The connection between electoral systems, quotas, and women’s descriptive representation has been extensively researched. We know that proportional representation (PR) systems with closed lists and high district magnitudes, combined with well-institutionalized party systems that have centralized candidate selection rules, are the most likely to produce high numbers of women in political office. Further the presence of gender quotas across a broad range of electoral systems has increased women’s descriptive presence in parliaments worldwide. Less is known, however, about the ways in which quotas, as new electoral rules, interact with existing electoral systems and party nomination procedures to affect women’s substantive representation.
We develop a theoretical framework to examine how quotas function within party-centred versus candidate-centred electoral systems to affect representatives’ legislative behaviour. We suggest that, although party-centred systems (with centralized candidate selection procedures) have produced relatively high numbers of women’s representation, female legislators in these systems are more limited in their ability to advocate for issues that disproportionately affect their female constituents. Conversely, although candidate-centred systems (with decentralized nomination procedures) may present greater barriers for women to enter office, when women do gain access to political decision-making they have more legislative space to substantively represent women in ways that may lie outside male-dominated party lines. Further, we argue that quota policies reinforce party loyalty in party-centred electoral systems further circumscribing female representatives’ ability to act for women in these types of systems.
We test our theory through a paired comparison of Uganda and Namibia, which are similar on a host of political and economic characteristics, but differ in their electoral systems, nomination procedures, and quota implementation. We use original data, including surveys of parliamentarians as well as quantitative content analyses of legislators’ plenary speeches, to test for differences in female MPs’ ability to substantively represent women’s legislative interests across cases.
