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Expanding citizen participation

Female representation: the global impact of quotas (pdf 40kb)

This paper explores women's participation in legislative bodies and demonstrates that the use of quotas dramatically increases women's roles and democratic processes especially in less democratic contexts.

The study shows that the use of reserving seats for women has favorably increased women's participation particularly in more authoritarian contexts and male dominated cultures. Since the mid 1990's quotas have been seen as an important institutional measure to raise female rates of participation and help overcome constraints to women's representation. These constraints may be cultural, economic or even from the electoral system.

This paper is a comprehensive overview of global trends during the past 10 years and provides a framework for deciding on measures to increase women's participation in decision making bodies not just at the national level but right down to the lowest level of representational government with the community.

 

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