From Critical Mass to Critical Leaders: Unpacking the Political Conditions behind Gender Quotas in Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Marie Arendt
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Gender Quota

The surge in gender quotas across Africa raises questions about the varied impacts of these measures on women's empowerment in legislatures. This study contends that we must explore the diverse political conditions under which quotas are adopted to understand the potential for empowerment in legislatures. By examining political context, we can pinpoint why political parties acquiesce to gender quotas and how they design laws to either empower women or reinforce party control. Parties influence aspects of gender quota design that have lasting effects on women legislators elected through these laws. Employing a new measure of legislative leadership equity, this article compares political conditions under which quotas are adopted across 18 African countries and the extent to which women reach leadership positions following the implementation of a quota. Levels of political competition and women's mainstream political activity at the time of gender quota adoption indicate how the interests of political parties shape the design and effects of the law. That the outcomes of gender quotas are highly contingent on adoption context suggests the need for academics and policy makers to analyze the politics behind these measures to develop country-specific approaches for empowering women in politics.

Quotas and qualifications: the impact of gender quota laws on the qualifications of legislators in the Italian parliament

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Catalano Weeks ◽  
Lisa Baldez
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Government Experience ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Mixed Electoral System ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
The Impact

This article addresses concerns that candidates nominated because of gender quota laws will be less qualified for office. While questions of candidate quality have long been relevant to legislative behavior, quota laws requiring a certain percentage of candidates for national office to be women have generated renewed interest. Gender quotas are often perceived to reduce the scope of political competition. By putting gender identity center stage, they preclude the possibility that elections will be based on ‘ideas’ or ‘merit’ alone. Other electoral rules that restrict candidate selection, such as the centralization of candidate selection common in closed list PR systems, have been found to reduce the quality of candidates. Rules that open selection, such as primaries, result in higher quality candidates. We exploit the institutional design of Italy’s mixed electoral system in 1994, where quotas were applied only to the PR portion of the list, to compare the qualifications of men, women, and ‘quota women’. We estimate regressions on several measures of deputies’ qualifications for office and performance in office. We find that unlike other rules limiting candidate selection, quotas are not associated with lower quality on most measures of qualifications. In fact, quota women have more local government experience than other legislators and lower rates of absenteeism than their male counterparts. Contrary to critics, quota laws may have apositiveimpact on legislator quality. Once the quota law was rescinded, quota women were less likely to be re-elected than non-quota women or men, which suggests that discrimination – not qualification – limits women’s status as candidates.

scholarly journals Political Parties and the War

1919 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Mathews
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Party Control ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Political Conditions

The pathology of political parties is illustrated under especially illuminating circumstances during time of war. The internal political conditions of every important nation are influenced to some extent by its external relations. War on a world-wide scale is the external relation which has the most profound influence upon the internal political conditions of every participating nation. This influence varies in different cases, depending upon the proximity of the particular nation to the scene of the conflict, the extent of its participation, the relative danger of invasion by its enemies, the character of the internal governmental organization, the length of the conflict, and other factors. In normal times, it has been found by experience in nations operating under the two-party system that oscillations in the fortunes of the two principal parties occur with a surprising degree of regularity. This see-saw of party politics may have an injurious effect upon the continuity and constructiveness of the nation's foreign policy even in normal times; its continuation in time of war when the nation's fate may be hanging in the balance would be a serious, if not intolerable, danger. One effect of war upon the party system, therefore, is to bring about, at least for a time, a relatively greater stability of party control, if not complete quiescence of partisanship, either through coalition or through cessation of party opposition, or both.

scholarly journals Violence against Women in Politics: A Study of Backlash Effect of Gender Quota in Parliament of Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-367
Author(s):  
Dr. Sher Muhammad ◽  
Dr. Muhammad Waris Awan ◽  
Misbah Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women In Politics ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Different Shapes ◽  
Gender Quota

This paper intends to explore the “backlash“   impact of gender equality policies such as gender quotas in the shape of the resistance, provoked by male parliamentarians against their female colleagues. Such resistance exists in different shapes, such as sexist remarks, intimidation, or harassment. It is important to understand the nature and the motive behind such violence, and the effect of this violence on the performance of women legislators. The study is primarily based on semi-structured interviews with 15 female members of the National Assembly of Pakistan. It is evident from the findings of the paper that patriarchy, socio-economic structures, and the political power configurations are key elements that lead to this type of violence and it is not peculiar to only women elected on reserved seats.

Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK P. JONES
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Underrepresentation Of Women ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
Electoral Law ◽  
Considerable Support

Gender quotas represent a commonly advocated method by which to address the severe underrepresentation of women in the world's legislatures. This study analyzes the effect of gender quota laws on the election of women legislators. It also examines the extent to which other electoral rules can influence the effect of quotas on the election of women. Argentina's provinces employ a wide variety of electoral law arrangements for the election of their provincial legislatures, thereby providing a unique population with which to explore the effect of quotas. The use of a gender quota law is found to have a significant positive impact on the percentage of women elected to the Argentine provincial legislatures. At the same time, the type of party list used is found to have a potent influence on the efficacy of gender quota laws in increasing the percentage of women elected. The study provides considerable support for the position of gender quota advocates. It also suggests that reformers must pay close attention to the institutional environment in which a quota law is being implemented.

Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Women Legislators ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Important Exception ◽  
Gender Quota

This study uses district-level data from national legislative elections in 19 Latin American countries to evaluate the effect of gender quota legislation, in concert with other electoral rules, on the election of women legislators. Well-designed quota legislation has a profound positive impact on the election of women, regardless of the type of party list (closed or open). Where quota legislation is in force, the use of closed lists on average results in a greater percentage of women legislators elected to office than does the use of open lists. However, this difference is not as great as would be expected based on the prevailing conventional wisdom and is primarily the consequence of the superiority of the closed-list systems when the number of seats a party wins in a district (party magnitude) is two. With one important exception, party magnitude is generally unrelated to women's electoral success in the region.

scholarly journals The Irish legislative gender quota: The first election

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-35
Author(s):  
Mary Brennan ◽  
Fiona Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
General Election ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

Abstract In 2012 legislative gender quotas were introduced as part of the Fine Gael/Labour coalition government’s political reform agenda. The legislation specifies that payments to political parties ‘shall be reduced by 50 per cent, unless at least 30 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures were authenticated by the qualified party at the preceding general election were women and at least 30 per cent were men’. The 30 per cent gender threshold came into effect at the 2016 general election. Research demonstrates that gender quotas work to increase women’s political descriptive representation, but to do so, political parties must engage with them in ‘goodwill’, be ‘wellintentioned’ or place women in ‘winnable seats’. This article examines if this was the case at the 2016 general election. Using statistics, as well as drawing from interviews with party strategists, the article assesses the impact of gender quotas on women’s candidate selection and election. We conclude that parties did embrace the spirit of the gender quota law but resistance remains.

Gender Quotas in Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 576-594
Author(s):  
Fiona Buckley ◽  
Mary Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
General Election ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Single Transferable Vote ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
The Law ◽  
Gender Quota

This chapter considers the implementation and effect of legislative gender quotas in the 2016 general election, a first for Ireland and a first for the proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote electoral system (PR-STV). It focuses on political parties and examines how they integrated the formal gender quota law into their candidate selection processes. Particular attention is paid to whether the law changed existing candidate selection practices, many of which are guided by informal candidate selection norms, such as a preference for incumbents and those exhibiting localist traits. The chapter concludes that the gender quota law did engender change in the candidate recruitment, selection, and election of women, but, as scholars of feminist institutionalism would describe, the change was ‘nested’ and ‘bounded’ within existing practices surrounding candidate selection, thereby denting but not dismantling the gendered norms of this process.

scholarly journals Gender Quotas in Clientelist Systems: The Case of Morocco’s National List

1970 ◽  
pp. 79-86
Author(s):  
James Liddell
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Arab Region ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
The Family ◽  
Women In Parliament ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
Family Code

The use of parliamentary quotas to increase women’s political participation has gained a lot of traction in women’s empowerment discourse. Women’s movements worldwide have been working hard to make progress in ensuring a more equal representation of women in parties and parliament alike. So far during this decade, Morocco has emerged as one of the leading models for increasing women’s rights in the Arab world. In 2002, an informal agreement among political parties to establish a gender quota for women in parliament quickly gave Morocco one of the highest levels of women’s representation in the Arab region. Just two years later, women’s groups celebrated one of their greatest victories with the reform of the family code, moudawana, in 2004. Both of these events coincided with an increase in the number of women in positions of power.

scholarly journals Group identity, ideology or recognition? Lawmakers’ support for gender quotas in Latin America

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-120
Author(s):  
Asbel Bohigues ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gender Quota

The adoption and improvement of gender quota laws depend on political elites, but which lawmakers believe quotas are necessary? To answer this question, we use data from surveys of the elites in 13 Latin American parliaments. The findings are unexpected, both at national and party levels: the strength of already-existing quotas does not perfectly correlate with support for quotas, and the attitudes of political parties on the matter are not consistent. At the individual level, three pro-quota groups are identified: women, the left, and those who recognise the problem of gender inequality. When comparing the significance of these three groups, it is observed that women lawmakers will always be more supportive than men, regardless of ideology and the degree of recognition of the problem.

scholarly journals Discourses About the Eligibility of Women on the Moroccan National List: The Gender Foundations of Electoral Inequality

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
Leilia Bouasria
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Recruitment Process ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
Elite Formation

The introduction of gender quota in Morocco in 2002 has been the subject of much debate revolving around the nomination processes and the ranking orders within the national list. The procedures followed by political parties can uncover other aspects related to gender dynamics. In this article, I set out to understand the processes by which female candidates are selected on the national list. While analyzing the discourses taking place concerning the recruitment process, I will try to pay attention to the gap between discourses and practices. This study allows us to go beyond the approach that looks at gender quotas as a global phenomenon, exploring at the same time the personal views of women who are experiencing the process from inside. How is gender displayed and social structures recreated through this discourse? The analysis of these discourses can contribute significantly to our knowledge of women’s political representation and political elite formation. Listening to candidates’ views about criteria of selection informs us about the way in which gendered discourses are reproduced and internalized.

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