Q&A: “Quota Laws Have Been Very Successful” in Latin America

Daniela Estrada interviews MARCELA RÍOS, editor of a book on gender
quotas
SANTIAGO, Apr 22 (IPS) Electoral quota laws that set a minimum threshold
for women on candidate lists have enabled more women to be elected,
contributed to gender empowerment and driven cultural changes, says
Marcela Ríos, the Chilean editor of a book that carries out an
in-depth analysis of the impact of such laws.

But quotas cannot fix all the problems, says Ríos, who has a masters
degree and a doctorate in political science from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in the United States and has written several books and
articles on gender and politics, social movements and democracy in Latin
America.

The 250-page book "Mujer y Política. El impacto de las cuotas de
género en América Latina" (Women and Politics; The Impact
of Gender Quotas in Latin America) was launched Apr. 15 by the Chile-based
Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and the International
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).

Affirmative action mechanisms like quotas for candidate lists or political
parties, or reserved seats in the legislature, are aimed at accelerating
the incorporation of women into the spheres of political power –
something that is indispensable for improving "the quality of our
institutions" and for shoring up the legitimacy and credibility of
democracy, Ríos says in this interview with IPS.

IPS: What is the situation in Latin America in terms of female
representation in popularly elected positions?
MARCELA RÍOS: In Latin America, in the legislative branch, women hold
just over 20 percent of the seats on average. That is slightly above the
global average of 18 percent, and we are one of the regions, after Europe,
best-positioned in that sense.

Significant, but uneven, progress has been made. Women’s
representation has not grown at the same pace throughout the region. There
are countries that have made impressive progress over the last decade, and
that has driven up the regional average.

IPS: What factors stand in the way of continued improvement?
MR: There is a mix of factors. What we observe is that everything that has
to do with the electoral regulatory framework plays a key role: the kinds
of electoral systems, the kinds of lists of candidates, the existence or
not of quotas. All of that has a strong influence on opening up or closing
off possibilities for women.

The other key factor is the role of political parties. In those countries
where parties have effectively opened their doors and have adopted
initiatives aimed at inclusion and cooperation, to increase the presence
of women, we have seen very positive experiences. But political parties
also operate as barriers in many countries.

A third factor is the problems faced by women themselves. To the extent
that women continue to be responsible for child-rearing and have an extra
burden of work, dedicating themselves to politics is very costly. There is
the question of reconciling the public and private spheres, which also
affects women’s participation in politics.

IPS: Sixteen years after the implementation of the first quota law, in
Argentina, when another 10 countries have similar laws and the quotas
range from 20 to 40 percent, what is your assessment? Have these
affirmative action mechanisms worked in the region?
MR: In global terms, quotas have been very successful in increasing the
number of women elected in the region. In every country, with the sole
exception of Brazil, quotas have had a significant effect.

The impact has been very strong in Argentina, Costa Rica and Peru, and
increasingly so in Honduras and Ecuador. In these countries, the effect
has been stronger because more women have entered politics, and at a
faster rate. This has to do with how the quotas are designed and with how
they fit in the electoral systems.

IPS: In what kind of electoral system and with what kind of candidate
lists, open or closed, have the quota laws shown the best results?
MR: All of the literature shows – and our book also confirms –
that the quotas work better in systems based on proportional
representation, when the districts are larger and the lists are closed. To
that is added the use of penalties. That is the best scenario, and it is
what has happened in Argentina and Costa Rica.

IPS: In general, have the parties lived up to these laws?
MR: Political parties comply with the quotas when they take the form of a
law, with sanctions built in. In cases in which quotas are not obligatory,
there is a tendency to evade them. That has happened in many countries
where parties have adopted voluntary quotas, like in the case of Chile.

Brazil has a quota law that is not fulfilled because there are no
sanctions. That is also the case of Nicaragua.

This sharply differentiates Latin America from Europe, where a large
number of countries have no quota laws, but parties have self-imposed
voluntary quotas, which they have fulfilled – making it unnecessary
to impose a law.

IPS: Are quota laws decisive to the empowerment of women?
MR: That’s a complex question. It seems to me that the process of
debate and approval, the political process generated around the quota
laws, undoubtedly contributes to empowerment.

Latin America’s experience shows that quotas have been adopted where
strong ties have been forged between women’s movements and the women
who are active in political parties.

This strategy of alliances among women is very powerful in bringing
visibility to problems of gender discrimination, and in getting certain
gender issues on the agenda in the long-term.

But there is also debate on how much of an influence the presence of women
(in positions of political influence) has on the forwarding of a gender
agenda.

As affirmative action mechanisms, quotas are fundamentally aimed at
overcoming the exclusion of women in terms of presence and of being able
to exercise a citizen’s right to stand for election in equal
conditions. Quotas also seek to influence the makeup of the candidate
lists that the parties offer voters.

Thus, as a mechanism, it does not resolve a number of other problems that
have to do with the quality of politics and with what the parties offer
citizens, nor does it guarantee that certain issues are going to be on the
agenda.

What is true, and this is shown by the evidence, is that the more women
there are in decision-making spheres, the more likely it is that questions
of gender inequality will be addressed and tackled. There is more debate
and legislation on certain issues, but that is not the same thing as
saying that quotas fix the problem of representation of women’s
interests.

I believe that quotas help, and are necessary but not sufficient.

IPS: What obstacles do women politicians face in performing their
representative function?
MR: Once they are in positions of power, women continue to face
discrimination with respect to their male peers. In many countries,
because they are very few in number, they tend to be relegated to
questions that have traditionally been identified as women’s issues.

So women lawmakers often have difficulties in getting on committees like
defence or the economy, or in attaining positions of influence within the
parliamentary structures. In the case of Argentina, the researchers who
contributed to this book show that women have had quite a lot of
difficulty in becoming chairs of congressional committees.

They also receive different treatment in the media. Women are continually
questioned or grilled about issues with regard to which men are never
questioned.

The media are endlessly preoccupied with the physical appearance of women
politicians: are they heavy-set or slim, do they dress well, do they go to
the hairdresser to get their hair styled, are they good-looking or
unattractive, are they married or single, do they have children, are they
good mothers. So women are subject to this additional pressure, on top of
the already complex job of politics.

IPS: Do you think quota laws have driven cultural changes? Have they
raised awareness among the dominant male leadership on the need to share
power and policy-making spaces with women?
MR: I think they have. At least in some countries there have been
significant moves, especially among young male leaders and in some
political sectors, towards adopting a discourse and strategy that seek
gender parity, above and beyond quotas.

That is the case of Costa Rica, where a constitutional reform aimed at
achieving gender parity in all spheres has been proposed, based on the
concept that women should be represented in all spheres in proportion to
their share of the population.

IPS: In Latin America, do women vote for women? The myth is that they
don’t.
MR: Yes, that’s a myth. The evidence shows that it is a lie. The
problem is that statistics aren’t available in all countries for
studying the issue, but where they are available, like in Chile, Peru and
Mexico, women increasingly show a gender gap in their electoral behaviour.

Women systematically vote for women, more than men vote for men. That is
clear in the case of Chile, where we see that in all elections –
presidential, legislative and municipal – there is a gender gap of
between five and seven percent. If women have female candidates who they
identify with from an ideological standpoint, they prefer to vote for
them.

What we also see in most countries is that men, as voters, are
discriminating less and less against women. All of this shows that for
women in the region, the obstacle is not gaining votes, but being
nominated as candidates by the political parties.

IPS: If there is already quite a lot of evidence on the validity and
effectiveness of gender quotas, to what would you attribute the continued
resistance to them in some countries?
MR: I think there are different kinds of resistance. There is ideological
resistance, in the sense that significant sectors are opposed to
affirmative action policies in general, whether on gender questions or for
indigenous or black people. There is a big legal and political debate with
respect to what these measures imply. The opposition is also to state
intervention in resolving questions that are based on structural
inequalities.

On the other hand, there is strong political resistance from the elites,
especially men, because quotas necessarily imply sharing power, losing
some posts so that women can enter. That involves a much more immediate
strategic calculation of interests, where those involved tend to oppose
any reform that questions their hold on power. That is a key factor in
many countries.

Finally, there are those who believe that quotas run counter, in some
sense, to a "meritocracy." But that reflects a lack of
understanding of how these mechanisms work, because what quotas do in most
countries is simply enable women to be nominated. Voters continue to
decide who makes it to the legislatures.

This discussion is based on a mistaken supposition, which is to think that
the processes by which candidates are currently nominated are based on a
meritocracy, which is not true. We know that in the countries of Latin
America, nomination processes generally tend to be not very transparent,
and that social, political, family and friendship networks play a very
important role. It’s not that men make it on their merits and women
don’t.

IPS: How can progress be made towards gender equity in the executive
and other branches of power?
MR: There have been different experiences. In the case of Chile, a policy
of gender parity has been applied; a quota for the hiring of executive
branch public employees is being applied in Colombia; and in Costa Rica
progress is being made towards making gender parity a constitutional
requirement, in all public spheres.

It is possible to look for a set of mechanisms. But yes, affirmative
action is important, and it is important to get the gender dimension
incorporated for posts that are not popularly elected, like hired or
appointed positions.