Tradition Meets Democracy: Perceptions of Women’s Political Leadership in Samoa

Women are globally underrepresented as political leaders; as of January 2023, only
17 countries had a woman head of government. Included in this small group is Samoa,
which elected Fiame Naomi Mata’afa as its first woman prime minister in 2021 after a
fiercely contested election and subsequent protracted legal disputes centered around
interpretations of Samoa’s 10% gender quota. Drawing on data from the Pacific Attitudes
Survey, the first large-scale, nationally representative popular political attitudes survey
conducted in the Pacific region, this article examines how the political environment in
Samoa shapes opportunities for women’s political participation and leadership. Using the
theoretical framework of cohabitation, it finds that although there is an enabling
environment for women’s participation and leadership in formal politics, women’s access
to decision-making spaces more broadly is still constrained by norms of traditional
leadership. This speaks to traditional and nontraditional political norms and practices
that coexist, at times uneasily, alongside one another.