Critical Acts without a Critical Mass: The Substantive Representation of Women in the Turkish Parliament

Abstract

Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 20 women MPs and parliamentary debates during the amendment of the Turkish Civil and Penal Codes, we elaborate on the possibility and conditions of women's impact on politics without their constituting a critical mass in the parliament. Our research reveals that when state machinery, women's machinery, and supra-national agencies have created a conducive context, as in the case of the last decade in Turkey, the substantive representation of women's issues become possible even in a political culture where women constitute only a ‘skewed’ group in the parliament.