Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide

ISBN-13: 9780199740277 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 304 str.

Mona Lena Krook

Opis

In recent years, political parties and national legislatures in more than one hundred countries have adopted quotas for the selection of female candidates to political office. Despite the rapid international diffusion of these measures, most research has focused on single countries - or, at most, the presence of quotas within one world region. Consequently, explanations for the adoption and impact of gender quotas derived from one study often contradict with findings from other cases. Quotas for Women in Politics is the first book to address quotas as a global phenomenon to explain their spread and impact in diverse contexts around the world. It is organized around two sets of questions. First, why are quotas adopted? Which actors are involved in quota campaigns, and why do they support or oppose quota measures? Second, what effects do quotas have on existing patterns of political representation? Are these provisions sufficient for bringing more women into politics? Or, does their impact depend on other features of the broader political context? Synthesizing literature on quota policies, this book develops a framework for analyzing the spread of quota provisions and the reasons for variations in their effects. It then applies this framework to examine and compare campaigns for reserved seats in Pakistan and India, party quotas in Sweden and the United Kingdom, and legislative quotas in Argentina and France.

Recenzje

In recent years, gender quotas for legislative office represent one of the critical reforms sweeping the world. Providing original theoretical insights and sifting through fresh case-study evidence, this study synthesizes the literature, carefully examines alternative reasons, and rejects over-simple monocausal explanations of this complex phenomenon. The book provides a major contribution to the fields of women and politics, comparative institutions, and public policy, of interest to scholars and policymakers alike.

O autorze

Mona Lena Krook is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.