Suchergebnisse

A contribution to a symposium on "Gender Quotas" notes the prevalence of different strategies for increasing the representation of women in different parts of the world & the tendency of scholars to focus on regional events while ignoring parallel developments elsewhere. It is argued that it is necessary to re-conceptualize gender quotas as a global phenomenon that highlights both the actors/strategies involved in specific cases & draws connections between different quota campaigns. The literature on candidate gender quotas offers four distinct causal accounts regarding who supports gender quotas & why they are adopted. Although these narratives are confirmed when considered individually, they contradict one another when taken collectively. Problems related to viewing cases in isolation from development in other countries are explored out suggestions are offered for ways to facilitate comparative analyzes. In spite of the tremendous diversity of actors & strategies, common patterns emerge when participants are categorized according to distinct action locations. It is noted that women's movement organizations are the most consistent actors across all campaigns. References. J. Lindroth

Women occupy 18.5 percent of the seats in national parliaments around the world (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2009). While this is a small minority of all representatives, the degree of women's exclusion from political office varies enormously across the globe. However, most countries have registered increases in recent years in the numbers of women elected. In many cases, a crucial drive for change has been the adoption of quota policies to facilitate the selection of female candidates. All the same, not all quotas are equally successful in increasing women's political representation: some countries experience dramatic increases following the adoption of new quota regulations, while others see more modest changes or even setbacks in the proportion of women elected.Further, quotas appear to have mixed results for women as a group: some have positive consequences for public policy, while others appear to undermine women as political actors.

Political institutions profoundly shape political life and are also gendered. This groundbreaking collection synthesises new institutionalism and gendered analysis using a new approach - feminist institutionalism - in order to answer crucial questions about power inequalities, mechanisms of continuity, and the gendered limits of change

Women, Gender, and Politics brings together both classic and recent readings on central topics in the study of gender and politics. Genuinely international in its focuse, the book is divided into six sections: women and social movements; women and political parties; women, gender, and elections; women, gender, and political representation; women, gender, and social policies; and women, gender, and the state. Within each section, readings have been selected to capture the various ways that research has evolved, both thematically and chronologically, across both developed and developing countries.

Electoral quotas have emerged as one of the critical political reforms of the last two decades, affecting a wide range of representative processes. However, the evidence is not yet conclusive with regard to what quotas 'mean' more broadly, either for politics at large or for the empowerment of group members. Taking up this challenge, this special issue brings together articles that collectively expand the current research agenda to theorise and assess the wider impact of electoral quotas. A unifying theme is the use of comparative research strategies to illuminate dynamics indicating the possibilities and limits of what quotas can achieve. This introductory article reviews the existing literature and then details the research strategies and theoretical and empirical findings of the articles that follow, concluding with directions for future research and implications of this work for connecting central debates within political science.