scholarly journals The Consequences of Quotas: Assessing the Effect of Varied Gender Quotas on Legislator Experience in the European Parliament

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Andrea S. Aldrich ◽  
William T. Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Using Data

Abstract This article explores the consequences of quotas on the level of diversity observed in legislators’ professional and political experience. We examine how party system and electoral system features that are meant to favor female representation, such as gender quotas for candidate selection or placement mandates on electoral lists, affect the composition of legislatures by altering the mix of professional and political qualifications held by its members. Using data collected for all legislators initially seated to the current session of the European Parliament, one of the largest and most diverse democratically elected legislatures in the world, we find that quotas eliminate gendered differences in experience within the institution, particularly when used in conjunction with placement mandates that ensure female candidates are featured on electoral lists in viable positions. Electoral institutions can generally help to “level the playing field” between the backgrounds of men and women in elected office while increasing the presence of desirable qualities among European Parliament representatives of both genders.

scholarly journals Polish, and Slovak, Women in the European Parliament: an Analysis of the Results of the Election Held in May 2019

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
Dorota Lis-Staranowicz ◽  
Róbert Jáger
Keyword(s):  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Quota System ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Female Candidates

Abstract The objective of our paper is to analyse the political activity of Polish, and Slovak, women in EP elections; we aim to determine, among other things: whether gender quotas are a decisive factor for women’s electoral success, or do other factors result in an increase/decrease in the number of female candidates and the number of women MEPs? What are the particular characteristics of women representing Poland, and Slovakia, in the EP? What was their path to the EP? Which (conservative, liberal) parties are more willing to put women forward in EP elections? Poland introduced the so-called gender quotas into the electoral system, while Slovakia does not have such legal solutions in place. However, when comparing Slovakia to the situation in Poland, it can be stated that although there is a system of election quotas in Poland, its practical implementation may be purely theoretical. In percentage terms, the number of Slovak women elected to the European Parliament (except 2019) was significantly higher than in Poland, even though there is no quota system in the Slovak Republic. The success of Polish, and Slovak, women in the elections to the EP of the 9th term is the result of many factors, which include so-called electoral engineering (quotas, gender balance, first and second places on lists), electoral strategy of a party, but above all, political and social activity of the women themselves. We consider the last factor to be determinant in this respect.

scholarly journals What type of Europe? The salience of polity and policy issues in European Parliament elections

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Braun ◽  
Swen Hutter ◽  
Alena Kerscher
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Party System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Using Data ◽  
European Parliament Elections

How much and why do political parties emphasize Europe in election campaigns? The literature is increasingly focusing on two aspects of party issue competition: position and salience. However, recent studies on salience tend to ignore the fact that Europe is a compound political issue. This article contributes to the debate by highlighting the crucial difference between constitutive and policy-related European issues. Using data from the Euromanifestos Project for 14 EU member states for the period 1979–2009, we first show that Europe is much more salient in European Parliament elections than previously assumed. Second, EU issue salience depends on party position and party system polarization over European integration. However, different explanations come into play once we bring in the polity-vs.-policy distinction. This has important implications for our understanding of party competition on European integration.

scholarly journals The Death and Rebirth of a Party System, Peru 1978-2001

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 1210-1239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Kenney
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Party System ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Partial Recovery ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Large Size

This article evaluates structural, institutional, and actor-centered explanations of the collapse of the Peruvian party system around 1990 and its surprising partial recovery in 2001. It begins by describing the changes in the dependent variable, the emergence, collapse, and partial resurrection of the 1980s Peruvian party system. The next section examines the argument that the large size and rapid growth of the informal sector undermined the party system and led to its collapse. The author shows that the evidence does not support this argument. The article then examines changes in the electoral system. The author demonstrates that, contrary to theoretical expectations, the changes in the electoral system do not correlate with the observed changes in the party system. The final section shows that performance failure by political elites, including corruption in government, was more important than social cleavages or electoral institutions in the collapse and partial recovery of the party system.

The Spanish Electoral System

2020 ◽  
pp. 388-409
Author(s):  
Agustí Bosch
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Lower House ◽  
System P ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the Spanish electoral system, meaning—first and foremost—the one used to elect the lower house (Congreso de los Diputados). After a brief description of its components, the chapter assesses how its scarce proportionality has traditionally led Spanish politics towards a two-party system. The chapter also assesses some other of its alleged outcomes (such as the malapportionment, the weight of the regional parties, or the robustness of democracy) and its prospects for the future. Finally, the chapter also examines the ‘other’ Spanish electoral systems—that is, the ones used to elect the Senate, the local councils, the regional parliaments, and the Spanish seats in the European Parliament.

Politics and Gender: The Need for Electoral Reform

Politics ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Barkman
Keyword(s):  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Politics And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Industrialised Countries

Using data from twenty industrialised countries, this paper presents a model attempting to explain the proportion of female representation in national legislatures. The results show the type of electoral system to be an important factor which can help or hinder an increase in women's political representation. While proportional representation systems facilitate the election of women, single constituency systems (such as Britain's ‘First Past The Post System’) constitute a major obstacle. The paper therefore argues that electoral reform in Britain is necessary if female representation in Parliament is to increase from the current 9% to parity within a reasonable time period.

scholarly journals Parytety i kwoty wyborcze a Konstytucja RP

2018 ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Krzysztof URBANIAK
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Quota System ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Constitutional Tribunal ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Electoral Law

The issue of intensifying female participation in public life, and particularly in political life, has recently been the subject of lively discussions, in particular in the social sciences. The number of female candidates on the election ballots for representative organs is clearly insufficient in comparison to the size of the female electorate, as well as the abilities, skills and intellectual potential women occupy. This problem has also been widely discussed in Poland. As a result of these quite heated disputes and discussions, accompanied by an interesting exchange of views on the doctrine of electoral law, an instrument to increase female representation on election ballots (a quota system) was introduced into the Polish electoral system. The subject of this paper, however, is not the issue of the grounds or justification for the legal instruments applied, or an assessment of the activities of the state authorities or the institutions of public life in this respect. Rather, the paper analyzes the legal solutions introduced in Poland in order to increase the political participation of women from the point of view of their conformity with the regulations of the Constitution of the Polish Republic. For this purpose, the author refers both to the doctrine of constitutional law and the adjudications of the Constitutional Tribunal. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the ‘compensatory privilege’, introduced in law, is highly questionable in terms of its conformity with the Polish Constitution. In this light an amendment to the Constitution would be recommended, providing a constitu- tional status to the provisions on equality.

Electoral Systems in Context

2017 ◽  
pp. 942-964
Author(s):  
Karen E. Ferree
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Institutional Expectations

South Africa’s post-apartheid election outcomes demonstrate how contextual factors interact with electoral rules to shape party systems. South Africa’s national electoral system represents one of the most permissive in the world, combining parliamentary rules with an extreme form of proportional representation. These rules were selected to encourage broad representation of parties in the National Assembly. However, South Africa’s party system consistently defies expectations, with a low effective number of seat-winning parties at the national level and dominance by a single party, the African National Congress (ANC). Provincial and municipal outcomes also confound simple institutional expectations. In addition to describing electoral rules and party systems at all three levels of South Africa’s political system, this chapter argues that contextual factors like the salience of racial divisions and the ability of the ruling party to shape institutions and resource flows critically interact with electoral institutions to shape party system outcomes.

Do Parties and Voters Counteract Quota Regulations? The Impact of Legislative Gender Quotas on Ballot Ranking and Preference Voting in Poland

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Gendźwiłł ◽  
Tomasz Żółtak
Keyword(s):  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Female Legislators ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article investigates how the introduction of gender quotas affected female representation in an open-list proportional representation system. Based on the Polish parliamentary elections of 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2015, it attempts to explain the gap between the share of female candidates and the share of female legislators. The authors estimate changes in individual electoral chances using logistic regression. Subsequently, counterfactual reasoning is applied to display the results in the metrics of seat shares. The analyses of candidate-level data demonstrate that after the introduction of quotas, significantly more women ran for office, but parties and voters, on average, changed their preferences to the disadvantage of female candidates, even when incumbency and previous electoral experience were controlled. The article demonstrates that women benefited from the introduction of quotas, but not right away. The desired effect of gender quotas (an increase in female legislative representation) was mitigated mainly by the unequal distribution of “electoral capital” among candidates of both genders. The impact of this factor was moderated by ballot ranking patterns. Once women acquire more electoral capital, the role of party elites’ negative bias in ballot ranking becomes more visible.

Closing the Gap: Gender and Constituency Candidate Nomination in the 2013 Bundestag Election

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise K. Davidson-Schmich
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
Gender Quotas ◽  
Selection Rules ◽  
Bundestag Elections ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Closing The Gap

Since the adoption of candidate gender quotas, women have always fared better in the “second” or PR tier of Bundestag elections than in the “first” or plurality tier, where quotas do not apply. This gap, however, has been closing. In the 2009 Bundestag election, 27 percent of the major parties' direct mandate candidates were women compared to almost 30 percent in 2013. All parties experienced an increase in the percentage of women among their nominees for direct mandates between 2009 and 2013. Why have the numbers of female candidates for the 299 directly elected Bundestag constituencies been increasing? This increase is puzzling because gender quotas have not been extended to this tier of the electoral system and candidate selection rules have not changed. This article explores five potential mechanisms that may be driving the observed rise in women nominated as constituency candidates. I argue that the main reasons for these increases lie in the advantages female incumbents incur, the openings presented when male incumbents retire, and the diffusion of female candidates across parties and neighboring Wahlkreise after one woman manages to win a direct mandate. I develop these conclusions by comparing candidate nominations and direct mandate winners in the 2009 and 2013 Bundestag elections.

Presidentialism and legislative fragmentation: Beyond coattail effects

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigorii V Golosov ◽  
Kirill Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Party System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Short Term ◽  
System Properties ◽  
Presidential Regimes ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
The Impact

Using data from a nearly comprehensive set of the world’s electoral democracies, 1992–2014, this article empirically evaluates the impact of presidentialism upon legislative fragmentation. The analysis demonstrates that the impact is strong, consistent across a wide variety of political contexts, and conditioned by the type of presidential regime, the scope of presidential powers, electoral system effects, and essential party system properties. While much of the reasoning regarding the interplay between presidentialism and legislative fragmentation has been traditionally focused on short-term coattail effects of presidential elections, this study shows that these effects are real, but they are insufficient to make a significant impact upon the parameter of crucial importance for the functioning of presidential regimes: the number of parties in the legislature. The main impact of presidentialism is systemic, stemming from its tendency to restrict the number of parties to a limited set of viable competitors for the presidential prize.

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