Do Electoral Quotas 'Work' After They Are Withdrawn? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India

Bhavnani, Rikhil R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1148421

Cited by 84 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Our results suggest that when the quota was removed, parties placed quota women in less winnable positions. This observation is consistent with Folke and Rickne (n.d.) finding that male incumbents protect their own careers by limiting the re-election of female legislators, but runs contrary to Bhavnani's (2009) findings about the withdrawal of quotas in India. Further research is needed to illuminate decision-making processes and to understand better the impact quota laws have on candidate selection after the law is removed.…”

Section: A N a C A T A L A N O W E E K S A N D L I S A B A L D E Zcontrasting

confidence: 83%

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

Weeks

Baldez

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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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 a positive impact 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.

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Section: A N a C A T A L A N O W E E K S A N D L I S A B A L D E Zcontrasting

confidence: 83%

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

Weeks

Baldez

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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“…First, the "developmental theory" of the gender gap posits that as human development rises, increasing postmaterialism boosts support for women's leadership (Inglehart and Norris 2003). Second, women's entry into office may affect women's representation long term by raising support for women leaders (e.g., Bhavnani 2009;Kerevel and Atkeson 2015). However, gender quotas can heighten stereotypes by implying that women candidates need special preferences (Bos 2015;Franceschet and Piscopo 2008).…”

Section: Gender Stereotypes Of Leaders In the Americas: Causes And Comentioning

confidence: 99%

Refusing to know a woman’s place: the causes and consequences of rejecting stereotypes of women politicians in the Americas

Smith

Warming

Hennings

2016

Politics, Groups, and Identities

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What are the sources and effects of gendered leadership stereotypes for women's representation? We explore the role of stereotypes in shaping public attitudes toward women's representation using AmericasBarometer survey data from 25 countries. We report three key results. First, the modal respondent in almost every country rejects gendered leadership stereotypes, affirming that women and men leaders are equally qualified on corruption and the economy. This holds even after we attempt to account for social desirability bias. Second, there are significant individual-and country-level determinants of stereotyping. In countries with higher women's representation and labor force participation but without gender quotas, citizens are more likely to choose pro-female and neutral responses over pro-male stereotypes. At the individual level, those rejecting stereotypes are less authoritarian, more supportive of labor market equality, and more leftist than those reporting pro-female stereotypes. Third, the consequences for representation vary by partisanship and country context. Pro-female leadership stereotypes boost support for women presidential candidates and for legislative gender quotas, but they matter less among copartisans of women candidates, and they matter more when women candidates are viable but gendered outsiders. Those rejecting leadership stereotypes altogether are less supportive of quotas. ARTICLE HISTORYWhat are the nature and consequences of gendered leadership stereotypes in developing democracies? We address this question in the case of the Americas, where the number of women elected to presidential office has risen dramatically in the past decade, yet women remain substantially underrepresented at all levels. Growing bodies of work examine the institutional causes and policy consequences of women's representation in Latin America; at the mass level, scholars examine public opinion toward women leaders in the abstract, and how candidate gender affects vote choice. Yet, the connection from mass attitudes such as stereotypes to women's representation in the region has yet to be addressed.Scholars of the US show that gendered leadership stereotypes remain prevalent but are declining, and in recent elections only indirectly affect vote choice; some suggest they do not matter at all (Bauer 2015a, 2015b; Brooks 2013; Ditonto, Hamilton, and Redlawsk 2014; Dolan 2014; Dolan and Lynch 2015). We analyze 2012 public opinion data to understand citizens' stereotypes of the political capabilities of men and women politicians. We make two advances over prior work. First, we examine the extent to which developing democracies exhibit similar gendered leadership stereotypes as in the US. There are reasons to expect differences. For instance, the Americas contain a great range in levels of development, and development is associated feminist attitudes more generally (e.g., Banaszak and Plutzer 1993;Inglehart and Norris 2003;Morgan and Buice 2013;Paxton and Hughes 2007). Second, we distinguish theoretically and empiricall...

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“…In India, a neighboring country and a cultural twin of Pakistan, with a history of social divisions, the practice of quotas as a compensation for historical discrimination has been beneficial to disadvantaged groups as well as women (Pande 2003;Nanivadekar 2006;Bhavnani 2009). Bhavnani (2009) found that the odds of women to win an election in a seat that was reserved in the last election improved five times more than in a seat that was never reserved for women, and that this improvement was due to a twofold process of the introduction of women into electoral politics through reservation that gives them the confidence to win as well as the lessons to the political parties that if women are allowed they can win elections. Political quotas resulted in increased financial transfer to the disadvantaged groups (Pande 2003).…”

Section: Wid: the Politics Of Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Islamabad, where inclusive policies are rarely implemented, resistance to women's inclusion was the dominant norm. In India quotas have been found to be linked to positive social change (Pande 2003;Nanivadekar 2006;Bhavnani 2009). Bano (2009) in particular found that in the case of political institutions the implementation of a policy on the integration of women resulted in changes in norms such as the shift in political power "from fathers to daughters instead of sons only" (p. 19).…”

Section: Representation Of Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Inequality in the Public Sector in Pakistan

Chauhan¹

2014

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Do Electoral Quotas 'Work' After They Are Withdrawn? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India

Cited by 84 publications

References 29 publications

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

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

Refusing to know a woman’s place: the causes and consequences of rejecting stereotypes of women politicians in the Americas

Gender Inequality in the Public Sector in Pakistan

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