The Impact of Electoral Reform on Women's Representation

Abstract

One concern about reform of the electoral system in the Netherlands is whether this would reduce the proportion of women members in the House of Representatives. What evidence is there for this expectation? This study considers these issues, with the first section summarizing the normative arguments why socially inclusive legislatures are thought to be desirable. The representation of women in the Netherlands parliament is compared against the record in other countries worldwide. The second section analyzes the impact of electoral systems on gender representation, confirming that substantially more women are usually elected in systems using party list proportional representation, especially those such as the Netherlands which have a large district magnitude, compared with majoritarian electoral systems using single member districts. Any reform that moves away from nationwide PR in the Netherlands will therefore probably reduce the proportion of women in parliament unless other compensatory actions are taken. Subsequent sections examine alternative strategies that could be adopted, including statutory quotas regulating the candidate selection process for all parties (for example, as used in Belgium), the role of reserved seats in legislatures, and the use of voluntary quotas in candidate selection rules implemented by particular parties. The conclusion summarizes the main findings and arguments surrounding electoral reform in the Netherlands. Acta Politica (2006Politica ( ) 41, 197-213. doi:10.1057 Keywords: representation; women; gender; electoral systems Inclusive DemocracyRecent decades have witnessed growing demands for the inclusion and empowerment of women and minorities in elected office. Feminist theorists suggest that the presence of women leaders facilitates the articulation of different perspectives on political issues, where elected representatives are not just 'standing as' women but also 'acting for' women as a group (Phillips, 1995(Phillips, , 1998Mansbridge, 1999). An accumulating body of evidence in North America, Scandinavia and Western Europe suggests that, while not transforming parliaments, women legislators do raise distinctive concerns and issue

Magnitude eleitoral e representação de mulheres nos municípios brasileiros

“…Em sistemas majoritários, especialmente onde apenas um candidato se elege por distrito, normalmente os eleitos não obtêm a maioria dos votos válidos. Por causa disso, os votos de segundos e terceiros candidatos -os menos competitivos -acabam não sendo aproveitados na composição dos legislativos; como muitos candidatos que representam grupos politicamente minoritários frequentemente não conseguem grande volume de votos, isto significa que, na prática, eles acabam sendo sub-representados (Norris 2006;Reynolds 1999). Esta distorção entre votos e eleitos, embora varie de acordo com diversas características, seria menor em sistemas com maior magnitude eleitoral, onde justamente mais cadeiras são alocadas por distrito e, por consequência, candidatos menos competitivos têm maiores chances de se eleger (Reynolds 1999, p.555;Schwindt-Bayer 2010, p.46).…”

“…Mulheres não só ocupam menos cargos institucionais, mas também eletivos, e isso mesmo em democracias consolidadas (Reynolds 1999;Norris 2006;Schwindt-Bayer 2010;Roberts, Seawright & Cyr 2012;Sacchet 2013). Inevitavelmente, isto impõe problemas à democracia.…”

“…Sistemas proporcionais, onde candidatos competem por mais de uma vaga sob listas partidárias, tenderiam a produzir resultados eleitorais mais representativos do que sistemas majoritários, onde normalmente apenas o candidato mais bem votado se elege. De fato, uma série de estudos mostra que países com arranjos proporcionais têm, em média, mais mulheres nos legislativos (Reynolds 1999;Norris 2006;Salmond 2006;Schwindt-Bayer 2010). Contudo, como argumenta Engstrom (1987), variações institucionais podem acontecer num mesmo país, já que é perfeitamente possível existirem distritos com diferente número de cadeiras no mesmo momento.…”

Kön och makt i Norden. Del II Sammanfattande diskussion och analys

“…Mens kvinderepraesentationen i gennemsnit var 20 % i lande med forholdstalsvalg, var den kun 11 % i lande med pluralitets-/majoritetsvalg som f.eks. det engelske, og endelig 14 % i lande med blandede valgsystemer (Norris 2006). Valgsystemets betydning for kvinderepraesentationen ser dog ud til at vaere mindre i ikkevestlige end i vestlige lande (Norris 2004).…”

Does Gender Equality Base Selection, Pose Serious Challenge for Researchers? A Review Based on Earlier Studies

“…There is no doubt about the women capability even in the politics speaks but they are not doing enough for the other women politicians as highlighted by (Ferreira, 2014) that female once become elected have more ability to be re-elected as compare to their counterpart male candidate and this has not any positive impact over the other females to win in the election. Earlier researchers have found that women is the only component of the social diversity and in the light of Eastern Europe, North America and Scandinavia countries studies he has found that the under representation of women's has caused a great positive impact on the public policies and an issue for the democratic setup of these governments (Norris, 2006). Górecki & Kukołowicz (2014) have found that the mandatory quotas for bringing more women in parliament have shown a considerable increase of the women but at the same time this has shown a fast down fall in their performance regardless of their past background of experiences.…”