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Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Puzzle
Historically, politics has been an area of public life exclusive for men. This has meant that political positions of leadership have been generally occupied by men and that politics must be comprehended in male codes and guidelines, thus marginalizing women in the decision-making processes on issues of interest to the population. In the twentieth century, this situation of exclusion and injustice started to change. In fact, this has been recognized as the century of women as it was witnessed from the beginning of the struggles of the suffragettes in favor of the recognition of women as citizens. During the last three decades, the incorporation of women into the public space through their participation in social movements of all kinds was evident and, finally, the efforts of women to gain access to areas of leadership and political responsibility have been seen (International IDEA1 2003).
The gender gap in political representation remains a tenacious global challenge. As we can observe in Figure 1, worldwide, women represent 24 percent of all members of parliament in single or lower houses (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2018). Regionally, there is great variation in women’s representation across different regions. For instance, in the Nordic countries, the representation of women is 42.3 percent, while in other regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, it is less than 20 percent. In the Americas region, the representation of women is less than 30 percent. Why is the level of female political representation higher in some countries but not in others? The lack of women legislators in political leadership positions is a big problem that, in the absence of measures to solve it, is probable that will continue for several years. To address these challenges, many countries have established governance structures, support mechanisms, and strategic plans to improve women’s political representation and gender equality. One of this
1 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
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strategies is the gender quota policy. In 1991, Argentina was the first country of the region to implement a gender quota system when a multiparty group of women involved in political action joined in order to persuade their male colleagues to help and defend the implementation of a system in this sense. The women were inspired by the system used in the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), as well as by international norms and conventions on gender equality. This pioneering step byArgentines triggered debates on the subject throughout the region. However, the decisive momentum came with the Fourth Conference on Women, celebrated in Beijing in 1995.
The Beijing Platform for Action supported the right of women to take part in decision-making. In particular, governments were urged to guarantee “women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making” (United Nations 1995, p.
81), as well as to enhance the capacity of women to participate in these areas.
Figure 1: Women in Parliament by Regions, 2018.
Source: The Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU). Available on the internet at http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm.
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12 In Latin America, sixteen countries adopted a gender quota policyafter the Fourth Conference on Women for the purpose of increase female representation in politics:
Mexico and Paraguay in 1996; Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Panama, and Peru in 1997; Colombia and Honduras in 2000; Uruguay in 2009;
Nicaragua in 2012; El Salvador in 2013; Chile and Venezuela in 2015. This mechanism should allow effective equality to be achieved since it implies that women must add a defined number or percentage in the lists of candidates for local and national congresses.
However, gender quota policies do not always achieve their objectives on their own. For instance, Honduras and Ecuador introduced a gender quota of 50% in 2012 and 2008, respectively. However, the average proportion of seats occupied by female legislators after introducing the gender quota policy is 23% in Honduras and 36% in Ecuador.
Colombia and Peru introduced a gender quota of 30% in 2000. However, the average proportion of seats occupied by female legislators after introducing the gender quota policy is 14% in Colombia and 24% in Peru. Clearly, even though for countries that adopt the same gender quota policy, women’s political representation might differ greatly.
This thesis aims to address the puzzle of why gender quota is more effective in some countries but not in others. I argue that quotas are only the first step to adapt the ground for the development of policies and programs to deal with the demands of women, in order to have more egalitarian societies. In other words, some factors might affect the effectiveness of the gender quota policies. More specifically, I argue that the combined effects of gender quota laws and egalitarian institutions matters for explaining women’s representation in the lower chambers. To test my theoretical argument, I conduct quantitative analysis based on Latin American countries from 1988 to 2018. I also conduct a case study on the Dominican Republic for illustrating the mechanism of my theoretical argument. Overall, this research aims to facilitate a better comprehension of the causes of women’s underrepresentation in politics in Latin America.
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13 1.2 Why Study Women’s Political Representation?
Why does the participation of women in politics matters? The achievement of the full participation of women in the decision-making process and gender equality are some of the most important indicators of democracy and its quality. The equal participation of women and men in politics is a relevant requisite for good governance and an efficient democracy (Childs and Dahlerup 2018; EIGE 2017; Inglehart and Welzel 2010; Welzel 2013). The participation of women in all aspects of politics creates more equal societies and allows for a stronger democracy (IPU 2008). Therefore, the degree to which a woman has the opportunity or not to get involved in politics and in decision-making processes is largely related to the quality of democracy.
In addition, there is an association among the female presence in government and a lower degree of corruption. Previous research provides strong evidence to support the statement that countries with a larger amount of elected female legislators in the lower chamber generally have lower levels of corruption (Dollar, Fisman, and Gatti 2001;
Esarey and Schwindt-Bayer 2019; Sundström and Wängnerud 2016; Treisman 2007).
Some scholars argue that this is because corruption shows the presence of shady deals that profit the people who already have privileges in the system, which in most countries tend to be men, as women are often excluded from opportunities to exercise power (Barnes 2016; Bjarnegård 2013; Branisa and Ziegler 2011; Goetz 2007; Grimes and Wängnerud 2012; Johnson et al. 2013; Stockemer 2011; Tripp 2001). On the other hand, other scholars argue that this is because women are treated differently by voters or are more risk-averse than their male counterparts and, therefore, are less frequently involved in corruption (Alatas et al. 2009; Esarey and Chirillo 2013; Esarey and Schwindt-Bayer 2018).
Another reason is that female and male legislators put first distinct policy sectors, and these divergences can mold social spending criterions (Bolzendahl and Brooks 2007;
Funk and Garthmann 2006; Svaleryd 2009). Clayton and Zetterberg (2018) found that as more women are elected, government spending on public health increases, which is offset
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14 by the relative decline in military expenditures and other expense categories. Therefore, female political representation influences both the range of policy issues that get
considered and the types of solutions that are proposed. Existing research demonstrates that whether a legislator is male or female has a distinct impact on their policy-making and social spending priorities, making it critical that women are present in politics to represent the concerns of women and other marginalized voters and help improve the responsiveness of policy-making and governance (Campbell et al.2010; Volden, Wiseman, and Wittmer 2010). There is strong evidence that as more women candidates are elected into legislation, there is an increase as well in policy design that prioritizes families and minorities (Dahlerup 1988; Dingler, Kroeber, and Fortin-Rittberger 2019;
Iverson and Rosenbluth 2006; Mansbridge 1999; McAllister and Studlar 1992; NDI 2012; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler 2005; Wängnerud and Sundell 2012; Yoon 2013).
There is also evidence that the more women there are in the parliament, the more confidence women have in themselves and the more men look at women in positions of power in a more positive way (Barnes and Burchard 2013; Gilardi 2015; Verge and Pastor 2018). Therefore, female political representation has positive impacts on parliaments, political parties, democracy and the lives of citizens.
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Chapter Two: Theoretical Perspectives
2.1 The Socioeconomic and Cultural Barriers
What explains the level of women’s representation in the political arena? As many political scientists would define politics as an activity primarily concerned with the allocation and distribution of power (Berenskoetter and Williams 2007; Buchanan and Badham 2008; Keohane and Nye 1977; Wight et al. 2002), Blumberg (1984) argues that the most important source of power that affects women’s position in a system of social stratification is economic. Further, he asserts that the greater relative economic power of women, the greater the probability is that it will result in influence in the political sphere.
Reynolds (1999) showed that socioeconomic development levels are notably associated with the percentage of women in parliaments worldwide. In other words, women find harder to enter in the parliaments when they are in a situation of socioeconomic disadvantage due to the burden of low access to education, lack of financial resources, poor health care, and unemployment or underemployment. In the same way, Stockemer (2017) identified that high-income inequalities diminish growth in female political representation. More precisely, he found that the political representation of women in the parliament in countries with high-income inequalities has grown at a rate 20% lower than that of countries with low-income inequality in the last 50 years. This shows that the fight against income inequalities is not only important from a development perspective, since high-income inequalities put women at a disadvantage in the economy, but also from a gender perspective since these inequalities can also affect women in the political arena.
Moreover, Goodnow, Madrid, and Moser (2019) found that, compared to the male candidates, it is usually harder for female candidates to collect funds for their campaigns.
Some scholars found that this issue is related to the level of economic development the country has (Matland 1998; Schmidt 2008; Schwindt-Bayer 2005; Stockemer and Byrne 2012; Tripp and Kang 2008). They argue that women tend to occupy a larger proportion of seats in parliament in more developed countries. They found that development is positively correlated with female representation in parliament because women enjoy
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16 greater economic opportunities in more developed societies and because citizens of more economically developed countries are more likely to support gender equality.
Several social and cultural attitudes have also been argued to influence the level of women’s political representation (Krook and O’Brien 2012; Paxton and Kunovich 2003;
Teczar et al. 2018; Tripp and Kang 2008). Paxton and Kunovich (2003) argue that “ideas about women’s role and position in society can enhance or constrain women’s ability to seek political power” (p.90). They found that cultural attitudes were the most important factor explaining variance in the election of women in the legislature. Therefore, cultural norms can hinder women’s representation in politics. Research on the Nordic countries also shows that the comparatively greater number of women in the legislature in this region is due to a political culture that gives more importance to economic and social equality (Miller 2013). In addition, Inglehart and Norris (2003) show that culture matters:
countries with egalitarian attitudes, such as Sweden and Norway, have more women in parliament. This egalitarian culture is a reflection of broader patterns of socio-economic development and cultural modernization. In contrast, in much of Latin America,
traditional social norms prevail in which it is understood that the role of women is linked to the parental role, while that of men is associated with paid labor. As a result of this, a large part of the population believes that politics is not an appropriate environment for women as this would meddle with their parental obligations. According to the survey conducted by Latinobarómetro (2018) in eighteen Latin American countries, 28 percent of respondents do not agree that half of the members of parliament should be women.
Thames (2017) found strong evidence that, in the long term, socio-cultural factors are relevant in increasing the percentage of women elected to the legislature.
Mcculloch (2012) emphasizes that another important attitudinal factor that can affect the representation of women in politics is the degree of religiosity (the importance of religion for the citizens of a country). Religious rules and standards have traditionally been very involved in the formulation of public policies in many countries of the world and the Latin American region is no exception. As we can observe in Figure 2, according to a survey conducted in the year 2014 by the AmericasBarometer developed by the Latin
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17 American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), a 58% of Latin American Citizens think that religion is very important while only a 6% consider that it is not important at all. Thus, we can see that religion plays a key role in the life of Latin American society.
Figure 2: How Important is Religion for Latin American Citizens, 2014.
Source: The AmericasBarometer by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). Available on the internet at http://lapop.ccp.ucr.ac.cr/LapopDummies.html
Religion gives its devotees a diversity of civic abilities and faster methods of communication. In addition, it fosters a psychological commitment to domestic affairs.
For this reason, it is argued that religiosity promotes political participation (Djupe et al.
2007; Verba, Sidney, and Brady 1995; Wald et al. 1988). Nevertheless, this positive influence of religion on the political participation is not general throughout the citizens.
According to Cassese and Holman (2016), despite women tend to go to church with more consistency and regularity than men and their degree of religiosity is higher, the level of female political representation is not uniformly higher than that of men. Further, existing literature argues that, countries where the population is especially religious, citizens tend
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Very important Rather important Not very important Not important at all
Importance of Religion for Latin American Citizens
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18 to be more traditional, conservative and less likely to advocate for female representation in politics (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Inglehart and Norris 2003; Kenworthy and Malami 1999; Mcculloch 2012; Morgan and Buice 2013; Plutzer 1991; Tripp and Kang 2008).
In brief, these arguments show that religious beliefs and cultural and socioeconomic development are relevant factors to explain why in some countries there is more support for the representation of women in politics than others. More specifically, they argue that in countries with greater socio-economic development and cultural modernization, citizens are more likely to support gender equality. Therefore, these factors are crucial to explain female political representation.
2.2 Electoral Systems and Political Institutions
In the process of explaining the degree of women’s representation in politics, many academics also place great emphasis on the role of institutional design (e.g. Goodnow, Madrid, and Moser 2019; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter II 2010; Schwindt-Bayer 2005;
Tripp and Kang 2008). The political institutions are the organizations, the rules, and the procedures by which politics is made (Lovenduski 2005). These institutions influence the way in which political representation works in reality. Existing literature has found that institutions can be decisive in explaining gender divergences in political participation because of disproportionate electoral rules (Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer 2010). Heath, Schwindt-Bayer and Taylor-Robinson (2005) argue that “the political and institutional environment of legislative chambers and characteristics of individual legislators and political parties will mediate the ability of male legislators to marginalize women” (p.
421). They found that to attain full inclusion into the parliament, women cannot resign themselves with only winning seats, but must reform the political institutions that traditionally allow male politicians to control limited political resources. Therefore, political institutions can handle who manages and controls the political appointments, as well as considerations to balance appointments between members of different genders.
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19 In addition, electoral laws will play a meaningful function in the political
appointment with respect to women. Many scholars point out the importance of proportional representation (PR) electoral systems because of their beneficial
ramifications for female candidates, especially in the long-term (e.g. Krook and O’Brien 2012; Larserud and Taphorn 2007; Matland 2005; Thames 2017; Womack 2018). The main reason why PR systems are much more female-friendly is that such systems have higher district magnitudes, and this generally produces higher party magnitudes. The district magnitude is basically the number of seats per district. On the other hand, the party magnitude are the seats that a party wins within a district (Matland and
Montgomery 2003). Every district race is considered a separate election. Usually, the political parties will propose a candidate they believe has the highest possibility of winning. Most of the time, this tend to be men of the prevailing ethnic group. Therefore, district and party magnitudes are relevant due to their leading role in party strategy when choosing candidates (Matland 1995; Southwell 2013; Verge and Wiesehomeier 2018).
At its base, the main difference between the PR and the majoritarian systems is the size of the district magnitude. The majoritarian systems are composed intrinsically by uninominal districts. On the other hand, in PR systems, several candidates are elected by district (Došek et al. 2017). In PR systems, where seats are designated according to the portion of total votes obtained, political parties are likely to hold an incentive to offset their party-lists, incorporating candidates who belong to a diversity of social groups (for example, women and other minorities) and to nominate applicants that embody distinct factions and sectors of the electorate. In majoritarian systems, however, the incentives are different: parties are more prone to nominate those who have realistic chances of winning more votes than any of their contenders and, in most cases, leaders tend to lean more towards male candidates. Therefore, the larger district magnitudes encourage the election of candidates who are at inferior positions within the party-lists, which are generally women. For this reason, PR systems are considered hypothetically more beneficial for women's election in the parliament.
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20 However, within the PR systems, there are many variants, and some may be better than others from the point of view of women. Most scholars agree that closed-list systems, where a party-list is voted on and headmen manage the order in which applicants are placed on the party-list, is generally more favorable in choosing female legislators than in the open-list systems, where candidates are voted individually (Goodnow, Madrid, and Moser 2019; Htun and Jones 2002; Krook 2006; Larserud and Taphorn 2007; Norris 2004; Thames and Williams 2010; Valdini 2013). However, some academics argue that open-list systems increase the likelihood that candidates will be elected, by allowing the voter to choose them regardless of the position in which they are placed by the leaders within the list (Rule and Shugart 1995). Mari and Kang (2008) found that although in the past, party list PR electoral systems were considered one of the most important decisive factor of female political representation, the introduction of gender quotas from the mid-1990s implies that although the type of electoral system is very relevant in some regions of the world, the gender quota law is even more important
20 However, within the PR systems, there are many variants, and some may be better than others from the point of view of women. Most scholars agree that closed-list systems, where a party-list is voted on and headmen manage the order in which applicants are placed on the party-list, is generally more favorable in choosing female legislators than in the open-list systems, where candidates are voted individually (Goodnow, Madrid, and Moser 2019; Htun and Jones 2002; Krook 2006; Larserud and Taphorn 2007; Norris 2004; Thames and Williams 2010; Valdini 2013). However, some academics argue that open-list systems increase the likelihood that candidates will be elected, by allowing the voter to choose them regardless of the position in which they are placed by the leaders within the list (Rule and Shugart 1995). Mari and Kang (2008) found that although in the past, party list PR electoral systems were considered one of the most important decisive factor of female political representation, the introduction of gender quotas from the mid-1990s implies that although the type of electoral system is very relevant in some regions of the world, the gender quota law is even more important