Americas Quarterly - Spring 2009

have some of the highest rates of fe- candidates’ order. male representation. Clearly, quotas are the most

Quotas are only as effective as important mechanism enabling their enforcement mechanisms. In women to enter public office, help-Brazil, for example, the 1997 gender ing women politicians overcome quota law is not binding. As a result, long-standing constraints. The key, in the 2006 elections, women won though, is enforcement. a mere 9 percent of lower house seats. In general, women in Latin Alice Kang is a Ph D candidate in America have fared better in closed political science, and Aili Tripp is list systems—a process where the a professor of political science and electorate votes for an entire party gender and women’s studies at the list, and the party determines the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

1. aili tripp anD alice kanG, “ the GlOBal impact Of QuOtas: On the fast track tO increaseD female leGislative representatiOn,” comparative political studies, 41 ( 3) (2008): 338-361.

winning. The 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing gave added impetus to women’s demands as did regional networks of women’s organizations. With momentum building, interest in quotas gradually spread from Argentina to countries throughout the Americas.

Today over 100 countries have adopted some form of gender-based quota to improve female legislative representation. The broad goal of these quotas is to improve the balance between the number of men and women occupying public office. Some countries have adopted constitutionally and/or legislatively mandated seats for which only women can compete. Others adopted constitutionally or legislatively mandated compulsory quotas that require all parties to include a certain percentage of women on their candidate list. In the Americas, the line is split: 12 countries have compulsory quotas and 12 have party quotas. chile

In a recent study of 153 countries, ¹ we found that the introduction of quotas offers the best explanation for changes in female political representation. But more female legislators are also the case in countries with electoral systems where the number of seats corresponds to the proportion of party votes (proportional representation).

Even with quotas, Catholic-majority countries still tend to have lower rates of female legislative representation than Protestant-major-ity countries, but this is not the case in Catholic countries like Argentina and Peru where societal attitudes tend to be egalitarian. Democratic and nondemocratic countries have adopted quotas and raised rates of female representation.

Economically impoverished countries used to rank low in terms of female legislative representation. But interestingly, the use of quotas

peru

offsets this trend. In fact, some of the poorest countries in the world (e.g., Guyana and Mozambique)

Country

argentina

PerCentage Quota of women in mandated by uniCameral or Constitution lower house or law

constitutional

40.0

and legal quota legal quota legal quota

Parties with their own Quotas *Only parties that wOn 5 percent Or mOre Of unicameral Or lOwer hOuse seats in the m Ost recent electiOn. partido Justicialista (pJ), unión cívica radical (ucr)

Bolivia Brazil canada

16. 9
9.0
22. 1
15.0

costa rica

36. 8

legal quota

Dominican republic

19. 7

legal quota

POLICY UPDATE

ecuador

27. 6

legal quota

el salvador

19.0

Guyana

30.0

honduras

23. 4

constitutional and legal quota legal quota

mexico

23. 2

legal quota

nicaragua

18. 5

panama

16. 7

legal quota

paraguay

12. 5

legal quota

asociación nacional republicana/partido colorado (anr)

29. 2

legal quota

uruguay

12. 1

partido dos trabalhadores (pt) new Democratic party (nDp) partido por la Democracia (ppD), partido Demócrata cristiano (pDs), partido socialista de chile (ps) partido acción ciudadana (pac), partido liberación nacional (pln), partido unidad socialcristiana (pusc) partido revolucionario Dominicano (prD) Democracia popular (Dp), partido izquierda Democrática (piD), partido roldosista ecuatoriano (pre), partido social cristiano (psc) frente farabundo martí para la liberación nacional (fmln)