This article addresses the empirical uncertainty regarding whether gender quotas establish a foundation of political representation and experience that encourages female candidates to compete against men. It updates and expands existing empirical research by contributing an analysis of the most recent electoral data across four municipal corporations in India over two election cycles. Critical questions on the theoretical expectation that gender quotas should encourage and enable women politicians to compete in open-gender contests over time are considered. The Indian quota system has not encouraged women to broadly compete outside the quota at the local level but has made some wards more likely to elect women. Parties also continue to resist nominating women outside the quota but are more likely to do so in wards previously represented by a woman. Finally, the unique overlap of gender and community quotas can discourage incumbency by essentially blocking incumbents from running again in their ward due to shifting community requirements.
Significant social science research has been dedicated to determining and describing effective means of gathering data via the interview, while minimizing bias and accounting for the methodological and ethical problems created by gender power imbalance and racial privilege. This research note contributes to this discussion by providing insight from fieldwork conducted in the highly patriarchal environment of Rajasthan, India, with a focus on experiences often unique to conducting research in the developing world. I discuss the unique theoretical and methodological challenges created by a white male using semi-structured interviews with women to determine the degree of independence among representatives brought in through the gender quota system.
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