Women, Quotas and Politics (ed.)
This is the first world-wide, comparative study
of the controversial
new trends of gender quotas now emerging in global politics. The
book presents a comprehensive overview of changes in women's
parliamentary representation across the world.
This is important reading for all those working to increase
women's influence in politics, because it scrutinizes under what
circumstances gender quotas do increase women's represen-tation
- and why they sometimes fail.
These distinguished international scholars also show how
gender balance in politics has become important to a nation's
international image and why quotas are being introduced in many
post-conflict countries. They present key case studies of countries
like Afghanistan, Iraq, Argentina, Sweden, South Africa, Belgium
- and Rwanda, which in 2003 unexpectedly surpassed Sweden as the
number one country in the world in terms of women's parliamentary
representation.
The book covers almost all major regions of the world: Latin America,
Africa, the Arab world, South Asia, the Balkans, The Nordic countries
and Europe, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S.A. Using a comparative
perspective, this book contains analyses of the discursive controversies
around quotas; it gives an overview over various types of quotas
in use from candidate quotas to reserved seat systems, and it throws
light over the troublesome implementation process. When do gender
quotas lead to actual increase in the number of women parliament?
When are quotas merely a symbolic gesture? What does it imply to
be elected as a 'quota woman'? Tackling these and many more key
questions, this is a major new contribution to the field.
Making an important contribution to our knowledge of gender politics
worldwide, this book will be of interest to NGOs, students and scholars
of democracy, policy-making, comparative politics and gender studies.
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