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Gender Quotas – ControversialBut TrendyDrude Dahlerup aa Stockholm University , StockholmPublished online: 20 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Drude Dahlerup (2008) Gender Quotas – ControversialBut Trendy, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 10:3, 322-328, DOI:10.1080/14616740802185643

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Gender Quotas – Controvers ia l ButTrendy

ON EXPANDING THE RESEARCH AGENDA

DRUDE DAHLERUPStockholm University, Stockholm

Abstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The recent introduction of electoral gender quotas all over the world represents an

interesting new research area, since quotas touch upon so many central themes in femi-

nist theory, political theory and policy analysis. The three articles on gender quotas in

this cluster discuss ‘classic’ themes in quotas research such as quota discourses,

implementation of different types of quotas in different electoral systems, and the

effects of gender quotas. But the articles also contribute to expanding our research

agenda with new lines of enquiry, such as attitudes towards quotas after the introduc-

tion of quotas; or the importance of mobilization around the demand for quotas in spite

of poor results in terms of increasing women’s representation. In this introduction to the

three articles, it is argued that we need research into the question of why male domi-

nated parliaments all over the world introduce gender quotas. It seems obvious that

motives other than pure feminist ones are involved, since politics is after all a world

of mixed motives, bargaining and compromises. Also, the introduction argues that

there is a need for further developing our concepts and methods when studying the

impact of gender quotas and the effect of women’s representation in general. Different

results may derive not solely from different cases, but also from the use of disparate

criteria for this evaluation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keywordsquotas, gender quotas, women, research agenda, politics, representation

Who would have imagined some fifteen years ago that in 2008 half of allcountries in the world would have introduced some kind of gender quotasfor public elections? Quotas are still very controversial, yet they seem to

International Feminist Journal of Politics, 10:3 September 2008, 322–328

ISSN 1461-6742 print/ISSN 1468-4470 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis

http:==www.informaworld.com DOI: 10.1080/14616740802185643

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have become trendy. Following this amazing development, research on genderquotas is flourishing today. The three articles on gender quotas in this clusterdiscuss ‘classic’ themes in quotas research, but they also expand the researchagenda with new and very interesting questions.

Gender quotas are an important research subject, since quotas touch upon somany central themes in feminist theory and political theory: concepts ofcitizenship, representation, democracy, equality, fairness and the politicalmeaning of sex and gender. Empirical studies of the introduction of genderquotas have dealt with various themes, such as the diffusion of quotas, the dis-cursive controversies around quotas and the actual decision-making processleading to quotas. Researchers have developed quota typologies and studiedthe implementation process and its effect in both quantitative and qualitativeterms.

As of spring 2008, forty-six countries have introduced legislative quotas sti-pulated in their constitutions or electoral laws/party laws. In addition to theselegal reforms, in more than sixty other countries one or more political partiesrepresented in parliament have adopted voluntary party quotas stipulated inparty statutes (Dahlerup 2006; International IDEA and Stockholm University2006). This recent and rapid diffusion of gender quotas has been labelled the‘Fast Track’ to equal representation (Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005).

One may wonder how this could happen. How was it possible that so manymale dominated parliaments could pass quota laws with the aim of limitingmale dominance? Remember that in no parliament in the world are womenin a majority – even if Rwanda (49 per cent), Sweden (47 per cent) and afew other countries come close to gender balance in their parliaments. Theworld average is still very low, only 18 per cent (Inter-Parliamentary UnionJune 2008). Many researchers have studied the diffusion of quota laws andof voluntary party quotas, and pointed to the importance of pressure fromabove combined with pressure from below. There is no doubt that the inter-national community and especially the UN World Women’s Conference inBeijing in 1995 have provided legitimacy for quota claims put forward bynational women’s organizations and groups. In the case of post-conflictcountries, donors have often supported the inclusion of women when the pol-itical system is being completely reorganized, as in Rwanda, Burundi, Iraq andAfghanistan. However, in other cases such as East Timor, this support forquotas was absent. In general, however, the inclusion of women has becomea sign of democracy and modernity (Dahlerup 2006; Krook 2006; Norris 2007).

Petra Meier’s article ‘A Gender Gap Not Closed by Quotas: The Renegotiationof the Public Sphere’, does not solve the question of how this was possible.Rather, it adds new dimensions to the puzzle. In 1994 Belgium passed its firstquota law, which was later followed by a more demanding law of 50 per centcombined with rather limited rank order rules for the very top of the list.Today women hold 37 per cent of the seats in the federal parliament. Ideally,gender quotas represent both a redistribution of power and recognition ofwomen’s under-representation as a democratic problem, as Meier states,

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based on Nancy Fraser’s dichotomy. Thus, the adoption of quotas ‘require(s) thereframing of concepts like citizenship, representation and equality’ (p. 330).And yet, the article shows that this renegotiation and reframing do not seemto have taken place among male politicians, only among the women.Through a survey of Flemish politicians at several levels, a major gender gapis revealed. While quotas have high legitimacy among female politicians,most male politicians do not consider gender quotas legitimate or fair, even ifquotas have been in effect for over a decade. One of the reasons, it is argued,is that the male politicians do not accept the basic diagnosis that women in poli-tics face greater barriers than men. In accordance with this view women canmake it, if they want to. Consequently, quotas are questioned again and againin Belgium. The article conceptualizes these highly interesting findings interms of a discrepancy between the ‘micro’ and the ‘macro’ level. If what ismeant by the ‘macro level’ is the federal parliament, we do need further researchto identify what made it possible to pass the quota law at the macro level. Thehypothesis that the consociational type of citizenship may be conducive tothe adoption of gender quotas has not yet been tested on a larger sample ofcountries outside of Western Europe, and it does not answer the question ofwhy quota laws were passed during this historical period (Krook et al. 2006).

Controversies over gender quotas do not always continue after their intro-duction as was the case in Belgium. Lenita Freidenvall’s comprehensiveresearch on the 2002 nominations process for the Swedish Parliament showsa different result. Within those Swedish political parties that introduced volun-tary party quotas for their electoral lists in the late 1980s and the beginning ofthe 1990s, quotas are now an uncontested and established practice. In each ofthese parties, the local party district comply and usually nominate 50 per centwomen and 50 per cent men. The only gender question left in the zipper systemwith the alternation of female and male candidates is whether the first name onthe list should be a man or a woman. In contrast, this Swedish study found thatthe position of women candidates on the lists is a matter of recurring discus-sion in those political parties that do not apply a quota system regulated in theparty statutes. Consequently, the intervention of women’s groups within theparties is often needed to ensure a sufficient number of female candidateson the top of the list (Freidenvall 2006).

However, we have not solved the puzzle of why male dominated parliamentswould pass gender quota regulations. Possibly even the majority of Belgian malelegislators at the ‘macro level’ (the federal level) would, if asked, express theirdoubt, if asked, about the legitimacy of gender quotas – even if they votedfor the law. In general, we might need to reevaluate our understanding of howgender quotas and other equality policies are introduced in the political system.

I would argue that feminist movements and in many cases even feministresearchers tend to base their (our) analyses on unrealistic or idealisticassumption about the political process. We only accept ‘pure’ feministmotives behind a piece of legislation, be it on quotas, legislation on violenceagainst women or money for shelters. Otherwise our judgement will be

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predominantly negative: ‘They only do this because . . .’. But political life is agame of bargaining, compromises and mixed motives. This is the case inequality policies as well as in environmental policies, educational policiesand all other policy areas. I would like to see studies that compare the adoptionof equality policy with the adoption during the same historical period ofenvironmental policy. What are the similarities and what are the differencesbetween these new policy areas? It is a general methodological problem thatresearchers tend to study policies issue by issue, maybe diachronically, butforget the fact that political decisions are made synchronically: ‘If yourparty votes for my budget, we will vote for your quota law.’

It seems obvious, that mixed motives lie behind the adoption of genderquotas everywhere. In her interesting study, ‘Fifty/Fifty by 2020: ElectoralGender Quotas for Parliament in East and Southern Africa’, Gretchen Bauercompares the use of electoral gender quotas in Mozambique, Namibia andSouth Africa (voluntary party quotas) with quotas in Rwanda, Tanzania andUganda (legislated quotas). The study shows the complexity of evaluatingquota systems. In fact, in both types of quota systems, feminists complainthat political leaders pass quota regulations primarily because they want toget loyal women elected, women who will support the leader or the party.Such motives may have been present in most of these cases, as it was thecase when quotas were passed in Pakistan, Iraq and many other places. Inall quota cases, however, women’s organizations also worked actively topromote gender quotas, and in most cases many of the elected women havein fact after their election been active in promoting women’s issues, probablymore than the male leaders anticipated or wanted.

Consequently, in order to approach the question of why male dominatedparliaments pass gender quota laws, we need studies of the actual decision-making processes and the context in which the law or party decisions weremade. When and why did the pressure from the women’s movements andwomen’s groups within the parties succeed? What other issues were presentin the same period? What were the compromises behind the decision?

The first wave of quota research has dealt extensively with the question of dif-fusion of quota systems and the effects of various types of quota systems. Genderquotas are not a simple formula, and come in many forms. A taxonomy of quotasystems for public elections has to be based on the combination of severaldimensions. While the commonly made distinction between (1) reserved seats,(2) legislative (or statutory) quotas and (3) voluntary party quotas covers thethree most widespread types currently in use, it fails to indicate the broaderrange of quota systems and subsystems based on the following two dimensions:first, the mandate, legal or voluntary, and second, the level of the electoralprocess that the quota regulations target. Following this wider typology, regionalvariations in preferred quota type can be identified (Dahlerup 2006: Table 14.1).

Today, we have a fairly good knowledge about which types of quota systemwork well in various electoral systems. We know that quotas have beenintroduced in all kind of political systems: democratic, semi-democratic and

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non-democratic. We know of the difficulties of introducing quotas in electoralsystems based on single member constituencies, but we know also of attemptsto overcome these problems as in Scotland (twinning), India (rotation, locallevel) or through reserved seat systems as in Uganda (women only ballot).Today, gender quotas of some sort have been introduced in 72 per cent ofcountries with proportional representation (PR) electoral systems, as opposedto only 29 per cent of countries with single member constituencies (Matland2006; Dahlerup 2007). Thanks to quotas, some countries have made amazinghistorical leaps in women’s political representation, such as Costa Rica, SouthAfrica and Argentina, while in other countries such as Sweden and Norwayquotas have contributed more to prevent backlash and maintain a high levelof representation for women. And yet, in some countries the result of quotashas been disappointing as in France at the national level (a success, however,at the local level).

Because of the relatively few years that quota systems have been in operation,we still do not know much about their long term effects. Teresa Sacchet’s article‘Beyond Numbers: The Impact of Gender Quotas in Latin America’, argues thatwe should start looking at the impact of gender quotas in a broader sense than interms of numbers of women nominated and elected or the effect on legislation,another popular topic in quota research. Sacchet argues that even if the result ofquotas in terms of women’s representation was poor in Brazil (partly because ofa flaw in the law), the whole debate over the introduction of quotas spurredwomen’s collective action and created a comprehensive debate on women’s pos-ition in Brazil. This perspective is extremely interesting and points to a new andexpanding research agenda. Sacchet’s article indicates that gender quotasshould not just be seen as the end result of the debate. It may in fact be thestart of a process of renegotiating women’s position and the social constructionof gender in general.

Inspired by this sample of articles and by contemporary debates on genderquotas, one may ask why gender quotas have become such a popular feministissue around the world. One answer is, as argued in Meier’s article, that, genderquotas involve both questions of redistribution of power and of recognition ofwomen’s under-representation as an issue that has to be addressed. Genderquotas thus become both an effective means of increasing women’s politicalrepresentation (if properly constructed) and a symbol of the recognition ofthe de facto exclusion of women as a democratic problem.

I would add a further reason behind the widespread demand for gender quotas.Women’s inequality is an extremely complex issue, which demands larger struc-tural adjustments. In this context, to demand a specific number or percentage ofwomen on the lists or among those elected may in a way look like a relativelystraightforward project. It is a simple demand, loaded however with symbolicvalue and importance in terms of the redistribution of power. Perhaps genderquotas are met with so much controversy, precisely because evaluating theoutcome is so easy: it is just a question of simple calculations. The degree ofgoal fulfilment as well as of non-compliance is very easy to establish.

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It is sometimes stated that quotas do not solve all of the problems for womenin politics. This is a valid and important point. But, I would add, no singlegender sensitive reform can change an entire gender regime. Unless one seesquotas as counterproductive to gender equality, there is no reason not todemand a reform that seems, at present, possible to carry out even in maledominated parliaments. Gender quotas seem to have their momentum in theworld right now, and this opportunity should be grasped. Moreover, as Sac-chet’s article states, gender quotas may lead to general mobilization and sub-sequent changes of women’s position in other areas.

In this respect, however, there seems to be some disagreement between thearticles of Bauer and Sacchet. Even if the introduction of quotas in Africa hasbeen very successful in terms of increasing women’s representation, research-ers and feminist movements have in general been rather critical in their evalu-ation. ‘All too often actual political strategies are collapsed into a singledemand for a quota’, Bauer writes (p. 362), quoting Shireen Hassim andSonja Meintjes. The argument is that a strong autonomous movement isneeded in order to make it possible for the elected women to influenceparties and national agendas. Even if no one could disagree with the latterstatement, the crucial question here seems to be whether quotas can becomean incentive for a broader mobilization and agenda building, or will leadinstead to closing the agenda. It seems obvious that we need further empiricalresearch on this central aspect of quotas. Perhaps there is no general con-clusion, but only separate experiences. However, it might also be the casethat different studies use disparate criteria for evaluating the impact of intro-ducing quotas. If that is the case, and I believe it is, there is a need for devel-oping our concepts and methodology in future research on the effect of genderquotas and the effect of women’s representation in general. These articles givea good indication of the various directions this future research should take.

Drude DahlerupDeptment of Political Science

Stockholm University10691 Stockholm, Sweden

E-mail: drude.dahlerup@statsvet.su.se

References

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Dahlerup, D. 2007. ‘Electoral Gender Quotas: Between Equality of Opportunity and

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Dahlerup, D. and Freidenvall, L. 2005. ‘Quotas as a “Fast Track” to Equal Representation

of Women: Why Scandinavia Is No Longer the Model’, International Feminist

Journal of Politics 7 (1): 26–48.

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