The Pacific Islands region has one of the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world. Samoa is set to be the first Pacific independent state to implement a parliamentary gender quota, with a constitutional amendment guaranteeing ten per cent of seats for women currently awaiting third reading. Another Pacific state, Papua New Guinea, came close to instituting 22 reserved seats for women, but failed to amend the electoral law before the 2012 general election. This paper comparatively analyses the campaigns for parliamentary gender quotas in Samoa and Papua New Guinea, to understand the factors that led to success in one case and failure in the other. It will look at the key actors on both sides of the quota debate; their motivations; the arguments used for and against quotas; and how international and local factors influenced the design of the proposed quota and the outcome of the debate. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with key players in the gender quota debates in both countries, this paper examines why the push for a quota succeeded in Samoa and not in Papua New Guinea.
