Gender Quotas and Women's Substantive Representation: Lessons from Argentina

Susan Franceschet, Jennifer M. Piscopo
2008 Politics & Gender  
This article integrates the comparative literature on gender quotas with the existing body of research on women's substantive representation. Quota laws, which bring greater numbers of women into parliaments, are frequently assumed to improve women's substantive representation. We use the Argentine case, where a law mandating a 30% gender quota was adopted in 1991, to show that quotas can affect substantive representation in contradictory and unintended ways. To do so, we disaggregate women's
more » ... bstantive representation into two distinct concepts: substantive representation as process, where women change the legislative agenda, and substantive representation as outcome, where female legislators succeed in passing women's rights laws in the Argentine Congress. We argue that quota laws complicate both aspects of substantive representation. Quotas generate mandates for female legislators to represent women's interests, while also reinforcing negative stereotypes about women's capacities as politicians. Our case combines data from bill introduction and legislative success from
doi:10.1017/s1743923x08000342 fatcat:w2dmdle3qnbyhh6touufx2zlq4