KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

The purpose of this research is to expand women's political representation in future elections by preparing measures for supporting the development of local women politicians. To this end, this study analyzed the constituency activities, networks, and election campaigns of women candidates for local assemblies in the 2014 local elections as well as overseas cases.

Specifically, in Chapter II, we examined theories on the development of women politicians and analyzed preceding studies. We thereby laid a basis of the needs for fostering women politicians and drew up distinctiveness of the research on the correlations between the support for the development of women politicians and women's political representation. In Chapter III, we analyzed the results of the 2014 local elections and the policies of related organizations on the development and support of women politicians. For this purpose, we first analyzed women's political representation in the 2014 local elections by political party, by gender, by region, by occupation, and by the number of seats for legislators. Then, we reviewed policies on the development and support of women politicians and their problems by analyzing the party constitutions and regulations of major political parties concerning the development of women politicians as well as the current status of related organizations and programs in operation. In Chapter 4, we surveyed women candidates (including preliminary candidates), major political parties, and heads of women's organizations for the development of women politicians and future agenda. To do so, we asked women candidates, including preliminary candidates (approximately 500 persons), about their motives for running in the elections, professionalism, constituency activities, networks, organizations, and measures for nurturing women politicians. To complement the survey results and develop future policy plans, we conducted in-depth interviews with 10 heads of women's bureaus, concerned people, and heads of women's organizations from major parties about ways to foster women politicians. In the interview, we asked about the contents of education on the development of women politicians, difficulties of the organizations in conducting the education, and their future policy plans. In Chapter V, we looked into overseas cases (France, Sweden, Germany, U.K., and Japan) that can help inform Korea about their major issues related to local governments and women's representation and their measures for developing women politicians.

The research findings include: first, the government' roles should be to prepare an education act on civic politics and establish education centers for civic politics, to improve the directions for utilizing and operating women's political development expenses. The roles of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family should be to form public opinions and prepare practical measures for the "revision of election systems and political laws" in the 20th-term general elections in 2016 and the constitutional amendment to come, and to operate a pool of women politicians in the women talents bank. Second, the roles of political parties should be to operate year-round education centers and programs for women leadership in the parties, to make systematic educational programs and specialized contents and operate follow-up programs, to provide incentives of nomination deliberation for outstanding educational trainees, to build a system to identify women leaders in connection with women's organizations, and to introduce mandatory gender-perspective educational programs for male politicians. The roles of women's organizations should be to identify and develop women leaders who can speak with gender-responsive perspectives, and to secure the budget for forming women politicians network and for proliferating programs.

Key words: Women politicians, 2014 local elections, women candidates for local assemblies, female talents, women politicians network