Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Gender Quotas and The Representation of Women: Empowerment, Decision-making, and Public Policy

政治学博士论文研究：性别配额和妇女代表：赋权、决策和公共政策

• 批准号: 0921374
• 负责人: Mark Jones
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-15 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0921374&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

This research investigates the impact of gender quotas on women's substantive representation. Gender quotas are electoral laws that mandate a minimum percentage of females that must occupy a position on a political party's electoral ballot. Substantive representation refers to women's ability to achieve significant representation of women's interests. This project contributes to the literature on gender quotas and women's substantive representation in three specific ways. First, it offers a critical test of hypotheses derived from two competing theories about how the number of women in the legislature affects women's ability to influence policy. Second, building on existing theory, new hypotheses are developed on how the duration of time since a legislature has adopted effective gender quotas affects the substantive representation of women. Third, an original data set is developed to test these hypotheses. The effects of gender quotas on the substantive representation of women at the subnational level in Argentina (23 provinces and a federal capital) is examined. Argentina provides the only context in the world that offers a lengthy timeline of gender quotas (over a 15 year time span) implemented across a variety of electoral systems (27 legislative chambers with gender quotas) as well as the existence of provinces where gender quotas were never implemented (or adopted much later than in other provinces). This considerable variance in the percentage of the legislative seats occupied by women across these systems is necessary to address the relationship between the percentage of women in the legislature and their effect on policy outputs. The long temporal domain is necessary to assess the duration of time required for gender quotas to significantly affect substantive representation. Furthermore, the subnational setting allows one to make controlled comparisons that are not possible in cross-national analyses. Women are underrepresented in virtually all of the world's legislatures. In the early nineties, there was a widespread call for national governments to take action to correct gender disparity (and promote gender parity) at all levels of political representation. To date, constitutional, electoral, or political party gender quotas have been adopted in 98 countries. While quotas have been demonstrated (under certain conditions) to increase the numerical representation of women in parliament, and are designed to achieve equality in legislative power and decision-making, it is unclear if electing more women to legislative office is sufficient to influence policymaking (particularly in policy areas of particular interest to women). The extant literature has contributed to an understanding of how quota laws in combination with electoral laws affect the election of women legislators. What is less understood is the substantive impact of increased numbers of women in the legislature resulting from the use of gender quotas. Increasing the number of women in legislatures is not sufficient; rather, women must have equal access to decision-making and leadership positions. This research will help us understand if properly implemented gender quotas are reliable tools for promoting democracy and should be considered in more institutions struggling with gender inequalities.

本研究调查了性别配额对女性实质性代表性的影响。性别配额是选举法，规定女性必须在政党选票上占有一席之地的最低比例。实质性代表性是指妇女实现妇女利益的重要代表性的能力。该项目以三种具体方式为有关性别配额和妇女实质性代表性的文献做出贡献。首先，它对源自两种相互竞争的理论的假设进行了严格的检验，这些理论涉及立法机构中女性人数如何影响女性影响政策的能力。其次，在现有理论的基础上，提出了新的假设，探讨立法机构通过有效性别配额后的持续时间如何影响女性的实质性代表性。第三，开发原始数据集来测试这些假设。研究了性别配额对阿根廷地方一级（23 个省和一个联邦首都）妇女实质性代表性的影响。阿根廷提供了世界上唯一一个在各种选举制度（27个立法院实行性别配额）中实施性别配额的漫长时间表（超过15年的时间跨度）的环境，并且存在从未实施性别配额的省份（或比其他省份采用晚得多）。这些系统中妇女所占立法席位百分比的这种巨大差异对于解决立法机构中妇女百分比及其对政策产出的影响之间的关系是必要的。长时域对于评估性别配额对实质性代表性产生重大影响所需的持续时间是必要的。此外，地方环境允许人们进行跨国分析中不可能进行的受控比较。妇女在世界上几乎所有立法机构中的代表性都不足。九十年代初，人们广泛呼吁各国政府采取行动纠正各级政治代表中的性别差异（并促进性别平等）。迄今为止，已有 98 个国家采用了宪法、选举或政党性别配额。虽然配额已被证明（在某些条件下）可以增加妇女在议会中的代表人数，并且旨在实现立法权和决策方面的平等，但尚不清楚选举更多妇女担任立法职务是否足以影响政策制定（特别是在妇女特别感兴趣的政策领域）。现有文献有助于理解配额法与选举法如何影响女性立法者的选举。人们不太了解的是，由于性别配额的使用，立法机构中女性人数增加所产生的实质性影响。增加立法机构中的女性人数还不够；相反，妇女必须有平等的机会担任决策和领导职务。这项研究将帮助我们了解正确实施的性别配额是否是促进民主的可靠工具，是否应该在更多与性别不平等作斗争的机构中考虑。