The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?

Abstract

addressed a series of questions about gender quota laws. Are quotas a good idea? Should more countries adopt them? Should the United States consider them? In this issue, three additional scholars weigh in. Lisa Baldez considers the pros and cons of gender quota laws on the basis of research she has done on the adoption and implementation of a gender quota law in Mexico. Mona Lena Krook maintains that the adoption of gender quota laws often reveals the deep-rooted nature of gender discrimination in existing processes of candidate recruitment. Finally, Medha Nanivadekar reflects on the lessons that can be drawn about gender quota laws from the example of the reserved seats for women in India, a measure that "created 1 million slots for women."

The Representation of Women in National Parliaments: A Cross-national Comparison

“…Within parties, there might be threshold effects that make the change in attitudes appear instantaneous. In some places, there are also social-desirability effects, where quotas as such become associated with notions of progress (Baldez, 2006;Sawer, Tremblay and Trimble, 2006;Schwindt-Bayer and Palmer, 2007). Kunovich and Paxton (2005) suggested a number of qualitative reasons why quotas are not associated with the proportion of women in parliament at the national level.…”

“…In some places this fundamental assumption of justice is violated, such as in repressive regimes (de Rezende Martins, 2004;Baldez, 2006;Matland, 2006). In such countries, the dynamics related to political representation may differ significantly, leading to different factors being associated with higher proportions of women in parliament (Paxton and Kunovich, 2003;Yoon, 2004;Viterna, Fallon and Beckfield, 2008).…”

Gender Quotas and Ethnic Minority Representation: Swedish Evidence from a Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

“…On the normative side, the party's internal discourse on identity recognition as a basis for representation could be altered. In other words, a gender quota provision that forces parties to recognize that gender is a characteristic that matters for representation can become an enabling condition for the salience and subsequent inclusion of other groups (Araoù jo and Garcia 2006;Baldez 2006). This process is clearly illustrated in the Swedish case where the National Federation of the Social Democratic women referred to the categories of class and geography in its argumentation for the zipper system, which is the quota studied in this paper, a quota provision that made gender the core organizing principle for the party's candidate lists (Freidenvall 2006).…”

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

“…For instance, a recent study of women's representation in Africa, where the vast majority of authoritarian regimes belong to this category, has demonstrated that they have larger shares of female members in their parliaments than do democracies (Stockemer 2011). The case of one African authoritarian regime, Rwanda, is outstanding, in that, over a short period of time, it succeeded in creating a national legislature with the world's largest share of female deputies (Baldez 2006). In a similar vein, the third-largest share of young members of parliament in the contemporary world can be found in another African electoral authoritarian regime, Mozambique (Norris and Krook 2009).…”