Electoral gender quotas have emerged as one of the most critical political reforms of the last two decades, having now been introduced in more than 130 countries worldwide. The recent and global nature of these developments has sparked both scholarly and popular interest in the in which these quotas are designed, as well as their origins and effects. This volume seeks to expand these existing agendas to forge new directions in research on gender quotas and political representation. The topics considered include new paths to adoption, as well as – in the wake of quota introduction – changes in the dynamics of candidate selection, the status and role of women in legislative institutions, and the impact that women have on policy-making. Expanding the scope of quota studies, the contributions also address trends in different political parties and different levels of government, the effectiveness of quotas in democratic and non-democratic settings, and whether there might be non-quota mechanisms that could be pursued together with, or in lieu of, gender quotas in order to increase women’s political representation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Representation.

This is the first world-wide, comparative study of the controversial new trends of gender quotas now emerging in global politics, presenting a comprehensive overview of changes in women’s parliamentary representation across the world. This is important reading for all those working to increase women’s influence in politics, because it scrutinizes under what circumstances gender quotas do increase women’s representation – and why they sometimes fail. These distinguished international scholars also show how gender balance in politics has become important to a nation’s international image and why quotas are being introduced in many post-conflict countries. They present key case studies of Afghanistan, Iraq, Argentina, Sweden, South Africa, Belgium, covering almost all major regions of the world: Latin America, Africa, the Arab world, South Asia, the Balkans, The Nordic countries and Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the USA - and Rwanda, which in 2003 unexpectedly surpassed Sweden as the number one country in the world in terms of women’s parliamentary representation. Using a comparative perspective, this book contains analyses of the discursive controversies around quotas; it gives an overview over various types of quotas in use from candidate quotas to reserved seat systems, and it throws light over the troublesome implementation process. When do gender quotas lead to actual increase in the number of women parliament? When are quotas merely a symbolic gesture? What does it imply to be elected as a ‘quota woman’? Tackling these and many more key questions, this is a major new contribution to the field. Making an important contribution to our knowledge of gender politics worldwide, this book will be of interest to NGOs, students and scholars of democracy, policy-making, comparative politics and gender studies.

In recent years, political parties and national legislatures in more than one hundred countries have adopted quotas for the selection of female candidates to political office. Despite the rapid international diffusion of these measures, most research has focused on single countries - or, at most, the presence of quotas within one world region. Consequently, explanations for the adoption and impact of gender quotas derived from one study often contradict with findings from other cases. Quotas for Women in Politics is the first book to address quotas as a global phenomenon to explain their spread and impact in diverse contexts around the world. It is organized around two sets of questions. First, why are quotas adopted? Which actors are involved in quota campaigns, and why do they support or oppose quota measures? Second, what effects do quotas have on existing patterns of political representation? Are these provisions sufficient for bringing more women into politics? Or, does their impact depend on other features of the broader political context? Synthesizing literature on quota policies, this book develops a framework for analyzing the spread of quota provisions and the reasons for variations in their effects. It then applies this framework to examine and compare campaigns for reserved seats in Pakistan and India, party quotas in Sweden and the United Kingdom, and legislative quotas in Argentina and France.

The introduction of electoral gender quotas in diverse contexts around the globe has attracted a great deal of scholarly and political interest. To date, research on these measures has focused primarily on quota design, adoption, and effects on the numbers of women elected. While this remains a crucial focus, quotas are not simply about changing the proportion of women in political office. Both supporters and opponents of quotas suggest, albeit from different perspectives, that positive action for women as candidates will influence the kinds of women elected, the policy-making process as it concerns women's issues, the way citizens view women in public life, and the relationship between female voters and the political process. Seeking to initiate a "second generation" of research on quotas, this volume is an effort to inspire a new literature focused on theorizing and studying the broader impact of quotas on politics and society. The book is structured in relation to three facets of political representation: the attributes of officeholders (descriptive representation); the promotion of group interests during the legislative process (substantive representation); and the broader cultural meanings and social consequences of political incorporation (symbolic representation). Within each section, the chapters include case studies from four regions of the world: Western Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia and the Middle East. This approach recognizes that quotas are a global phenomenon and that research on quotas and representation benefits from a comparative, cross-national approach. The Impact of Gender Quotas is a theory-building and comparative exercise in elaborating concepts commonly used to analyze the broad impacts of gender quotas. The book begins with the argument that the means by which women enter politics may influence how, why and to what extent their presence affects political representation. Following a preface by Drude Dahlerup, one of the pioneers of gender quota research, the editors introduce the book with a conceptual framework for analyzing the impact of quotas, based upon descriptive, substantive and symbolic dimensions of representation. The book is subsequently organized into three sections, each devoted to analyzing one of the dimensions of representation, and each of these sections contains a chapter case study from one of four regions of the world (Western Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia). Each of the chapters follows a basic format instituted by the editors, with the goal of facilitating cross-case comparisons and broad theory-building. The editors conclude the book by summarizing the main themes and implications for future research on gender quotas.

This book provides a timely and unique contribution to current debates on how effectively voluntary party quotas address the persistent underrepresentation of women in legislatures. Using a most similar case design and a mixed-methods approach, the authors draw attention to the ways in which electoral systems and party regulations interface with voluntary party quotas in Germany and Austria. All quota parties in these countries support the goal of equal participation of women and men in elected office, and quotas are presented as a means to precisely that end. In order to assess parties’ commitment to their declared goals, and the effectiveness of quotas, the book introduces the concept of the post-quota gender gap and defines it as the difference between a party’s adopted quota and the actual share of women in legislative bodies at the national and regional level. Complementing the existing literature on recruitment and socio-cultural legacies, the authors argue that the problem of voluntary party quotas lies at the intersection of party quota design and electoral law. Either parties need to design quotas that actually work within a given electoral system, or we need legislative action geared toward advancing parity not just in candidate selection, but in the composition of legislatures. The book draws on gendered candidate and election data, on the party statutes of federal and state-level party organizations, and on interviews with party officials and party women’s organizations.

For the 2009 elections, Indonesia implemented a gender quota provision that required political parties to have one woman for every three candidates on party lists. The quota was designed for a semi-open list electoral system where elected candidates are determined by their rank of order on party lists. However, just months before the 2009 elections, the Constitutional Court overturned the formula for electoral victory, transforming Indonesia's electoral system from using semi-open party lists to (fully) open party lists. This study investigates how the gender quota was implemented and how the Constitutional Court's decision impacted on women's representation in the Bantul and Yogyakarta City district parliaments. It asks what is the role of the women's movement in promoting gender quotas, as well as in the investigating the socioeconomic and cultural factors that influenced the success and failure of women candidates in the two selected districts. Data collection for this research was done through one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions with women candidates and a series of interviews with Electoral Commission members, political party leaders, women's organisations and a judge of the Constitutional Court in Jakarta. Secondary data was collected from the Electoral Commission, online literature and from other organisations. This study found that while the Indonesian women's movement worked effectively with Government agencies and women politicians to legislate the gender quota, they were unable to persuade the Constitutional Court of the importance of the semi-open list system for increasing women's representation. The research also found that political parties that act as gatekeepers for the recruitment, selection and placement of candidates on party lists, and as such, play a pivotal role in the successful implementation of the gender quota, treated the gender quota as a tick-a-box exercise. Additionally, a lack of meaningful sanctions meant that parties, primarily large and established parties more likely to achieve the electoral quotient and have candidates elected, were able to campaign in the elections even though they had not met the quota. This study found that Constitutional Court's decision itself did not significantly decrease the proportion of women in parliament, but it did make the campaign very costly and difficult for women, particularly those with domestic responsibilities and limited financial resources. This research concludes that the Constitutional Court's decision to change the formula for electoral victory combined with the lack of meaningful sanctions resulted in the gender quota losing its effectiveness. In order for Indonesia to meet its international obligations to advance women's political rights, Indonesia's gender quota needs to be modified to suit the new open list system. This needs to be combined with an increased commitment from political parties to gender equality, increased resources and support for women candidates and voter education.

This edited collection explores how party politics impacts the implementation of gender quotas in political representation across Europe. Contributors identify actors, institutions, and cultural legacies shape how quotas are put into practice. The volume’s subtitle, Resisting Institutions, points to the myriad ways in which parties and other institutions in Europe over time have resisted the inclusion of women into politics. As voluntary party quotas and legislative quotas gained prominence, so did strategies to undermine them. At the same time, Resisting Institutions also indicates that gender equality actors have developed ways to counter such blockages and advance the cause of parity in their legislatures. 17 country cases explore the current state of quota implementation and the effects of confronting androcentric institutions.

Findings from the 2002 workshop held by International IDEA in Jakarta, Indonesia, to discuss the implementation of quotas in Asia are examined in this report. Aiming to increase awareness of women's political representation as well as their involvement in decision-making bodies, these findings explore the use of gender quotas in Bangladesh, East Timor, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. When, where, and how gender quotas have been successfully implemented is examined, as well as the challenges, controversies, and consequences of enforcement. Strategies employed for gender equality in government in other non-Asian countries with different political systems are also discussed.

What role do men play in women's political representation? When and why do they support more inclusivity for women in office? Given that all political parties today have men in a majority of leadership positions, male gatekeepers play a key part in women's representation. So, how are they responding to the increasing numbers of women who are seeking leadership roles in politics? In The Inclusion Calculation, Melody E. Valdini examines women's inclusion from the perspective of men in power and offers a novel approach to understanding differences in women's descriptive representation. This book argues that men facilitate women's entry into politics when women's presence promises to benefit public perception of a party, and therefore benefit male party leaders. One particularly disturbing implication of this argument is that leaders can increase the number of women in office as a quick and simple substitute for addressing real systemic failures in party organization. Valdini tests her hypotheses by looking at several political contexts around the world: the degree to which parties run more women after a corruption scandal, the number of women who are actually elected at such times, the adoption of gender quotas, and the appointment of women legislators in authoritarian regimes. Her findings suggest that we cannot yet celebrate recent increases in the number of women in office as a sign that we are nearing broad acceptance of gender equality. Further, these findings also suggest that one should question the tendency of scholars and international organizations to use women's presence in office as a measurement of good governance, as well as the tendency to encourage women to simply "lean in" to advance their careers. While it is certainly valuable to encourage women to run for office, it is equally important to understand the motivations of male power-holders. To that end, this book examines how men strategically feminize their political parties or government to retain control, demonstrating that a woman's selection as a candidate often depends on a man's perception of her value.

France is notorious for the underrepresentation of women in its halls of politics. Having been unsuccessful at implementing quotas for female candidates--unlike several of their European neighbors--France passed a gender parity law in 2000 that required all political parties to field an equal number of male and female candidates. Yet in the 2002 elections the main political parties fell well short of nominating equal numbers of male and female candidates. How did parity replace gender quotas as the preferred way to achieve greater representation for women in elected office? Why have these gender-based measures been embraced by some parties and not others? And, why do parties sometimes fail to implement quotas and parity? Gender Quotas, Parity Reform, and Political Parties in France considers this transition from quotas to parity, providing a history of French women's rights and the French electoral process, as well as an examination of the roles of the Socialist and Gaullist political parties. Compelling and clearly written, Opello has created a work that bridges an existing gap in literature about contemporary France and will appeal to scholars of gender, politics, and France.