Gender Quotas and Women's Representation ─ New Directions in Research

Electoral gender quotas have emerged as one of the most critical political reforms of the last two decades, having now been introduced in more than 130 countries worldwide. The recent and global nature of these developments has sparked both scholarly and popular interest in the in which these quotas are designed, as well as their origins and effects.

This volume seeks to expand these existing agendas to forge new directions in research on gender quotas and political representation. The topics considered include new paths to adoption, as well as – in the wake of quota introduction – changes in the dynamics of candidate selection, the status and role of women in legislative institutions, and the impact that women have on policy-making. Expanding the scope of quota studies, the contributions also address trends in different political parties and different levels of government, the effectiveness of quotas in democratic and non-democratic settings, and whether there might be non-quota mechanisms that could be pursued together with, or in lieu of, gender quotas in order to increase women’s political representation.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Representation.

Mona Lena Krook is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. She is the author ofQuotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide (2009) and co-editor ofThe Impact of Gender Quotas (2012).

Par Zetterberg is Researcher in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research focuses on political recruitment and political representation in comparative perspective, especially in Latin America, with a particular emphasis on the potential for gender quotas to remedy inequalities in politics.