Amanda Bittner Abstract

Women in local politics in NL: Past, Present, Future

This research project seeks to understand the presence of women in local politics in Newfoundland and Labrador, by a) cataloguing women’s presence in municipal councils around the province over time; b) cataloguing women’s presence in municipal councils in major cities across Canada over time; and c) assessing the state of the literature about women’s presence, in order to better understand why women are/are not present in local politics. Most of the research that exists to date focuses its attention on women’s presence in electoral politics at the national and provincial levels. Local politics has received substantially less attention by academics, and as a result, we do not know much about either a) who is present/has been present and in what numbers; or b) the factors that facilitate or impede the representation of members of traditionally marginalized groups. This project will allow us to begin the process of unpacking women’s local representation in the province, thus allowing us to better understand NL in historical context as well as in comparison to the rest of Canada.

Amanda Bittner