Candidate gender quotas: A framework for analysis

Abstract

Abstract. Quotas for women in politics have diffused rapidly around the globe in recent years, with political parties and national legislatures in more than a hundred countries adopting – or debating the adoption of – reserved seats, party quotas or legislative quotas to increase the selection of female candidates to political office. These developments have sparked an explosion of research on candidate gender quotas. However most of this work focuses on single cases and reflects little awareness of developments in other countries around the world. As a result, the findings in one case are often contradicted in other studies, revealing few clear patterns with regard to the origins and outcomes of gender quota policies. To foster a more cumulative research agenda, this article approaches quotas as a global phenomenon and elaborates a framework for analyzing and comparing the actors, motivations and contexts at work in specific quota reforms.

Explaining the number of preferential votes for women in an open-list PR system: An investigation of the 2003 federal elections in Flanders (Belgium)

“…To counter this lack of representativeness, many countries have therefore implemented quota systems in recent years (Dahlerup, 2007;Krook, 2007). The presence of women in parliaments has also been high on the research agenda for several decades.…”

Do Ethnic Parties Exclude Women?

“…Quotas serve as a "fast track" for women candidates to be elected, particularly in new democracies where the alternative may be to wait for long-term social change to promote women into positions of power (Bauer, 2007;Dahlerup & Freidenval, 2005;Larserud & Taphorn, 2007). Krook and others have demonstrated that there are mitigating factors that may weaken the positive effect of quotas on women (Bird, 2003;Krook, 2003). Most scholars agree, however, that gender quotas increase the number of women elected.…”

Gender and politics: The relevance of gender on judgements about the merit of candidates and the fairness of quotas

“…Furthermore, given the link between merit and judgements of fairness, we suggest symbolic asymmetry also exerts influence in such judgements. In fact, in Europe at least, there is a gender gap in the way that women's under-representation in politics is explained and quotas are judged (Krook 2007;Meier 2008). In Belgium, for instance, whereas men indicate that women's under-representation derives from their lack of interest in politics, women indicate that their under-representation derives from structural factors, such as the way political parties operate, and they are more likely than men to consider quotas as being fair (Meier 2008).…”

“…Several affirmative action measures, such as quotas, have been adopted internationally as a strategy to restore past injustices and create a more egalitarian society (Bacchi 2006;Blanchard and Crosby 1989;Clayton and Crosby 1992;Crosby, Iyer and Sincharoen 2006;Crosby and VanDeVeer 2003;Kravitz and Platania 1993). In the political context, the application of gender quotas aims at guaranteeing that women are included in electoral lists, according to a quantified target (Krook 2007;Krook, Lovenduski and Squires 2009).…”