and the traditional role of women as caregivers and
homemakers. The stereotypically masculine policy domain covers policy
topics related to the public sphere (Schwindt-B ayer 2010a: 14; Krook
and O’Brien 2012: 844).13 This comparison is interesting particularly
in light of Borrelli’s (2002: 23) argument that appointment of women
only to posts that conform to women’s traditional gender roles is a sign
that the cabinet is still a gendered institution even after it becomes
common to appoint women to full cabinet posts. Such an appointment
strategy is a sign of “regendering” of the cabinet, which “signals a re-
inforcement of traditional gender roles” (Borrelli 2002: 24). We do not
mean to imply that these posts are unimportant, rather we agree with
Lovenduski (1986: 241) that, “The problem is not how to get women
out of cultural and social ministries, it is rather how to keep them there
whilst at the same time getting other women appointed to other posi-
tions.” We build our categorization of portfolios as “masculine” or “fem-
inine” from the coding in literature that has explored whether women
and men in legislatures have different legislative agendas (Dodson and
12. Another way to divide posts into gendered policy domains is a three-part cat-
egorization: feminine, masculine, neutral (see Drew 2000; Escobar-Lemmon and
Taylor-Robinson 2009; Krook and O’Brien 2012). For example, Drew (2000: 56,
59) defines male policy areas as “the ‘hard’ economic areas: fiscal and economic
policy, international affairs” (p. 59) and in that category she places premier, in-
ternal affairs, economic affairs, fiscal policy, public works, defense, international
affairs, constitutional affairs, industrial policy, agriculture. In the neutral cat-
egory she places: environment affairs, disarmament, transportation, energy, traf-
fic problems, monuments, state property, cultural affairs, mail, and miscellaneous
(table 5.1, p. 56). Drew’s study was based on a survey of women and men in top
government posts in both the executive and legislative branches of government
in twenty-seven industrialized countries. Inclusion of politicians in the legisla-
tive branch increases the number of policy areas to classify, for example because
there may be more committees in the parliament than cabinet portfolios. She finds
women under-represented in “male” policy areas, while men are under-represented
in “female” policy areas, but she found that “neutral” policy areas “do show a better
balance among male and female leaders” (p. 59). By grouping policy areas into only
“masculine” and “feminine” policy domains, which largely involves moving “neu-
tral” policy areas into the “masculine” policy domain, we increase the number of
women appointed to posts in the masculine policy domain, which should make it
more difficult for us to find sex differences in minister backgrounds, or in treatment
as measured by type of post received.
13. See Freidenvall and Sawer (2013: 262–64) for a very interesting review of how
the first wave of women to enter government in old democracies were expected to
focus on topics related to family and home, and to engage in “housekeeping of the
state” (p. 263), in essence to be “supermadres” (super-mothers) (Chaney 1979).

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Carroll 1991; Jones 1997b; Taylor-Robinson and Health 2003; Schwindt-
Bayer 2006).14 Portfolios are grouped as follows:
• Stereotypically “feminine policy domain” (110 ministers)—culture,

education, health, housing and urban development, women’s issues.
• Stereotypically “masculine policy domain” (337 ministers)—agriculture;
commerce and industry; defense; energy, mining, and environment; fi-
nance/treasury; foreign relations; justice and public security; labor and
social security; planning; presidency and communications; public works
and transportation.
In the US cabinet, posts are divided into an inner and outer cabinet
(Fenno 1959; Cronin 1975; Weisberg 1987). The inner cabinet is made up
of the departments of state, treasury, defense and the attorney general,
though other portfolios may be added during a specific president’s term if
a topic is central to the president’s policy agenda (Wyszomirski 1989: 48).
Inner cabinet posts are high prestige and those secretaries have direct
access to the president. All other posts are in the outer cabinet. For the
United States Wyszomirski (1989: 49) describes outer cabinet posts as
“likely to be engaged in policy responsibilities that are not presidential pri-
orities. They are also likely to experience unremitting competitive partisan
and interest group pressures, to be subject to serious congressional over-
sight, and to administer programs that involve considerable necessity for
intergovernmental cooperation.” All presidential (and parliamentary) cabi-
nets have posts with differing levels of prestige and closeness to the presi-
dent. While there is relative consensus about inner and outer cabinet posts
in the United States, it is not clear that the list of posts can be translated
to other countries. At the very least the posts that comprise the inner cabi-
net vary across countries, and across time within countries—for example,
Costa Rica does not have a military and thus lacks a ministry of defense.15
14. Studies of bill initiation often include environment and social welfare in the
feminine policy domain category. However, this is problematic in cabinet studies be-
cause environmental policy is typically merged into the same portfolio as stereotypi-
cally masculine policy domains such as energy and mining, and social welfare policy is
typically merged with labor policy.

15. In parliamentary systems more systematic data about portfolio prestige have
been developed, often through elite surveys (see, for example Druckman and Warwick
2005; Druckman and Roberts 2008). The social welfare posts are sometimes very
prestigious, in part because they control large budgets. For example, in Scandinavian
countries with social democratic governments the defense post is not viewed as a top
post for advancing the minister’s career, but social welfare posts are good for career
advancement (Skjeie 1991). It is well accepted within the parliamentary literature that
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Rather than impose the arguably arbitrary, and essentially US-based con-
cept of inner cabinet on other countries, in our comparative study we have
chosen visibility to the public as a third way to compare cabinet posts. High
Visibility category posts are those that deal with policy areas or topics receiv-
ing significant coverage in the media or that are of heightened concern to
citizens, which could mean that ministers in those portfolios might be sub-
jected to extra media attention or may be more likely to be called to testify
in front of congress. This novel way of categorizing cabinet posts allows us to
observe whether presidents are willing to appoint women to posts that are
likely to be in the public eye as the media, and in some cases the congress,
ask pointed questions about how pressing problems are being handled. To
determine which cabinet posts have high visibility we make use of public
opinion surveys that ask, “In your opinion, what is the most important prob-
lem facing the country?” A post is categorized as “High Visibility” if in the
last survey before the minister was appointed one of the top five responses16
mentioned a topic falling under the policy purview of that ministry.17
The advantage of this measure over a static identification of high-prestige
ministries is that it allows for variance across time within a country and
across countries.18 It is noteworthy that some, but definitely not all, the High
Visibility category posts are the posts commonly viewed as high-prestige.
all cabinet posts are not equal (Dogan 1989; Davis 1997: 12). Other ways scholars have
measured prestige of cabinet posts include movement from post-to-post to determine
the trajectory upward in the cabinet (Weisberg 1987 for the United States), the size of
the budget and number of personnel (Weisberg 1987 for the United States), media and
parliamentary attention (Rose 1987 for Britain), and chairing cabinet committees as a
measure of the minister’s authority within the cabinet (Rose 1987 for Britain).
16. In some years we have more than five problems because of ties, particularly in
fifth place.
17. For almost all important problems mentioned there was clear overlap with a
specific ministry (or two ministries). However, a few of the topics listed as most im-
portant problems were general, vague or appeared to relate to the entire government,
such as the response of “political problems/political situation” (in the top five once
in Colombia) or “dissatisfaction with government/congress/politicians/corruption/
abuse of power” and “ethics/moral/religion/family decline, dishonesty, lack of integ-
rity” (in the top five problem list several times in the United States). In these cases we
did not match the problem to any ministry. The only other matching difficulty we en-
countered concerned “corruption” when it was on the top five problem list in Colombia
because investigating corruption was not explicitly part of the policy purview of any
ministry, while in our other countries a particular ministry had investigation of cor-
ruption as part of its mission (e.g., Justice and Security in Argentina).
18. To ensure that surveys were of comparable quality in terms of survey techniques
across countries, we use the surveys conducted annually by Latinobarometer, and an-
nually or biannually by LAPOP for our Latin American cases. For the United States, we
utilize Gallup polls selecting polls conducted at approximately the same time as the
Latinobarometer and LAPOP surveys. We thus have one or two surveys per year from
which we drew data about most important problems.

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For example, education is frequently flagged by survey respondents as an
important problem, putting the Education Ministry into the High Visibility
category, but the Foreign Affairs Ministry rarely handles what citizens see
as a “most important problem.” It is also worth noting that some minis-
tries move into the High Visibility category because of transient events
such as the transportation crisis that occurred in Santiago, Chile, when the
Transantiago Project was implemented catapulting transportation problems
to a high visibility issue in Chile in 2007. By contrast, economic problems
associated with the Finance Ministry are recurring on the “most important
problem” list in many countries; and not surprisingly, political violence or
violence/armed conflict is always mentioned as a most important problem in
Colombia. Although this measure does not distinguish between short-term
or enduring visibility, by using the preceding survey we do distinguish posts
that a president is certain will be high visibility when appointing the min-
ister from posts that are not in the High Visibility category (though they
could later become high visibility due to unexpected events). Table 3.2 shows
which portfolios, by country and year, were High Visibility category posts.
Women are unequally represented across these various categories of
posts, which is a subject we explore in depth in Part III of the book. In Part
II we examine whether women and men in the same type of post category
have the same credentials. This is of particular interest in this compara-
tive analysis because studies of the United States’ cabinet, at least until
the Clinton administrations (1993 to 2001), found that women were often
highly qualified in terms of bringing an impressive résumé to the cabinet,
but then they were appointed to posts that did not allow them to utilize
their policy expertise or their group connections (Borrelli 2002: 57, 61,
74; Martin 1989: 166; Wyszomirski 1989: 67). Borrelli (2002: 54, 57, 61;
2010: 735, 739) argues that this lack of independent political resources
made these women politically dependent on the president and that this
was evidence of gender desegregation instead of gender integration.19 It
showed that women were being showcased but were not a valued constit-
uency of the president, and meant that those women would not be well
positioned to represent women as a whole. This assessment also dovetails
with Annesley and Gains’s (2010: 922–24) case study of Harriet Harman,
Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister of Women (1997–8) in
Britain who they argue lacked the political resources to pursue feminist
policies. Important resources they cite include control over a department
19. Walby (1997), in a study of women in government in Britain, also discusses that
while women are no longer excluded from government, they are “segregated and sub-
ordinated within the public sphere” (Drew et al. 2000: 9, citing Walby 1997).
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Copyright © 2016. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair
Table 3.2 MINISTRIES CODED AS HIGH VISIBILITY CATEGORY BY COUNTRY AND YEAR
Argentina Chile Colombia Costa Rica United States
Defense Defense
1997–2010 2002, 2004–08
Economics (Production) Economy & Finance Finance Finance Treasury
1998–2010 1998–2009 1997–98, 2001–06, 2008–10 1997–2010 1992–2008
Education Education Education Education Education

1998–2004, 2006–09 1998, 2000, 2006, 2009 1997–98, 2000 1997–98, 2000 1997–2001, 2004
Energy
2001, 2004–05, 2008
Foreign Relations Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs State
2000 2004 2009 1999, 2001–02
Homeland Security
2002–07
uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
Housing Housing Housing & Urban Devel.

2001–2005 2002–06, 2009–10 1992–97
Interior
2005, 2008–09
Justice & Human Rights Justice Justice* Public Security Attorney General
1998–2010 1998–2009 97–98, 2000–04, 06–07, 2010 1997–2010 1993–2001
(continued)
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AN: 1260012 ; Escobar-Lemmon, Maria C., Taylor-Robinson, Michelle M..; Women in Presidential Cabinets : Power Players or Abundant Tokens?
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Table 3.2 CONTINUED
Argentina Chile Colombia Costa Rica United States
Labor Labor Labor Labor Labor

1998–2010 1998–2009 1997–98, 2000–01 1997, 2001–10 1992–97, 2002–05,
2007–08
Social Development Health Social Protection Health & Human Services
2001–02, 2006, 2008, 2010 2004–2006, 2009 2002–2010 1992–97, 2004–08
Presidency
1997–2002, 2004–08, 2010
Transportation & Telecom Transportation
2008 1996
*Indicates a poor fit between ministry responsibility and problem identified in the survey.
Gray shading indicates a ministry coded as High Visibility for fewer than five years.
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with a large budget, having the ear of vested interests, personal links with
other key actors in the government and bureaucracy (p. 918).20
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this chapter has been to explain the different ways we will
compare women and men cabinet ministers so that we can answer impor-
tant fundamental questions about the similarity of the backgrounds and
credentials of women to those of men holding full cabinet-rank posts,
and the treatment/effectiveness of men and women in the cabinet. The
women will surely look different—bringing diversity to the cabinet in group
photos—but we hypothesize that they will be similar in their credentials
and backgrounds. When the likely cost of continuing to exclude a group
from power becomes too high, social control theory predicts that those who
already hold power will pick representatives of the new group who are mini-
mally different—in this case, different only in their sex. It could well be that
the credentials and backgrounds of the newcomers (the women) in the ag-
gregate will look like those of the traditional power holders (the men) con-
gruent with social control theory. But will men and women also look alike in
subsets of portfolios handling different types of policy?
If women have the same credentials as their male colleagues in the aggre-
gate, but when examined within broad categories of portfolios that handle
different types of policy we discover they are appointed to posts not match-
ing with their credentials (as Borrelli [2002] found for an earlier time period
in the United States) then even though the women in general “look like the
men” they will be unlikely to be as successful in office as the men. If having “the
right” credentials only occurs in some ministries (in particular those in ste-
reotypically feminine policy domains) this would further reinforce findings of
gender segregation and raise questions about whether some women are being
set up to fail. If bringing PCRs to the administration makes a minister a “power
player,” then we need to know if women are equivalent sources of PCRs, and if
this is true across different types of portfolios. The relation of credentials and
PCRs to job performance and success is an empirical question that we explore
in Part III of the book. In the next section of the book we unpack in detail the
kinds of credentials and PCRs men and women bring to the cabinet, statisti-
cally testing to determine if there are significant differences across the sexes.
20. Annesley and Gains (2010: 922–24) argue that the subject of their second case study,
Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister of Women (2001–5),
did have the necessary political resources, which enabled her to successfully make policy
about flexible employment and extending maternity and paternity leave and pay.

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PART II
Who Gatekeepers Select as Ministers

Comparison of Men and Women
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CHAPTER 4
Policy expertise
When and where presidents appoint ministers
with relevant work and education background
S cholars expect policy expertise to be a political capital resource (PCR)

that presidents can utilize as they make and implement their policy
agenda, and cabinet ministers can be a key source of policy expertise
(Wyszomirski 1989; Borrelli 2002; Dowding and Dumont 2009; Leyenaar
2014). Policy expertise can give a minister credibility in his or her post.
Education and work background give a minister policy expertise related to
the policy purview of his or her portfolio. This credibility can signal compe-
tence and skill to constituents and to subordinates in the ministry. It may
indicate a president wants a minister who can “hit the ground running”
and not face a steep learning curve. It may also mean that the minister
enters with his or her own ideas about optimal policies and strategies and
will not be completely dependent on subordinates for assessments.
In this chapter we evaluate whether there are sex differences regarding
the likelihood that ministers have background related to their portfolio en-
abling them to bring the PCR of policy expertise to the administration. We
also present data on the education and prior work experience of cabinet
ministers as an initial step in our assessment of whether men and women

who are appointed to the cabinet come from different, or perhaps quite
similar, backgrounds.
As explained in chapter 3, we will examine these questions in several
ways. First, we look at the data set as a whole to see whether at this aggregate
level the women are as likely as the men to be a source of portfolio-related
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policy expertise for the administration. We also explore whether women
tend to have different or similar backgrounds than the men in their educa-
tion and work experience. Next, we compare ministers appointed in the ini-
tial cabinet with replacement ministers, to explore if women appointed to
the initial cabinet—the one that is presented in the media through group
photos to showcase the diversity of the cabinet—resemble their male col-
leagues, and whether men and women who are replacement ministers have
similar or different backgrounds. We then look at countries individually to
explore if women are as likely as men to bring policy expertise to the cabi-
net. Finally, we divide portfolios into several broad categories (as described
in c hapter 3) and examine whether women and men who hold posts with
similar types of policy responsibilities are equally likely to bring policy ex-
pertise to the cabinet. In all these partitions of our data set we expect that
the women will closely resemble the men so that, other than their sex, they
fit expected norms about what a cabinet minister looks like and provide the
administration with the policy expertise PCR.
To preview our findings, in most of the comparisons similar percentages
of women and men could be expected to bring the PCR of policy expertise
to the administration. The women in these cabinets look very much like
the men in the relevance of their education and work backgrounds for their
posts, even though we observe some stereotypical gender differences in
academic fields of study. However, in Colombia, and in the Economics cat-
egory of posts, there are some notable differences showing that the women
are disadvantaged in some cases compared to the men because they lack
applicable education/work backgrounds for their portfolios.
CODING POLICY EXPERTISE, EDUCATION,

AND WORK BACKGROUND
Policy expertise. For some ministers it is obvious that they had built a career
in a field closely related to the policy area(s) of their appointment. Other
ministers had no obvious portfolio-related experience or very little (e.g.,
they earned an undergraduate degree in a related field decades before). To
be coded as having extensive experience related to the policy purview of their
portfolio—which is our proxy for bringing the PCR of policy expertise to

the administration—a minister needed years of experience working in a re-
lated field, possibly augmented by a related academic degree, without a long
gap between their work experience and their appointment to the related
portfolio. In our data set 281 ministers (63.4%) have extensive portfolio-
related experience. A minister who had worked a year in a related field or
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had obtained a related academic degree many years in the past might have
some experience, but they are not coded as having policy expertise due to
their lack of extensive experience.

Education background. Ministers hold degrees in varying academic dis-
ciplines. We present data to show the percentage of ministers that have
graduate or undergraduate degrees in law (172 ministers, 40.8%), econom-
ics1 (102 ministers, 24.2%), business2 (83 ministers, 19.7%), medicine/health
(28 ministers, 6.7%), engineering (44 ministers, 10.4%), and political sci-
ence3 (70 ministers, 16.6%). Some ministers studied other fields (e.g., jour-
nalism, history, theater), but too few people were coded as having studied
those topics to support statistical analysis so those categories are not in-
cluded in our presentation. A minister may be coded as having a degree in
more than one academic discipline, so academic discipline categories are
not mutually exclusive. For example, a minister with undergraduate de-
grees in government and economics who then earned a law degree would
be coded as having degrees in political science, economics, and law. Not all
ministers earned a degree in one of the above fields, so some ministers are
excluded from the educational background analysis.4
Most ministers in our study are highly educated; many attended pres-
tigious universities and have postgraduate educations. Because college
education is clearly a norm for cabinet ministers in these countries, we
were interested in whether it was common for ministers to have graduate
degrees—and particularly if there is a difference between women and men.
We define graduate degree as including any type of graduate degree such as
an MA, JD, MD, or PhD.5
Work background. Ministers vary in the types of careers they had before
taking a cabinet post. We code whether ministers came to the cabinet from
an extended career in government (at any level or a combination of levels),
or if they entered the cabinet from the private sector. For our data set
1. We include economics, agricultural economics, and development economics in

this degree category.
2. This category includes business, finance, international management, organization
management, and accounting.
3. This category includes degrees in political science, international relations, public
administration and public policy.
4. We are missing data on educational background for a larger subset of ministers
than any other background trait and thus all the analysis of educational background
draws on a smaller sample than any other analysis.
5. We code a minister as having graduate education only if the schooling led to a
degree. We do not count certificates or mention of “some studies.” Due to missing data
97 ministers are dropped from the analysis of graduate degrees: 3 in the US (3.1%), 14
from Chile (14.4%), 16 from Colombia (16.5%), 30 from Argentina (30.9%), 34 from
Costa Rica (35.1%).
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overall 235 ministers (53.4%) come from a public sector career versus 46.6%
(205 ministers) from private sector careers.6 In addition, we code ministers
from both public and private sectors who moved in and out of government
as having a “revolving door” career (61 ministers, 14.2%).
We also code primary occupation. For 184 ministers (42.7%) we coded
up to two types of occupations because they held more than one type of
job for an extended period of time, or they held two types of jobs simulta-
neously for many years (e.g., consultant and university professor, lawyer
and business owner). This means that the occupation categories are not
mutually exclusive. Occupation categories are law (49 ministers, 11.4%),
business/banking (102 ministers, 23.7%), medical (15 ministers, 3.5%), edu-
cation/academic (75 ministers, 17.4%),7 consulting (55 ministers, 12.8%),
and national government (181 ministers, 41.0%).8 Some ministers came
from other types of occupational backgrounds (e.g., actor, journalist, mili-
tary, union work), but those occupations were too infrequent to analyze
separately.
DO MEN AND WOMEN DIFFER IN THEIR EDUCATION

AND WORK BACKGROUNDS?
The data set overall
We want to know if women are as likely as men to be appointed to posts

where their education/work background is such that they are likely to be a
source of the PCR of policy expertise, or if instead women are likely to be
“gender outsiders” as Borrelli (2002: 61) and Martin (1989: 166) found for
earlier US administrations. For the data set as a whole, we do not observe
evidence of sex discrimination in cabinet appointments. Statistically simi-
lar percentages of men and women have extensive experience related to their
portfolio (p = .528) (see figure 4.1).9 Most ministers, 63% of the data set
6. In Latin America many university professors, doctors, and other medical profes-
sionals are employed by the government, at state universities or hospitals. Despite the
source of funds for their paychecks we did not code such posts as government/public
sector jobs on the grounds that working for a state university or in a public hospital
does not mean the professor or doctor was involved in making policy.
7. This category includes work as a teacher or school administrator, academic ca-
reers, and research careers.
8. Public sector careers can be divided into numerous categories, but the most
common in our data set is national government.
9. Detailed tables for all background analyses including the number of ministers
coded on each trait, the percentage of women and men with each trait, and the p-
values for the difference of means tests are available from the authors on request.
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Portfolio-related experience
extensive experience
Education background
law **
economics **
business
medicine/health
engineering **
political science **
graduate degree *
Work background
public sector career
revolving door career
law
business/banking **
medical
education/academic
consulting *
national government
Women 0 20 40 60 80 100
Men All ministers (n = 447)
Figure 4.1 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—data

set overall
Statistical significance levels: † p < 0.1; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001
Note: The variable extensive experience is the proxy for policy expertise.
overall, 61% of women, and 64% of men, have extensive experience related
to their portfolio, making them sources of the policy expertise PCR.
We also examine the education and work background of ministers to ex-
plore whether women and men have the same types of training and work ex-
perience or if their backgrounds differ. It is clear that the ministers in our data
set are highly educated. Only nine ministers are known to not have a college
degree.10 A high level of education is the norm for cabinet ministers in other
studies as well. Examination of fourteen Western European nations since the
Second World War found that 77% of ministers have a university education
(Thiébault 1991: 21–22; also Blondel 1991a; García de León et al. 2000: 43).
10. Five in Argentina, one in Chile, two in Colombia, and one in Costa Rica. Four of
the nine were appointed as Minister of Labor: three in Argentina, one in Colombia.
The other five were appointed to Justice and Security (Argentina), Presidency and
Communication (Argentina and Costa Rica) and Culture (Colombia).
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In his study of US cabinets from 1789–1984, Cohen found that advanced edu-
cation had become a prerequisite for cabinet service (81% of secretaries had
at least some college education) (Cohen 1988b: 59–60; also Martin 1997: 64;

Auer 2008: 72). Carroll (1984: 96–97) found that members of governors’ cabi-
nets in US states are highly educated. An early study of initial cabinet min-
isters in the Frei, Díaz Ordaz, and Leoni administrations in Chile, Mexico,
and Venezuela, respectively, found that all ministers had at least some higher
education (Cochrane 1967: 197, 200). Studies of legislators in Latin American
countries also find that education levels, particularly for women, typically
are high (Marx et al. 2007 [Argentina and Brazil]; Saint-Germain and Chavez
Metoyer 2008 [Costa Rica]; Schwindt- Bayer 2011 [Argentina, Colombia,
Costa Rica]).
Although we did not observe differences in the level of education, for
the data set overall we do observe statistically significant sex differences
in the academic disciplines ministers studied (see figure 4.1). These differ-
ences follow stereotypical gendered norms and are consistent with prior
research.11 More women than men studied political science (p = .003). More
men than women studied law (p = .006), economics (p = .008), and en-
gineering (p = .004). Given the longtime trend of socialization directing
girls and boys to different types of academic pursuits (Turner and Bowen
1999; Favara 2012),12 it is noteworthy that statistically indistinguishable
percentages of men and women studied business (p = .347) and medicine
(p = .602).
For the ministers for whom information is available (91 of 110 women,
256 of 337 men), significantly more men than women have a graduate
degree (p = .043). This contradicts the common expectation that women
need to be better qualified than men to hold the same job (Carroll 1984;
11. In her study of appointment of women to parliamentary cabinets in Western

European countries from 1968–1992 Davis (1997: 33) found stereotypically gendered
norms in the field women and men specialized in during college. García de León et al.
(2000: 46–47) found stereotypical gender differences in the fields studied by men and
women political elites in twenty-seven industrialized democracies. However, those dif-
ferences were only significant in the less common fields of study. The most common
fields of study for political elites were law and social science, and comparable percent-
ages of men and women studied those fields. However, a greater percentage of men
than women studied economics or engineering, while a greater percentage of women

than men studied humanities or medicine.
12. As recently as 2013 an article titled “Schools Guilty of Gender Stereotyping,
Researchers Claim” in the British newspaper The Guardian explained that gender ste-
reotypes influence choices of boys and girls when they select the subjects they will
study in A-levels for their last years of high school, with math, economics, and physics
viewed as male subjects, and biology and English as the subjects preferred by girls. The
Guardian, Dec. 9, 2013 (accessed March 14, 2014).
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Murray 2010b: 96).13 However, statistically indistinguishable percentages
of men and women attended prestige universities (p = .816) and studied
abroad (p = .958), which indicates substantial overlap in the educational

background of the women and men who are appointed to these cabinets.14
Virtually identical percentages of women and men have what can be clas-
sified as public sector careers—55% of women and 53% of men, p = .694 (i.e.,
most of their employment had been in government: elected, appointed or
in the bureaucracy, at any level or combination of levels of government).
This differs from Borrelli’s (2002: 109) finding for the United States over a
much longer time period that “women more often and more consistently
had primary careers in government service.” We also find that similar per-
centages of men and women have revolving door careers—17% of women,
13% of men, p = .362.
In looking at the more specific career categories, we observe fewer signifi-
cant sex differences in minister occupations than education (see figure 4.1).
More women than men have consulting careers (p = .014), and more men than
women have business/banking careers (p = .007). But for the other occupation
categories sex differences are not statistically significant.15
Given the above, a typical woman minister might be Viviana Martinez
Salazar, minister of justice in Costa Rica (2008–09) who entered the cabinet
with extensive experience related to her post. She graduated with a doctorate
13. In her study of women in US cabinets since the administrations of Franklin

Roosevelt (1933–45) Borrelli found that women’s education credentials “typically
equaled or exceeded those of their male colleagues” with the exception of women ap-
pointed to head the Labor Department (Borrelli 2002: 102). Martin (1997: 64), on
the other hand, found that in the United States, until the Clinton administration,
more men than women had advanced degrees, which she explained, “reflects patterns
found in society” and educational opportunities historically open to women compared
to men.
14. Prestige universities were determined for each country after consultation with
country experts or we used the schools already coded as prestigious in the litera-
ture. For the United States we coded as prestige schools Harvard, Chicago, Columbia,
Cornell, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. In Argentina the schools are the universities of
Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and Rosario. Prestige universities in Chile are the Universidad
Católica and the Universidad de Chile. In Colombia we coded La Javeriana, Los Andes,
Rosario and Externado as prestige schools. For Costa Rica the prestige school is the
Universidad de Costa Rica. For Latin American ministers, we also counted attending a
prestige university in the United States. We do not include prestige of university and
study abroad as background traits in our analysis because we were only able to code 89
of 110 women and 280 of 337 men for whether they attended a prestige university, and
91 of 110 women and 288 of 337 men for whether they studied abroad.
15. In her study of legislator backgrounds in Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica,
Schwindt-Bayer (2011: 9) also found few statistically significant differences in the oc-
cupational backgrounds of men and women. It was more common for women than
men to come from the education field (Argentina and Colombia), and more men than
women in Costa Rica came from business occupations.

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in law from the University of Costa Rica (the country’s most prestigious uni-
versity) and worked for several law firms and also taught law. Hernando
Paris, also minister of justice in Costa Rica (2009–10), also brought exten-
sive experience to his post: earning a degree in law from the University of
Costa Rica, practicing law and teaching law, and also working as a consultant
for USAID about improving the administration of justice in Latin America.
In contrast there are men and women such as Marigen Hornkohl, minister
of agriculture in Chile (2008–10), who studied social work and history and
had a distinguished career in government, including several posts in the
Ministry of Education culminating in her serving as minister from 2005–06,
but who appears to have no policy background relating to her appointment
to the agriculture post. But it is not only women who are appointed without
post-related background. For instance, Federico Peña, US secretary of energy
(1997–98), earned a law degree and worked in Colorado local and state gov-
ernment and in business before being appointed secretary of transportation
after heading President Clinton’s transportation transition team. His work
on the transportation transition team gave him policy experience work-
ing in the area of transportation. However, his subsequent appointment to
head the Energy Department appeared unrelated to his background, and the
New York Times wrote that he “came to the Energy Department job with little
background in the department’s business.”16
In sum, for the data set overall, the presidents in our study appear to
be relying on the women they appoint as much as on the men to bring the
PCR of policy expertise. While some ministers do look like policy outsiders
(Borrelli 2002), they are not disproportionally women. It does not appear
that presidents are appointing women (any more than men) in such a way
as to reduce the ability of women to be effective policy designers. This is an
important initial finding because Borrelli’s study of the US cabinet showed
that women, particularly in earlier administrations, were often gender out-
siders, which she interpreted as evidence of subordination of women and
of women being “showcased for their sex” more than “respected for their
abilities” (Borrelli 2002: 54).
Comparison of initial and replacement ministers

We split the aggregate data set into two similarly sized groups: 237 ministers
(53%) appointed at the beginning of the administration, and 209 replacement
16. “Peña Resigns as Energy Secretary, Citing Concerns for Family.” New York Times,
April 17, 1998.
EBSCO[ 86 ] Women
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law ***
economics *
business †
medicine/health
engineering †
*
political science ***
graduate degree *
Work background
law
business/banking ***
medical
education/academic
consulting ***
national government
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Women
Men Initial (n = 237) Replacement (n = 209)
Figure 4.2 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—initial/

replacement ministers
ministers.17 The high number of replacement ministers in the data set does not
mean that most initial members were replaced but rather that multiple replace-
ments within the same ministry and administration occurred in some cases.
Among both initial and replacement ministers, presidents are appoint-
ing equal percentages of men and women who met the standard for ex-
tensive experience related to their portfolio (see figure 4.2). For both initial
17. If a minister was reappointed to the cabinet (either to the same portfolio or
to a different one), that minister contributes two cases to the data set regardless of
whether they were reappointed by a president who was re-elected or by a different
president. If the individual joined the cabinet at the start of the first term and then
continued into the second term, they are coded as “initial” for both administrations. If
they were appointed partway through the first administration and then reappointed
for the second administration, they are coded as replacement for the first administra-
tion and initial for the second.

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and replacement ministers, women are as likely as men to bring the PCR of
policy expertise to the administration.
Of the statistically significant sex differences in education found in

the data set overall, only one was also found in both the subsets of ini-
tial and replacement ministers: women studied engineering less frequently
than men. Partitioning the data set into initial and replacement ministers
reveals most sex differences occur among replacement ministers: more
women (30%) than men (12%) studied political science (p = .004); and a
greater percentage of men (26%) than women (9%) studied economics
(p = .019). Corresponding sex comparisons for initial ministers who stud-
ied political science and economics (p = .137 and p = .121 respectively) were
not significant. A significant sex difference was also found for replacement
ministers studying business (p = .097). Only for degrees in law do we ob-
serve a sex difference among initial ministers (p = .004). While graduate
education was less common for women than men in the data set overall,
this is only the case for replacement ministers (p = .025), not initial min-
isters (p = .311). In addition, graduate degrees for men and women pooled
together are less common (p = .006) among replacement (61.6%) than for
initial (75.4%) ministers.
For both initial and replacement ministers, statistically indistinguish-
able percentages of men and women have public sector careers and revolving
door careers. Sex differences in primary occupation are found only among
replacement ministers. Consulting careers are more common for women
(p = .002 replacement), and business/banking careers are more common for
men (p = .002 replacement).
The following examples illustrate how even though women often come
from consulting careers and men from business/banking, both careers still
confer post-related qualifications. Gines Gonzalez, minister of health for
presidents Duhalde and Kirchner of Argentina (2002–07), had degrees in
surgical medicine and public health. She worked as a national and interna-
tional consultant on health policy, for example, serving for ten years as the
president of the Health Committee of the Iberoamerican Organization for
Social Security, and wrote books on health policy. Andres Gallego, minis-
ter of transport in Colombia (2002–10), had a degree in civil engineering
and postgraduate training in structures and bridges. He had been secretary
of public works in his province and director of a structural design firm.

Ownership of his own firm gave him a business background. In addition,
for many years he taught extension classes in construction at various uni-
versities (hence we coded him as having a secondary career in education/
academia).
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Individual countries
As explained in chapter 2, countries may have evolved different norms

about expected qualifications for appointment to the cabinet. Colombia
and Costa Rica differ from Argentina, Chile, and the United States in the
prevalence of public sector careers; as 38% of Colombian ministers (men
and women) have public sector careers, and 30% of Costa Ricans, while for
Argentina, Chile, and the United States the percentage is 71, 68, and 60
respectively. In Costa Rica this is likely due to the prohibition on immediate
reelection for president and congress, combined with the history of alter-
nation in power between major parties. In Colombia reelection is permit-
ted, but rates are low primarily due to competition within parties because
party factions ran their own lists (Moreno and Escobar-Lemmon 2008).
In Chile the Concertación ran the national government continuously from
1990–2010, and that coupled with high reelection rates for Congress, made
it possible for Concertación ministers to build public sector careers. Federal
systems in both Argentina and the United States create many opportuni-
ties for a career in government even if one’s party is not in control of the
national executive branch.
Progress toward integration of women in the cabinet (Borrelli 2002) may
also differ across countries. We want to see if there are sex differences
within individual countries in the percentage of ministers who have exten-
sive portfolio-related experience, education and work backgrounds. This
analysis reveals that some of the differences we observed in the data set
overall, and in the subset of replacement ministers, result largely from sex
differences in one or two countries (see figure 4.3).
It is only in Colombia where women, less often than men, bring post-
related policy expertise to the administration: 56% of men compared to
30% of women (p = .046). For the other four countries there are no signifi-
cant sex differences regarding experience pertaining to the portfolio, and in
Argentina, Chile, and the United States a larger percentage of women than
men have extensive experience. The latter is particularly interesting for the
United States in light of Borrelli’s (2002: 52–54) findings about women in
the cabinets of US presidents going back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s
first administration. She found that women were less likely than men to
have the substantive policy expertise to qualify them as specialists. Borrelli

(2002: 54) argues that these (and other) differences made the women “more
dependent on the president for political advancement.” In these more
recent administrations, however, US women appear to be just as likely as
their male colleagues to bring policy expertise to the administration.

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extensive experience *
law *
economics * *
business * **
medicine/health †
engineering * *
political science * *
graduate degree ** ***
Work background
revolving door career † **
law
business/banking *
medical
education/academic
† † **
consulting †
national government
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Women
Men Argentina (n = 94) Chile (n = 94) Colombia (n = 83) Costa Rica (n = 97) United States (n = 77)
Figure 4.3 Minister portfolio-related experience, education, and work background—by country

Account: ns191738
For the data set overall, women were less likely than men to study law,
and a smaller percentage of women than men studied law in all countries
except Costa Rica; however, this difference is only statistically significant

in Colombia (p = .016). A lower percentage of women than of men stud-
ied economics in all countries (significant in Chile, p = .047 and Costa Rica,
p = .016). Women were statistically less likely to study engineering in Chile
(p = .014) and Costa Rica (p = .049), and while not significant, a smaller
percentage of women did so in the other cases. Women were more likely to
study political science in all countries, even if the difference is only signifi-
cant in Chile (p = .049) and the United States (p = .018). Although in the
data set overall we do not observe a sex difference in business degrees, it is
notable that in Chile no women studied business compared to 16% of men
(p = .014), whereas in Colombia proportionally more women (69%) than
men (23%) studied business (p = .001). Finally, only in Chile (p = .008) and
Colombia (p = .000) are women significantly less like than men to have
graduate degrees.
In no country do we find significant differences in the percentage of
women and men who enter the cabinet from public sector careers. However,
in Chile and the United States revolving door careers are significantly more
common for women than men (Chile p = .092; United States p = .009).
Regarding types of occupations, while a smaller percentage of women than
men come from business/banking careers in all our countries, the sex dif-
ference is statistically significant only in Costa Rica (p = .024). It is com-
paratively rare for cabinet ministers of either sex in Argentina or Chile to
have had business/banking careers. There are no significant sex differences
in individual countries with regard to law careers, but law careers are much
less common for both sexes in Argentina, Chile, or Colombia than in Costa
Rica or the United States. Medical occupations are rare in all five countries
(and absent completely in the US data set), but again there are no sex dif-
ferences observed within countries. While we found no differences for the
data set overall with regard to careers in education, here we see that in Chile
(p = .098) and Colombia (p = .091) higher percentages of men than women
had education careers, while in the United States, education careers were five
times more common for women (p = .005). Consulting careers were more
common for women in the data set overall, but this sex difference is only
significant in Chile (p = .075), and no US secretaries had consulting careers.

In sum, it appears that presidents utilize many of their cabinet
appointees—both women and men—to enhance their administration’s
policy expertise resources. In Colombia, however, it is less common for
women than men to be a source of the policy expertise PCR. This does not
mean that all ministers in Colombia lack the PCR of policy expertise, as
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the percentage of men with policy expertise in Colombia is similar to the
percentage in Argentina and Chile.
GETTING TO THE HEART OF POLICY EXPERTISE

QUALIFICATION—C OMPARING WOMEN AND MEN
WITHIN CATEGORIES OF PORTFOLIOS
For the data set overall statistically indistinguishable percentages of

women and men have extensive experience related to their portfolios and
thus should be sources of the policy expertise PCR for the administration.
Women may be expected to conform to a male norm to be appointed to the
cabinet though we cannot draw firm conclusions without analysis of the
other types of PCRs in subsequent chapters.These women do not appear
more likely than men to be policy outsiders for their portfolios, which is a
positive sign of integration of women in presidential cabinets.
The question remains, will we continue to observe sex equality regard-
ing policy expertise when we divide the cabinet into different subfields of
policy, or based on the visibility of the portfolio? Women have been ap-
pointed to social welfare posts for more years and in greater numbers than
to posts with high-prestige, which remain new territory for women po-
litical appointees (Blondel 1988; Martin 1989; Davis 1997: 16–17; Moon
and Fountain 1997; Reynolds 1999: 564; Studlar and Moncrief 1999: 379;
Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005, 2009; Paxton and Hughes
2007: 97; Sykes 2009: 40; Annesley and Gains 2010; Bergquist 2011: 164;
Buckley and Galligan 2011: 142–43; Krook and O’Brien 2012; Tremblay
and Stockemer 2013). In posts where women are newcomers and still quite
rare, will we find more sex differences? We begin to gather information to
answer these questions by dividing portfolios into different kinds of broad
categories as described in chapter 3.
Economics/S ocial Welfare/C entral categories of portfolios
When we partition cabinet portfolios into three broad policy categories,

we observe some potentially important sex differences (see figure 4.4).

Almost identical percentages of men and women have extensive experi-
ence related to their portfolio in Social Welfare (64% of women, 63% of
men, p = .898) and in Central categories of portfolios (57% of women,
54% of men, p = .825). In the Economics category, however, a signifi-
cantly greater percentage of men than women have extensive experience
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extensive experience †
law ***
economics
business
medicine/health
engineering *
political science * †
graduate degree
Work background
revolving door career †
law **
business/banking †
medical *
education/academic
consulting **
national government *
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Women
Men Economics (n = 172) Social Welfare (n = 124) Central (n = 138)
Figure 4.4 Minister portfolio- related experience, education and work background—

Economics/Social Welfare/Central categories of portfolios
related to their portfolio (56% of women, 73% of men, p = .066), so in

Economics category posts it appears that women are less likely than men
to bring the policy expertise PCR to the administration. This is espe-
cially interesting as these posts may represent the remaining glass ceil-
ing for women.
With the data set partitioned into these broad categories, women
were no longer significantly less likely than men to have studied econom-
ics. Men were still significantly more likely than women to have studied
law in the Social Welfare category (p = .000). Men were still more likely to
have studied engineering, but the sex difference was only significant in the
Economics category (p = .021). Women who studied political science were
still over-represented, and the difference was significant in the Economics
and Central categories (p = .027 and p = .095 respectively). Whereas the
data set overall showed a smaller percentage of women than men with
graduate degrees, there was no significant sex difference in graduate degrees
in these three portfolio categories. Graduate degrees are somewhat more
common for ministers in the Economics category (73%) compared to the
Social Welfare (63%) and Central (69%) categories, but sex differences are
not significant.

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Regarding work background, women in the Central category are signifi-
cantly more likely than men to have revolving door careers (p = .086). Men
in the Social Welfare category are far more likely than women to have been
lawyers (p = .010), as no women came from a law career. This is especially
surprising for the United States given the relatively large number of law-
yers in the US cabinet and the perception that law prepares one for numer-
ous and varied jobs.18 We also now observe that in the Central category
more men (65%) than women (39%) come from a career in national govern-
ment (p = .021). Women in the Central category are more likely than men
to come from a medical occupation (p = .027), though only one minister
in the Central category came from a medical career, and that one minis-
ter is Michelle Bachelet who, after serving as minister of defense, went on
to become president of Chile. She is an exceptional individual and we of
course cannot extrapolate from a single data point.
We see that women’s under- representation in business/banking ca-
reers is due to that career being less common for women than men in the
Economics category (p = .070), which likely impacts women’s credibility in
several portfolios in this category. As an example, Miguel Peirano and Felisa
Miceli both were ministers of finance in Argentina (2007 and 2005–07 re-
spectively). Both had degrees in economics; however, the woman, Miceli,
worked as a consultant and for the government before becoming minister
(e.g., as representative of the Ministry of Economics to the Central Bank),
while the man, Peirano, worked in business, primarily banking and invest-
ments. When he was appointed the press predicted that he would “breathe
new life into relations between the government and the Unión Industrial
Argentina (UIA), Argentina’s most influential manufacturing industries
lobby, for which he was chief economist for 11 years.”19
We also see that the greater percentage of women in consulting careers found
in the data set overall is only apparent in the Central category (p = .009), which
could boost their credibility in some portfolios. The cases of two women pro-
vide good examples: Carolina Barco, Colombia’s minister of foreign relations
(2002–06), was a consultant on urban planning in Colombia and Venezuela
and with the UNDP. Vivianne Blanlot, minister of defense in Chile (2006–07),
built a career as a consultant, working for the Inter-American Development
Bank on issues related to energy, mining, water, and infrastructure, and as an
independent consultant in Chile and other countries.
18. There are twenty-four secretaries in the Social Welfare category from the United
States in our data set: six women, eighteen men. None of these women had a career in
law; four of the eighteen men were lawyers (22%).
19. Latin America Weekly Report (LAWR), July 19, 2007.
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In sum, there are more significant sex differences in education and work
background when we divide the cabinet into Economics/Social Welfare/
Central categories of portfolios than in the data set overall. Women are
indistinguishable from men in the Social Welfare and Central categories
in terms of bringing the PCR of policy expertise to the administration.
A high incidence of policy expertise among women in Central category
posts is noteworthy because women are newcomers in those posts, which
are frequently thought of as powerful, prestigious, or visible (or all of the
above). But in the Economics category, where women are still uncommon
appointees (only 32 women of 172 ministers, 18.6%) the women who do
receive these posts often appear likely to have less credibility than the
men, and the women appear to be less likely to bring policy expertise to
the administration. This raises troubling questions about their likelihood
of success.
Based on this dimension of our analysis, there appears to be greater in-
corporation of women in the Social Welfare category not only in terms of
numbers of women (47 of 124 ministers, 37.9%) but also in terms of their
likelihood of bringing policy expertise to the administration. We predict
(and test in Part III of the book) that this will translate into fewer dif-
ferences in treatment or effectiveness of women in these posts. Women
are still markedly under-represented in the Central category of posts
(23 of 138 ministers, 16.7%), but the women who receive these posts are as
likely as the men to be policy experts. In the Economics category, however,
women are not only still rare, but they often have less post-related experi-
ence than men. From this result we might predict that we should observe
greater differences between men and women in terms of outcomes in Part
III of the book especially in Economics category posts, assuming of course
that policy expertise is a valuable PCR that affects outcomes for cabinet
ministers. Thus, based on this particular grouping of cabinet posts, incor-
poration of women into these presidential cabinets appears uneven.
Stereotypically masculine/f eminine policy domain portfolios
As explained in chapter 3, stereotypically masculine/feminine policy do-

mains do not overlap completely with Social Welfare vs. Economics and
Central categories of posts. Differences in findings from this analysis com-
pared to the previous typology of post categories highlight differences in
this categorization (see figure 4.5).
Of greatest interest is our finding here regarding policy expertise. In
feminine policy domain posts only slightly more women (70%) than men

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law **
economics *
business
medicine/health
engineering *
political science **
graduate degree
Work background
revolving door career ** *
law †
business/banking †
medical * †
education/academic
consulting **
national government *
Women 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100

Men Masculine (n = 337) Feminine (n = 110)
Figure 4.5 Minister portfolio- related experience, education and work background—

stereotypically masculine/feminine policy domain portfolios
(65%) had extensive experience related to their portfolio (p = .531). In mas-

culine policy domain posts 64% of men and 54% of women have exten-
sive experience related to their portfolio (p = .131), and in neither category
is the difference statistically significant. Thus, when portfolios are parti-
tioned in this way, in both categories any sex differences in policy expertise
are subtle, and women generally appear as likely as men to be a source of
the policy expertise PCR for the administration.
Regarding education, in the analysis of the data set overall more men
than women studied law. Here we see a difference only in stereotypically
feminine policy domain posts, where 35% of men, but only 7% of women
studied law (p = .001). Men were also more likely to have studied econom-
ics, but the difference is only significant for feminine policy domain posts
(p = .023). Men were more likely than women to have studied engineer-
ing in masculine policy domain posts (p = .010). As before, women more
EBSCO[ 96 ] Women
Account: ns191738
commonly than men studied political science, but the difference is only sig-
nificant for masculine policy domain posts (p = .003).
With regard to work background, a greater percentage of women (29%)

than men (14%) have revolving door careers in the masculine policy domain
(p = .004). By contrast, in the feminine policy domain it is men who are
more likely to have revolving door careers (12% of men, 0% of women,
p = .019). We also observe that only in feminine policy domain posts do
proportionally more men (7%) than women (0%) come from law careers
(p = .080). Men are more likely to come from business/banking occupa-
tions in the masculine policy domain (p = .092). Proportionally more men
than women come from medical occupations into feminine policy domain
posts (p = .088), but for masculine policy domain posts medical occupa-
tions are more common for women (p = .039), though in the masculine
policy domain this difference is again not substantively interesting be-
cause it amounts to 0 men and 1 woman (based on Michelle Bachelet, a
doctor, who served as minister of health in the Lagos administration in
Chile before becoming minister of defense). However, finding more people
(women and men, thirty-seven ministers) with medical backgrounds in
the feminine policy domain is expected because it is common in our data
set for a person with a medical career to hold the health portfolio, while
medical professionals are rare in other portfolios.20 The repeated finding
that it is more common for women than men to come from consulting
careers is only observed here in the masculine policy domain (p = .009).
Finally, a larger percentage of men than women in the masculine policy
domain come from careers in national government (46% of men, 29% of
women, p = .016).
In sum, whether we focus on stereotypically feminine policy domain
posts where women are more numerous (47 of 110 ministers) and have
been present for many years, or on masculine posts where women are
newcomers and still uncommon (63 of 337 ministers), the women are as
likely as the men to bring the PCR of policy expertise to the cabinet. This
is potentially very important for the full incorporation of women into
high-level executive branch politics because, as Borrelli (2002: 61) writes,
when women without policy expertise and “without the requisite political
20. Twelve of the thirty-six health ministers had a career in medicine, three of fif-
teen women and nine of twenty-one men (p = .160). The remaining ministers of health
come from consulting careers (three women, one man), education (two women, three
men), law (two men), business/banking (two men), and various other types of careers.
The other two men who entered the cabinet from a medical career were ministers of
education: Hugo Oscar Juri from Argentina and Rogelio Pardo Evans, minister of sci-
ence and technology from Costa Rica, who had previously been minister of health.

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resources and the president’s endorsement” are nominated to head a de-
partment in a masculine domain it “limits their opportunities to effect
change.” With regard to our tentative conclusion in the previous section, it

appears that women are being incorporated into masculine policy domain
posts when broadly defined, but that Economics category posts remain an
area in cabinet politics where women are often marginalized.
High Visibility category posts
Finally, we look at ministers whose posts are “high visibility” with

regard to attention from the mass public before the president selects
the minister. In our data set 138 ministers (26 women, 112 men) were
appointed to High Visibility category posts. Women are clearly a minor-
ity of this group (a subject we explore further in Part III of the book),
but the women who receive these High Visibility category posts largely
look like the men (see figure 4.6). The majority of both women and men
appointed to these challenging posts have extensive experience related to
their portfolio (62% of women, 69% of men, p = .459), so the women are
as likely as the men to bring the PCR of policy expertise to the admin-
istration. That attribute could also be important for credibility in their
job, which given the public spotlight on these posts might be especially
important.
Regarding educational background, women in High Visibility category
posts were less likely to have studied law (28%) than the men (49%) (p
= .065), or to have studied economics (12% of women, 40% of men, p =
.008), which, depending on the post, could impact their post related policy
expertise. In addition, more of the women studied political science (28%
of women, 12% of men, p = .042). Unlike in the data set overall, the per-
centages of men and women who studied engineering did not differ statis-
tically (p = .259), probably because very few ministers in High Visibility
category posts studied engineering (0 women, 5% of the men).21 As in the
data set overall, women appointed to High Visibility category posts are
less likely than men to have graduate degrees (39% of women, 68% of men,
p = .012), although we remind the reader we are missing data for many
ministers on this variable (twenty-eight in High Visibility category posts).

This does not necessarily mean they are “less qualified” as they can have
21. We would expect engineers to be most likely to be appointed to public works and
transportation posts. Such posts only were coded as “high visibility” twice in our data
set, once each in Chile and the United States.
EBSCO[ 98 ] Women
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law † *
economics **
business
medicine/health
engineering **
political science * *
graduate degree *
Work background
public sector career †
law
business/banking † *
medical
education/academic
consulting *
national government
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Women
Men High Visibility (n = 138) Not High Visibility (n = 309)
Figure 4.6 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—High

Visibility/Not High Visibility categories of posts
other sources of policy expertise, or bring other PCRs to the administra-

tion that we explore in the next two chapters.
With respect to prior work background proportionally more women
(65%) than men (47%) in High Visibility category posts come from public
sector careers (p = .098). More men than women come from business/bank-
ing occupations (27% of men, 12% of women, p = .094). Women are not
statistically over-represented in consulting careers in High Visibility cate-
gory posts (19% of women, 13% of men, p = .393) even though consulting
careers are more common for women overall.

Although there are some differences in the education and work back-
grounds of the men and women appointed to High Visibility category
posts, there are fewer differences in background than in the data set over-
all. We interpret this to indicate that social control theory and adminis-
tration needs for PCRs correctly explain the norms applied to the women

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stepping outside the expected role of filling compassion or hearth and
home posts into the public realm of High Visibility category posts that fre-
quently must resolve or defuse high-pressure conflicts (e.g., protests about

policy changes or media criticism of the inability of the government to fix
a problem). Based on literature about voter expectations regarding candi-
date aptitudes, women in High Visibility category posts are doing jobs that
do not fit common expectations about the political topics that women are
well suited to handle, as ministers holding those posts must often confront
policy problems whose solutions generate high levels of conflict. That lit-
erature finds that women are viewed as more compassionate, sensitive, and
honest, while male politicians have more voter support in times of war or
other crises and are viewed as aggressive, assertive, and tough (Alexander
and Anderson 1993; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a, 1993b; Heilman 2001;
Eagly and Karau 2002; Lawless 2004b; Banwart 2010; Dittmar 2012:
chapter 2; but see Schneider and Bos 2014). The fact that women are per-
ceived as more honest may contribute to understanding why women are
being appointed to posts, some of which are tied to addressing corruption
(Goetz 2007; Esarey and Chirillo 2013).
In sum, while women are still relatively rare in High Visibility category
posts, the women who receive those appointments resemble the men in
the likelihood that they will bring policy expertise to the administration
in portfolios that are highly visible based on problems identified in public
opinion surveys. In the next chapter we will reexamine High Visibility cat-
egory posts to see if women in those posts are as likely as men to have
extensive political experience, since political acumen may also be required
to manage politically hot issues.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we began exploring whether the women appointed to

these presidential cabinets bring different backgrounds to the cabinet, or
if they “look like the men” on most traits beyond their sex. With regard
to education and work background, we do find some differences—largely
differences that are predictable due to long-term trends in socialization
of boys and girls to view particular disciplines as “correct,” contribut-

ing to gendered discipline preferences of women and men. Yet when we
look at subsets of our data, comparing initial to replacement appoin-
tees, or different categories of posts, these differences are only found in
specific types of posts (e.g., Economics category portfolios, replacement
ministers).
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Of greatest importance for the integration of women into these pres-
idential cabinets, we find that women are generally as likely as the men
to bring policy expertise to their post. Not all ministers have post-related
policy expertise, but the sex of the minister typically does not help to pre-
dict whether the minister will be able to bring this PCR to the adminis-
tration. The Economics category of portfolios is a notable exception, with
women significantly less likely to be coded as having extensive portfolio-
related experience in Economics category posts. While policy expertise is
not the only aspect of a minister’s background lending credibility to his
or her qualifications for the post, inadequate policy expertise can weaken
credibility and raise questions about their ability to function as indepen-
dent actors as opposed to pawns for powerful males. Insufficient credibil-
ity may be particularly damaging to women’s effectiveness in posts where
women are still rare and possibly viewed as inappropriate. Society at large,
or constituency groups of the ministry may hold those women to partic-
ularly high standards of performance because they have stepped outside
of gender norms for occupations. Role congruity theory in psychology
predicts that women who violate gender norms are likely to be punished
(Heilman 2001: 661 and 667; Eagly and Karau 2002; Sczesny et al. 2004;
Schneider and Bos 2014). “The potential for prejudice against female lead-
ers that is inherent in the female gender role follows from its dissimilarity
to the expectations that people typically have about leaders” (Eagly and
Karau 2002: 575).22 The incongruity is predicted to be greatest for high-
level leadership posts (p. 577).
Overall, the conclusions to be drawn from the analyses in this chapter
are positive. Most women have education or work experience that should
give them credibility in their post and enable them to bring the PCR of
policy expertise to the administration. This means they fit into the top
row in the theoretical predictions laid out in Figure 1.1. The question we
will address in Part III of the book is whether these women are treated
equally to the men once they are in the cabinet. In ministries that we
classified as Social Welfare or Central category, stereotypically mascu-
line, stereotypically feminine, and High Visibility category women differ
from men in some aspects of education and work background, but they
were as likely as men to have the PCR of policy expertise. For Borrelli
(2002: 10) this shows that the women’s “precabinet careers are valued
22. Gouws (2008: 21) provides a stark example of gendered expectations about po-

litical leaders from a survey conducted in 2007 by the South African Commission on
Gender Equality. The survey found that “more than 30 percent of the respondents are
of the opinion that women are too emotional to handle high-level leadership positions.”
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by the administration” and for us suggests that women are not being set
up to fail (at least not because they lack the policy expertise to manage
the portfolio). In Economics category posts, however, women more often

have different backgrounds than men, and are more likely to lack ex-
tensive experience related to their portfolio. This places, at least some
of these women, in the bottom row of Figure 1.1, and may make them
tokens (lower-right cell).
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CHAPTER 5
Political skills
When and where presidents appoint ministers
with political background and connections
P olicy expertise, examined in the preceding chapter, is one of the po-

litical capital resources (PCRs) presidents need to make policy, imple-
ment their policy agenda, and govern successfully. Presidents also need
ministers with political skills to obtain the votes to get policies passed into
law and to build or maintain support to implement policies. Political skills
are also needed to handle conflicts and meet challenges that arise during a
president’s term. Those challenges could be a scandal or the result of an un-
popular policy (e.g., cuts in benefits that are viewed as entitlements such as
free university education, or reform of the public transportation or health
care systems, or implementation of an IMF austerity plan). There could
be an emergency situation that is not caused by the administration, but
which the administration must handle successfully or appear inept, such as
a natural disaster, a downturn in the world economy, or a terrorist attack.
In these cases managing the political spin may be as important as knowing
the policy area. Writing about the United States, Edwards (2001: 84–85)
describes an “ideal appointee” as a person who is “savvy in the ways of
Washington and possesses significant political skills.” The same could be

said for “savvy in the ways” of Buenos Aires, Santiago, Bogotá, or San José.
An administration needs the PCR of political skills in its top ranks to make
and administer policy and navigate political crisis. Consequently, policy ex-
pertise may not be the most important PCR for a minister, as it can be ob-
tained from other sources, such as the career bureaucracy (although ministers
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do need to appear qualified for their posts or the image of the administration
could be tarnished). Ministers need to be able to deal successfully with other
political actors, making political savvy a potentially essential skill.

In this chapter we evaluate whether there are sex differences in the po-
litical background and connections of cabinet ministers. In particular we
want to know if women are as likely as men to be a source of the politi-
cal skills PCR for the administration. Political connections can signal loy-
alty to the president, which research on US politics argues is often more
highly prized than policy expertise. Edwards (2001: 82) explains that
“the White House places a premium on reliability and trust over such im-
personal qualities [substantive expertise, managerial skills], because the
president’s highest priority is the responsiveness of the executive branch
to his policies.” According to Lewis (2008: 27), “There is almost uniform
concern articulated voluntarily by persons involved in presidential person-
nel about how important it is to find loyal people with the right skills and
background to fill these jobs” (also see Borrelli 2010: 735). Therefore, we
also evaluate in this chapter whether the ministers who have clear connec-
tions to the president—those who are most likely to be viewed as political
payback or cronies—are qualified for their post in the sense of bringing the
PCR of policy expertise to the administration along with their presumed
loyalty to the president.
We investigate political background and connections of women and men
in these presidential cabinets in several different ways. First we explain how
we code ministers as having or not having each of six political background
traits, one of which—political insider—we use as a proxy for the political
skills PCR, and three political connection traits. Following the format from
the previous chapter, we examine the data set overall to see whether at this
aggregate level the women tend to have different or similar backgrounds to
the men. Next we look separately at ministers appointed in the initial cabi-
net, and at replacement ministers, and inspect countries individually to
explore whether men and women within one country’s cabinet have similar
or different types of political background and connections. Then we divide
portfolios into several broad categories to see if women and men who hold
posts with similar types of policy responsibilities are equally likely to bring
political skills to the cabinet. Our purpose is to assess with systematic data
whether women are as likely as men to bring the PCR of political skills to
their post and whether they are as likely as men to need connections to
the president in order to receive different types of appointments. We con-
clude the chapter with an exploration of the comparative extent to which
women and men with political connections are qualified for their posts.
We make this assessment by examining whether men and women bring
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the PCR of policy expertise to the administration along with their political
connections or if there are sex differences in the qualifications of individu-
als who could be viewed as loyalist appointees. Once again, we predict that
the women will closely resemble the men, differing only in their sex: this is
because we expect the political elites who control political appointments to
be risk averse about making appointments that diverge from established
norms. Diverging from the norm could be dangerous for the reputation
of the administration if ministers are ineffective, and could also threaten
established political elites whose interests favor the status quo.
To preview our findings, there is much similarity between women and
men in their political background traits (including when traits are absent)
and in their likelihood of bringing the political skills PCR to the administra-
tion. With regard to political background, the women look very much like the
men. This is potentially important because it means that these women are no
less likely than the men to have an independent power base that could come
from political experience—and consequently they are no more likely than
the men to be dependent on the president. Yet women are more likely than
men to have political connections. This may be a sign that women are more
likely to be appointed to the cabinet if the president can trust them to remain
loyal or that having a previous connection to the president is one of the fac-
tors that lead to a woman’s name surfacing during the preselection process.
However, since most ministers (men and women) do not have political con-
nections, such connections clearly are not required for women (or men) to be
appointed to the cabinet.
CODING POLITICAL SKILLS, BACKGROUND,

AND CONNECTIONS
As a reminder, the biographical information available to us was publicly

available, so a minister could have a trait (e.g., a connection to the presi-
dent through prior work or social clubs) that was not widely known in the
press, in which case it would not be part of our assessment of minister
credentials and experience. (Details on how we compiled and code minister
bios are given in chapter 3.) However, as explained in c hapter 3, we view
cabinet appointments as a signaling game from the administration to the

mass public, interest groups, and international actors, so for minister back-
ground and credentials to signal a person’s credibility for their post they
must be publicly known. For this analysis we coded binary variables that
provide six measures of ministers’ political background. We also code three
binary measures of political connections.
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the executive “is the source of nearly all substantive legislation, much

of which is not even debated in Congress because it is enacted under

emergency powers” (Archer and Shugart 1997: 118). The executive

connections to political parties to secure support for his policies (Botero

ties: Liberals and Conservatives (founded respectively in 1815 and 1849).

presidential candidate (though when Laura Chinchilla ran for president

ited to one time. Presidents typically select their vice-​presidential running

42. Wyoming territory granted women the right to vote in 1869.

The US president is weak in terms of formal legislative powers. The

portant qualification on the separation-​of-​origin trait of presidential sys-

apparent or media coverage revealed embarrassing details, and party polar-

whether the increasing numbers of women in cabinets of these presiden-

D o women bring different educational backgrounds, employment, po-

are able to represent a different perspective. Thus, it is also important to

or a member of a very small minority (possibly even a token) or having to

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PREVIOUS STUDIES COMPARING CREDENTIALS

Pioneering and extensive comparative research about women in Western

representation of women in cabinets.

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DATA SOURCES AND CODING MINISTER CREDENTIALS

We coded minister background on numerous characteristics: education, oc-

appointments that typically includes commentary on the backgrounds and credentials

problems (i.e., special or borderline cases) in a systematic fashion. All the

training providing a minister the PCR of policy expertise, and because it

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OVERVIEW OF TYPES OF ANALYSIS PRESENTED

We build on the typology of political capital resources (PCRs) developed

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• Economics Ministries (172 ministers)—​manage the national economy

10. Our “Central” category resembles what Mulcahy and Wyszomirski (cited as

Argentina Education de la Rúa & Fernández

Energy, Mining, and Environment

Chile Health Lagos & Bachelet

Chile Labor & Social Security Lagos & Bachelet

Presidency and Communication

• Social Welfare Ministries (124 ministers)—​oversee social welfare pro-

Another way we divide portfolios is into stereotypically mas-

jurisdiction encompasses policy related to the private sphere, such as

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• Stereotypically “feminine policy domain” (110 ministers)—​culture,

typically merged with labor policy.

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Table 3.2 MINISTRIES CODED AS HIGH VISIBILITY CATEGORY BY COUNTRY AND YEAR

Argentina Chile Colombia Costa Rica United States

Education Education Education Education Education

Housing Housing Housing & Urban Devel.

Argentina Chile Colombia Costa Rica United States

Labor Labor Labor Labor Labor

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Who Gatekeepers Select as Ministers

S cholars expect policy expertise to be a political capital resource (PCR)

ministers as an initial step in our assessment of whether men and women

CODING POLICY EXPERTISE, EDUCATION,

portfolio—​which is our proxy for bringing the PCR of policy expertise to

their lack of extensive experience.

1. We include economics, agricultural economics, and development economics in

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DO MEN AND WOMEN DIFFER IN THEIR EDUCATION

We want to know if women are as likely as men to be appointed to posts

Figure 4.1 Minister portfolio-​related experience, education and work background—​data

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at least some college education) (Cohen 1988b: 59–​60; also Martin 1997: 64;

ited to one time. Presidents typically select their vice-presidential running

portant qualification on the separation-of-origin trait of presidential sys-

• Economics Ministries (172 ministers)—manage the national economy

• Social Welfare Ministries (124 ministers)—oversee social welfare pro-

• Stereotypically “feminine policy domain” (110 ministers)—culture,

portfolio—which is our proxy for bringing the PCR of policy expertise to

Figure 4.1 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—data

at least some college education) (Cohen 1988b: 59–60; also Martin 1997: 64;

Figure 4.2 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—initial/

As explained in chapter 2, countries may have evolved different norms

Figure 4.3 Minister portfolio-related experience, education, and work background—by country

Economics/S ocial Welfare/C entral categories of portfolios

Figure 4.4 Minister portfolio- related experience, education and work background—

Stereotypically masculine/f eminine policy domain portfolios

As explained in chapter 3, stereotypically masculine/feminine policy do-

Figure 4.5 Minister portfolio- related experience, education and work background—

ministers on this variable (twenty-eight in High Visibility category posts).

Figure 4.6 Minister portfolio-related experience, education and work background—High