Roderic Ai Camp
Tulane University
The purpose of my presentation is to examine female politicians from the point of view of political recruitment. What I propose to do is identify similarities and differences, if any, among men and women, and what it suggests about both the process of recruitment, and the future of women in Mexican national politics. Much of what I am saying is based on research which is reported in my just published book, Political Recruitment across Two Centuries.
a--The most important generalization one can make about gender in Mexican political recruitment studies is that it is the least examined variable.
b--Women did not appear in Mexican national politics until 1940, and since that date, only 1 out of 14 prominent politicians has been female. Nevertheless, as my own data illustrate, the percentage of female politicians from Avila Camacho through Salinas has doubled from 1946 to 1958, from 1958 to 1964, and from 1970- 1982.
c--Political recruitment processes are essential to understand because it is not lower ambition, but access to office-holding, that is the decisive variable in explaining female representation.
d--The most decisive increase among female politicians in Mexico occurred under José López Portillo.
e--Comparatively, Mexican women have been better represented in some branches of government than their counterparts in the US, specifically the judicial branch, a phenomenon true elsewhere in Latin America. In Mexico, women have succeeded most strongly in those institutions, legislative and judicial, and to a lesser extent the party itself, which exercises the least influence over decision-making.
This is also illustrated in the executive branch, in that women's breakthroughs have occurred largely in the least influential agencies. The first female cabinet secretary was in tourism (repeated in the current administration), along with the controller general and the ecology ministry.