A Global Assessment of Gender Quota Facilitating Mechanisms: Placement Mandates, Sanctions, and Financial Incentives

This study examines how switching to a mixed electoral system affects the level of women’s representation in national parliaments compared to the original system. Political science theories suggest that the type of electoral system influences the level of female representation in parliaments. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that changing to a mixed system will bring changes. We combine two levels of analysis. First, we closely examine six countries that have shifted from majoritarian or proportional systems to mixed systems to assess the impact on women’s representation in parliaments. To ensure that changes in women’s representation are not merely a result of global trends, we compare each country’s share of women in parliament with a country of similar culture and the same initial electoral system, but where the electoral system has not changed. Second, we conduct a large global crossnational comparison using multivariate regressions to examine the broader effects of adopting mixed systems. As expected, our findings show that moving from a majoritarian electoral system to a mixed system increases women’s representation in parliaments. However, unexpectedly the findings show that moving from a proportional system to a mixed system does not decrease women’s representation in parliaments.

Across the advanced industrial polities, there exists a wide range in the percentage of women in national parliaments. However, the range is in fact wider still for women in cabinets. Moreover, whereas the literature on comparative female representation in parliament is now well established, comparative analysis of women in cabinets is rather limited. This article will examine both phenomena, using the most recent national elections (through the end of 1998) and subsequent governments in 28 nations. For each of “women in parliament” and “women in cabinet” a model is produced which explains most of the variance. An additional “Scandinavian effect” is found for women in cabinet, but not for women in parliament.

Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) is associated with overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. Although existing research confirms the significance of economic and social factors as determinants of SSB intake, comparative studies on political factors and cross-national analyses are lacking. Research indicates that including women in the process of political decision-making promotes healthcare and child protection. This study examined how women's parliamentary representation influences children's and adolescents' SSB intake compared with adults. The study used cross-national food and beverage intake data from the Global Dietary Database. The outcome measurement was SSB consumption (g/day) for different population groups. We modelled SSB intake as a function of age groups, women's parliamentary representation at the national level (the independent variable), regime types (the contextual factor) and import tariffs on SSB (the mediator) using country and time-fixed effects regression models. One-hundred eighty-five countries across three waves from 2005 to 2015. Different population groups. The impact of female representation on reducing SSB consumption is more prevalent in children and adolescents than in adults. Furthermore, the effect of women's parliamentary representation on SSB consumption among children and adolescents is conditional on a country's democratic status. Finally, the marginal effect decreases when import tariffs on SSB are considered a link in a causal chain. No changes in adult SSB intake are statistically significant. The findings suggest that the presence of women in the legislature can have a substantial impact on child and adolescent health.

This study aims to analyze the factors influencing women's representation in parliament and to compare descriptive and substantive representation of women in Indonesia, Finland, and Timor-Leste. The key factors examined include the electoral system, nomination patterns, parliamentary thresholds, and the internal dynamics of political parties. This research employs a comparative study with a qualitative approach through document analysis and observation of women's political practices in the three countries. The findings reveal that countries with proportional electoral systems and the implementation of party quotas, such as Finland, have a higher proportion of women in parliament. Finland excels in descriptive representation due to strong gender equality and high levels of women's political participation. Timor-Leste has also succeeded in enhancing women’s representation through the effective implementation of gender quotas, while Indonesia faces challenges under its open-list system, which is less supportive of female candidates. In terms of substantive representation, women parliamentarians in Finland and Timor-Leste actively engage with civil society through umbrella organizations and women's caucuses. In contrast, the role of the women’s caucus in Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR RI) remains limited. This study recommends enhancing women's political participation through the implementation of legislative quotas, improvements in candidate list ranking quotas, and strengthening communication between women parliamentarians and civil society, as well as empowering the role of the women’s caucus in the DPR RI. Comprehensive political education for women is also considered a crucial step in optimizing women's representation in Indonesia's parliament.

The low representation of women in parliament is a global problem, especially in Indonesia. The status quo shows that the role and representation of women in parliament is still very low, which has implications for legislation products that are not inclusive. Women are vital in legislation, especially in micro-policy aspirations related to welfare, education, equality, and household issues. The affirmation policy with a minimum female candidacy quota of 30 percent in Indonesia is implemented through the zipper system. However, unfortunately, it is still ineffective because women's representation is still very low. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method to analyze the inequality of women's representation in the Indonesian parliament. The data used secondary data, which has been collected and processed by other parties. The result of this study is an evaluation of the zipper system, which is still ineffective because it depends on the placement of candidate sequence numbers and political party awareness. The placement of women in number 1 is only 19 percent, while in number three, it reaches 67 percent, and in number 6, 65 percent. It has a big impact on the probability of low electability. With women's representation, women's voices can be heard and fought for in government, thus realizing an equal and inclusive government. Revamping the zipper system by requiring the placement of female candidates at number 1 is an effective solution to increase women's representation in parliament in line with descriptive representation theory, which emphasizes the importance of proportional representation from various groups of society in government.

As the transmission belt linking people's aspirations to the government, the political party has a crucial role in preparing actors to become candidates for people's representatives. Since the enactment of affirmative policies both in elections and internal parties, the number of women in parliament has never met the 30% quota as expected. During the ten years from 2009 to 2019, the number of women in the House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) seats only ranged from 17-20 percent. This article examines the influence of political parties' characteristics on women's representation in the Indonesian parliament in the 2009-2019 period. This research uses four party characteristics by Sundström Stockemer as variables that will be analyzed through linear regression models. The research results show that the vote size variable is the only variable significantly influencing women's representation in parliament. The estimated trend of women's representation in parliament shows an increase in the upcoming 2024 elections. However, it is still far from the target of 30%. Hence, it needs a progressive affirmative policy in the form of reserved seats to encourage proportionality in the policy-making forum.

This study aimed at exploring the role of political parties in the enhancement of women representation in Parliament of Zambia. The continued underrepresentation of women in the Zambian National Assembly prompted undertaking this study. The Patriotic Front (PF) and the United Party for National Development (UPND) and the 2016 general elections were the main focus of the study. 
 This study was qualitative and a case study research design based on two major political parties, studied in depth using twenty six party officials, at different levels of party hierarchies who were purposefully selected. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, narratives and unstructured questionnaires from the two political parties and the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) documents. 
 The study used an interpretive phenomenological theoretical framework based on discussions and reflections of direct sense perception and experiences of the role of political parties in enhancing women representation in the national assembly of Zambia. The starting point for using an interpretive phenomenology for this study was our ability to approach this study oblivious of a priori assumptions. Phenomenological theoretical framing was used as a broad and loose name for various types of analysis, which lay emphasis on experiences, interpretations, semiotics, narrative and discourse based on the phenomenological orientation of the Philosophy of social sciences.
 Data was analysed and presented by the thematic approach as well as through frequency tables. The study found that both political parties had put in place strategies and mechanisms to enhance the representation of women in parliament and these included; having at least 30 percent women in decision-making positions, the adoption of the women’s wing concept, training and sensitisation, adoption of women in political party strongholds and relaxing of adoption requirements for women. Following the 2016 General elections, the PF made a pronouncement that the party would adopt 40 per cent women as parliamentary candidates. Nevertheless, the study found that the two political parties failed to meet their own regional and international targets on the number of women adopted to contest parliamentary seats. Thus, the study concluded that the lack of affirmative action, Nolle prosequi, Corruption and ignoring women voices taking place in political parties perpetuates women under representation in parliament in Zambia. This shows that political parties have a role to play to strengthen women representation in parliament through affirmative action in all party structures. The study urges political parties to seriously consider employing practical deliberate strategies and mechanism to increase the number of women in parliament since Zambia does not have a legislated quota. 
 Keywords: Phenomenology, Affirmative action, gender mainstreaming, Corruption, Nolle prosequi.

Many African countries have committed to supporting quests to include women in decision making platforms and many African national assemblies have women representation, however, the number of women representatives in parliament remain far from gender parity in many countries. There are, however, several notable cases where the number of women in parliament is relatively high, for instance, the leading country in the world in terms of women’s representation in parliament, is in Africa. The factors that led to such a high performance are analysed in this chapter along with other countries that have achieved more than 40% of women representation in parliament. The chapter deployed a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis approach to ascertain conditions that are necessary for African countries to maximize the number of women in parliament. The configuration of factors that lead to a high number of women in parliament are constituted by a constellation of factors such as electoral system, type of quotas, quota targets, reduction of gender gaps in significant indicators and the role of political parties.

Women's representation in parliament is a very important issue to study because one of the SDGs goals is gender equality. Women's representation in parliament in Indonesia is still low, only reaching 21.74 percent in 2022. The low representation of women in parliament will certainly hinder the role of women in leading decision making in political life. Studies regarding women's representation in parliament are generally discussed qualitatively, so this article tries to examine this problem with a quantitative approach. The method used in this research is robust S-estimation regression which can form a better model by minimizing the influence of extreme values. The results of data processing in 509 districts/cities in Indonesia show that women with a high school education or above, women who access the internet and the level of urbanization have a significant effect on women's representation in parliament in Indonesia in 2022, while women's married status does not have a significant effect on women's representation in parliament. in Indonesia in 2022.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the general election system on women's electability in the South Korean parliament. South Korea, which is known as a great economic and human development country, in fact, when it comes to issues of gender equality is not comparable to the greatness of the country. In this context, South Korea received the title as one of the countries with a high gender gap. The research method used in this paper is qualitative-descriptive. The results of this study indicate that the gap between women and men in South Korea is still high so that the number of women involved in parliament is still very limited. In addition, there are still several inhibiting factors when women want to become members of parliament. Whereas the presence of women in Parliament is a very important thing because they are considered to be able to bring ideas and ideas that can represent the interests of their constituents. The presence of a proportional representation system does indeed seem to provide a positive enough opportunity to increase the representation of women in the South Korean Parliament through a 30% quota which is believed to be sufficient to provide good things for effective and efficient elections in legislative elections. Even though this proportional representation system is not fully capable of bringing about such significant changes in results, at least the existence of this system is enough to help women improve their representation, or it can be said that slowly, but the results are enough to bring bigger changes to women's representation in parliament.

Contrary to the assertion regarding general exponential increase in women’s political representation in Africa, alarming political marginalization of women in West African sub-region continues, where women manage to occupy marginal percentage of the elected parliamentarians and subsequently maintain relative inarticulacy in the decision-making process of their respective states. This article therefore examines ECOWAS as potential norm entrepreneur within the context of women representation in parliaments in West Africa. It further interrogates rationales propelling argument for women adequate representation, presents situational analysis of women’s under-representation in West Africa, and argues for indispensable role which ECOWAS could play in augmenting the presence of women in national parliaments. It concludes that in spite of the enormous domestic challenges confronting women’s representation, ECOWAS within the confines of normative actor, has a needed responsibility that could contribute to gradual overhaul of the hitherto high under-representation of women in the parliaments.

This study explores the relationship between women's parliamentary representation and military spending in the Caucasian and Middle Eastern regions. Using Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia from the Caucasus and Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan from the Middle East, the research employs a comparative analysis method to examine the impact of gender diversity in politics on defense expenditures. The study considers GDP, population size, and birth rate as control variables. Findings reveal that while increased female representation in parliament correlates with reduced military spending in the Caucasus, this relationship is insignificant. Conversely, in the Middle East, higher female representation is associated with increased military expenditure. These results highlight the complex role of sociopolitical contexts in shaping the impact of gender diversity on policy outcomes. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for further research on gender representation in both legislative and executive branches to understand its broader implications for militarization.

Women in parliaments: Can they enhance environmental sustainability in the EU?

This study explores the role of leaders’ gender and its interaction with political structures in shaping countries’ responses to the recent pandemic crisis, analysing data from over 150 countries. We investigate how leadership – during the early, peak and later stages of the crisis – impacted national strategies across various dimensions, including politics, health and the economy. A key focus is on whether female leaders differed from male leaders in their crisis responses and how the presence of women in parliament and the level of democratic freedoms might alter these dynamics. Our initial findings indicate that female leaders tended to implement more rigorous measures at the beginning of the crisis across all examined dimensions. However, the difference in responses between genders diminished over time, underscoring the evolving nature of leadership influence. Additionally, our research shows that the effects of a leader’s gender on policy responses are significantly shaped by the country’s political environment, particularly the extent of democratic freedoms and female representation in parliament.

This article explores women’s representation in politics in the Province of East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur/NTT) between 2014 and 2019. Since 2004, Indonesia has seen the implementation of a strategy to boost the level of female representation in parliament through affirmative action. However, the 30% target quote has not yet been achieved. Women’s representation in politics is an important indicator in the political system reflecting a recognition of the existence and interests of women as citizens. The success of the initiative is highlighted by the fact that the 2014 legislative elections saw female representation in the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD NTT) increase by 100% from the 2009 election representation levels. Using the case study method and analyzing the process, this article argues that NTT women already have the awareness to actively participate in politics and become party representatives and legislative members. The presence of women in parliament is necessary to achieve gender equality and improve women’s welfare through gender-responsive policies. Keywords: representation, politics, women, east nusa tenggara