Adoption Of Quotas Research Articles

Coalitions Matter: Citizenship, Women, and Quota Adoption in Africa

We provide new theory and evidence of the role of domestic women’s coalitions in the adoption of gender quotas. Previous research has shown the importance of women’s movements to policy change. We show that specific types of mobilization, often multiethnic in character, are a more precise way of describing these influences. Using a new dataset of coalitions in 50 countries in Africa (1989–2014), we first examine where coalitions are likely to emerge. Controlling for factors that correlate with their formation, we find that when domestic women’s organizations form a coalition for quotas, governments are more likely to adopt them and do so more quickly. This correlation holds when controlling for international aid, involvement of international women’s movements, and whether countries recently emerged out of major armed conflict, complementing recent scholarship that highlights global influences. A comparative case study of the adoption of a gender quota in Senegal and non-adoption in Benin helps illustrate the nuances of the theory.

Editorial: Challenging issues and fundamental concepts of corporate governance

The recent volume examines several relevant topics in the international framework such as the role of corporate governance in financial institutions both in Italy and in international contexts, the governance system in Italy, with a specific focus on the adoption of gender quotas and on risk disclosure. Two very interesting researches that highlight, respectively, the determinants of the voluntary disclosure and the importance of international accounting standards in South America, complete the issue.

Improving Candidate-Quality Preference-Specification Mechanisms: Incorporating (Gender-Empowering) Voter-Chosen Quotas into a More Holistic and Democratically-Just Voting System

I conceptualise the informal outlines of a new voting system / mechanism that is more holistic and democratically just – the proposed alternative would incorporate (gender) quotas amongst other fundamental, important aspects. The conceptual outline seeks to resolve the primary (intellectual) obstacles for the adoption of quotas in their current form which, I contend, is their discordance with mainstream conceptions of democratic justice. More precisely, the conceptualised voting system / mechanism seeks to increase the sophistication of preference-specification in voting procedures (thereby presenting an alternative to the prevailing, privileged paradigm of geospatial-constituency representation). I do not present results in the conventional sense – no data was analysed, no experiments run and no software implemented. A rationale is provided for why this proposed voting system / mechanism, in addition to potentially solving / tackling some problems identified by feminist scholarship, could also solve an even larger class of fundamental political and democratic problems related to intersectionality (e.g. race, ethnicity, income, class, caste, disability, sexuality, education, age, occupation etc.) through enhancing the translation, representation and implementation of voters’ interests. In terms of conclusions within the paper, they are largely intermediate conclusions as they relate to the investigation of problems as well as the informal conceptual outline of the proposed voting system / mechanism.

Gender Quotas for Legislatures and Corporate Boards.

The global proliferation of quotas for women over the past 30 years is both remarkable and consequential. Targeting decision-making positions historically resistant to women's equal inclusion, the adoption of electoral and corporate board quotas has at times been controversial. After adoption, quotas have influenced women's numbers, the performance and outcomes of decision-making bodies, and broader public attitudes. In this review, we distinguish among types of electoral and corporate quotas, trace arguments for and against the adoption of quotas, and review research on factors that influence quota adoption across time and space. After outlining the methodological difficulties in demonstrating an impact of gender quotas, we review research that is able to isolate an impact of quotas in politics and business. We conclude by providing several suggestions to ensure that future research continues to advance our understanding of the form, spread, and impact of gender quotas.

Quotas and Gender Gaps in Political Participation among Established Industrial European Democracies: Distinguishing Within- and Across-Country Effects

This paper proposes to investigate the influence of legislative quotas on gender differences in political participation by analyzing the within- and across-country effects of quotas. Gender quotas can signal to women that their presence in politics is welcome, leading to a subsequent increase in their involvement in political activities. This change in political behavior should not be reproduced in men; thus, when gender quotas are present, the gap between men’s and women’s participation narrows. Using the European Values Survey and data from eighteen European democracies, this paper demonstrates that this indeed occurs for some political activities when gender gaps are compared before and after the introduction of quotas within countries. This result, however, is not replicated for across-country analyses. European countries without legislative gender quotas tend to have smaller gender gaps than countries with them. This result is explained by referring to the context of the adoption of gender quotas.

Foreign aid, democracy, and gender quota laws

ABSTRACTWhy do so many developing countries have gender quota policies? This article argues that foreign aid programmes influence developing countries to adopt policies aimed at fulfilling international norms regarding gender equality. This relationship is driven by two causal mechanisms. On the one hand, countries may use gender quotas as a signal to improve their standing in the international hierarchy, possibly as an end unto itself, but more likely as a means towards ensuring future aid flows. On the other, countries may adopt gender quotas as a result of successful foreign aid interventions specifically designed to promote women’s empowerment. I test these two causal mechanisms using data on foreign aid commitments to 173 non-OECD countries from 1974 to 2012. The results suggest that while programmes targeting women’s empowerment may have some influence on quota adoption, developing countries dependent on United States foreign aid are also likely to use gender quotas as signalling devices rather than as a result of ongoing liberalization efforts.

Women's Transnational Activism, Norm Cascades, and Quota Adoption in The Developing World

Electoral quotas are a key factor in increasing women's political representation in parliaments globally. Despite the strong effects of quotas, less attention has been paid to the factors that prompt countries to adopt electoral quotas across developing countries. This article employs event history modeling to analyze quota adoption in 134 developing countries from 1987 to 2012, focusing on quota type, transnational activism, and norm cascades. The article asks the following questions: (1) How might quota adoption differ according to quota type—nonparty versus party quotas? (2) How has the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China (Beijing 95), contributed to quota diffusion? (3) Do global, regional, or neighboring country effects contribute more to quota adoption? Results provide new evidence of how quota adoption processes differ according to quota type, the central role played by participation in Beijing 95, and how increased global counts contribute to faster nonparty quota adoption while increased neighboring country counts lead to faster to party quota adoption.

Authenticating Representation: Women's Quotas and Islamist Parties

The spread of women's quotas in legislative bodies across the world since the mid-1990s has become one of the most significant factors impacting levels of women's political representation (Dahlerup 2013; Krook 2009; Tripp and Kang 2008). In the Middle East, a region that has long held a place at the very bottom of global rankings of women's representation, the adoption of such quotas is transforming levels of representation (Kang 2009). But there is still much debate over the utility of quotas for women's meaningful participation in political life. There is now a well-established literature that examines the effects of quotas on women's descriptive or numerical representation. We have a fairly robust idea about the types of quotas that are appropriate for particular sets of electoral system contexts when the goal is to generate a target percentage of women elected to legislative bodies (Jones 2005; Larserud and Taphorn 2007). However, questions about whether and how quotas benefit women beyond the simple addition of several women parliamentarians to the political game remain contested. The various arguments for the utility of quotas rest mainly on two underlying propositions. The first is that quotas, by bringing more women to the political sphere, promote the substantive representation of women's interests. The second is that quotas have a symbolic effect. They help demonstrate that women are fit and able to govern and so contribute to countering women's historical exclusion from politics.

Comparative Regional Patterns in Electoral Gender Quota Adoption: A Social Network Approach

Comparative Regional Patterns in Electoral Gender Quota Adoption: A Social Network Approach

“A lot of head wraps”: African contributions to the third wave of electoral gender quotas

Over the last more than two decades, political parties and governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have adopted electoral gender quotas for parliament at an astonishing rate – and with remarkable success as many sub-Saharan African countries have catapulted to the top in terms of women's representation in a single or lower house of parliament. During a first wave in East and Southern Africa (part of a global “second wave”), quotas were adopted in the aftermath of conflicts and in the course of political transitions as mobilized national women's movements, influenced by an international women's movement and international norms, took advantage of political openings to press for the adoption of quotas through new constitutions or new electoral laws. In some cases a clear diffusion effect was at play between political movements that closely influenced one another and across national borders. During a second wave mostly, though not only, in West Africa (part of a global “third” wave), quotas are again being adopted as women's movements, in collaboration with regional, continental, and international organizations, similarly press for an increased representation of women during constitutional reform processes or through revisions to electoral laws. During this second wave in SSA, women activists and governments have sought to strengthen existing electoral gender quotas or adopt them for the first time – going as far as seeking gender parity in a handful of cases. In most ways, SSA conforms to international trends in second and third wave quota adoption, though not without some regional variation. This article explores some of the ways in which the sub-Saharan African experience has been distinctive – focusing on the adoption of parity quotas in Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – and some of the remaining challenges affecting the adoption and implementation of electoral gender quotas across the continent.

From breaking the rule to making the rules: the adoption, entrenchment, and diffusion of gender quotas in France

Once a country allergic to any type of preferential treatment or quota measure for women, France has become a country that applies gender quotas to regulate women's presence and representation in politics, the business sector, public bodies, public administration, and even some civil society organizations. While research has concentrated on the adoption of electoral gender quotas in many countries and their international diffusion, few studies focus on explaining the successful diffusion of gender quotas from politics to other domains in the same country. This paper proposes to fill this gap by studying the particularly puzzling case of a country that at one point strongly opposed the adoption of gender quotas in politics, but, in less than a decade, transformed into one of the few countries applying gender quotas across several policy domains. This paper argues that the legal entrenchment of the parity principle, the institutionalization of parity in several successive women's policy agencies, and key players in these newly created agencies are mainly responsible for this unexpected development. The diffusion of gender quotas in France thus offers an illuminating example of under which conditions women's policy agencies can act autonomously to diffuse and impose a new tool for gender equality.

On the Fast Track: The Spread of Gender Quota Policies for Elected Office

What has driven the worldwide adoption and subsequent revision of gender quota policies? This study argues that this phenomenon can be best understood as exemplifying ‘glocalization’ – with policies adopted due to a combination of changing international discourses and regional diffusion combined with domestic political activists. Moreover a process of policy learning is evident; where the initial policies were relatively ineffective, by failing to ensure a more equitable gender balance in elected office, this spurs subsequent revisions. Empirical analysis supporting this interpretation draws on a new comprehensive cross-national dataset, The Gender Quota Database (GQD, Release 1.0 May 2014). Part I of the paper provides the theoretical framework and literature review. Part II summarizes the research design, data and evidence. Part III describes the use of the main types of gender quotas in politics in various regions of the world (as of May 2014), and discusses trends (waves) in the adoption and amendment of quotas. Part IV presents the results of the analysis of drivers behind the initial adoption of legal gender quotas. Both regional and domestic forces play a role in the initial adoption of gender quota policies, controlling for fixed socio-economic, political and cultural conditions. Part V considers policy-learning processes leading to subsequent revisions strengthening quota laws, focusing upon the lack of success when implementing earlier policies. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and considers their implications.

Gender Quotas in Belgium: A Never Ending Story of Gendering Compartmentalized Citizenship?

This contribution brings together the more partial analyses of the panoply of Belgian gender quotas. By putting the different gender quotas in a comparative perspective, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of eventual broader patterns underlying the Belgian gender-quotas landscape. More precisely, this contribution focuses on: i) a comparative analysis of the quota rules set for the different sectors; ii) the domestic factors playing a role in the putting on the agenda and adoption of gender quotas; and iii) inter-, supra-, and transnational factors and the interplay of different political levels in the adoption of gender quotas. The analysis shows that Belgium, a traditional laggard when it comes to gender equality, imposes gender quotas by law on a broad range of sectors (elected political office, advisory committees, boards of listed and state-owned companies, and decision-making bodies in universities), turning Belgium into a world leader in gender quotas. This top-down process would not have been possible without the persistent agency of the women’s movement, especially actors embedded within the women’s branches of a certain number of political parties, and the underlying concept of citizenship – because it echoes it. While inter-, supra-, and transnational influences cannot be denied, it is mainly domestic factors that played a role in this success story – at least when compared to a number of other cases. The gender quotas for the various sectors tend to build on each other, clearly showing evidence of a contagion effect.

Dilemmas in the Danish Approach to Gender Equality: Gender Equality without Gender Quota

The paper addresses the dilemmas, contradictions and paradoxes in the Danish approach to gender quotas and gender equality and discusses the intersections of citizenship, democracy and gender justice. Gender research understands gender quota as a means to achieve equal rights, gender equality and gender parity. Gender theory has conceptualized gender parity as one step towards achieving gender justice in all arenas of social, political and economic life. The Danish cases illustrate that context matters and question gender quota as a universal strategy to achieve gender equality. The empirical focus of the paper is placed on three arenas: 1) gender quota in political governance; 2) gender quota in parental leave policies; and 3) gender quota in economic governance. The paper is primarily concerned with analyses of Danish discourses and policies in relation to the three policy areas and only to a limited extent addresses the impact of these policies and their implications for lived practice. One issue concerns the paradox of the relatively high female representation in politics without the adoption of gender quotas. A second issue concerns the gap between gender equality policies. Denmark lacks behind the other Scandinavian countries’ discourses and policies about gender quota but in practice the picture is much more complex. A third issue concerns the European perspective. In relation to women’s labour market participation and gender parity in politics Denmark is ahead of other European countries but lacks behind in relation to equal representation on corporate boards.

Will the Year 2015 Bring the Return of Electoral Gender Quotas? The History About How the Lack of Political Will Troubled the Road to Gender Equality in Italy

In Italy, affirmative actions or gender quotas, especially in regard to political representation, began to be matters of public and political debate in 1995, when the Constitutional Court deemed illegitimate, and therefore annulled, the provisions of the 1993 electoral law introducing corrective systems for equal representation between men and women at national and regional level. Since then, the issue of ensuring equal access to elective offices has been constantly on the political agenda. The ongoing debate about the electoral reform for the Chamber of Deputies (named Italicum,) promoted by the President Renzi, may represent the last opportunity to introduce gender quotas for national elections. The paper aims to provide an historical overview of the Italian debate on gender quotas, by investigating the last two decades events and answering the following questions: what conditions and processes have facilitated the adoption of gender quotas? Are there areas in which it is (has been) easier to adopt gender quotas? What resistances – and raised by whom – have hindered their spread through policy field and levels of government? Why gender quotas are far from been considered a legitimate instrument for gender equality?

The Adoption and Diffusion of Gender Quotas in France (1982-2014)

Once a country allergic to any type of preferential treatment or quota measure for women, France has become a country that applies gender quotas to regulate women’s presence and representation in politics, the business sector, public bodies, public administration and even some civil society organizations. This article focuses on the process by which, after constitutional battles, the principle of ‘equal access of women and men’ to decision-making bodies was entrenched in the French constitution, and how the institutions created to monitor its implementation provided a support structure for the extension and diffusion of gender quotas from electoral politics to other domains. In a final section the paper assess the strength and weaknesses of the tool of gender quotas in the French context and delineate the factors that can sustain or impede quotas’ effectiveness.

Transnational Women's Activism and the Global Diffusion of Gender Quotas

The rapid global spread of quotas for women constitutes one of the most significant political developments of the last thirty years. It transformed the composition of legislatures worldwide. Yet we lack a solid understanding of the forces driving quota diffusion. In this article, we consider how global pressure from the international women's movement affects national gender quota adoption. In the first quantitative analysis of this question on a global scale, we use event history techniques to examine global, transnational, and national influences on quota adoption in 149 countries between 1989 and 2008. Contributing to work on international norm diffusion, we find a crucial role for women's activism, but uncover a negative interaction between increased global pressures and domestic ties to women's transnational organizing. We suggest global pressure to adopt quotas may be weakened by the diverse agendas of women's activist organizations, by perceived threats to male elites posed by women's agitation, or both.

Federalism and Women’s Representation: Do Federations have more Women Legislators than Centralized States?

Do national federations foster or inhibit women’s representation? In this article, we compare national legislative representation by women in federations and in centralized states. We analyze women’s parliamentary representation for all democracies between 1995 and 2010. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analyses, in which we control for quotas, a country’s type of electoral system, development level, the year the first woman was elected to parliament, the proportion of women in the workforce, and year of election, support the notion that federal states have approximately four percentage points more female legislators than do centralized states. In addition, our results indicate that federations have an indirect positive impact on women’s representation: first, they facilitate the adoption of gender quotas; second, they allow women to enter parliament earlier than unitary states.

Mixed Effects of Legislative Quotas in South Korea

Gender and politics scholars have demonstrated that the women's movement plays a pivotal role in the adoption of gender quotas and in improving women's political representation (Bauer and Britton 2006; Dahlerup 2006; Krook 2009). They typically argue that domestic political transformations and international pressure help to mobilize the women's movement and demands for more women in elected offices (Huang, this volume; Krook, O'Brian, and Swip 2010). The South Korean case affirms these studies, as women's organizations often take advantage of the local political transformations to push for the gender quota adoption. However, we contend that without political parties' full commitment to implementing gender quotas and supplementing quotas with non-quota measures, efforts that prioritize the descriptive representation of women and formal quota legislation have brought only limited effects on enhancing women's political representation.

Introduction: Quotas and Non-Quota Strategies in East Asia

In convergence with the global norm toward more proportional representative electoral systems, many countries in East Asia have adopted quota strategies to address women's political underrepresentation (Franceschet, Krook, and Piscopo 2012; Krook 2009). Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan provide ideal case studies to investigate the impact of these efforts. While these countries share similar economic development, educational levels, and Confucian communitarian ethos, their experiences and progress on empowering women vary. For example, the level of women's legislative representation in the region ranges from a low of 8.1% in Japan to a high of 33.6% in Taiwan. And while Taiwan and South Korea embarked on constitutional reforms in the 1990s and introduced candidate quotas or reserved seats to guarantee women's legislative representation at all levels, Singapore and Japan have resisted legislating quotas but instead set 30% women parliamentarians as targets of party strategies. This collection of papers explores this intraregional variation with a comparative view on the origins and impact of quotas on women's political life. Specifically, we trace the origins of quota adoption and how they interact with the existing electoral and party institutions to improve women's legislative numbers.