From Voluntary Party to Legal Electoral Gender Quotas in Slovenia: The Importance and Limitations of Legal and Institutional Mechanisms

When in Slovenia after the first multi-party election in National Assembly (NA) 1992 the share of women MPs dropped dramatically and did not changed a lot during the 1990s women activists and left-oriented female politicians started a struggle for an effective measure to improve this situation. First proposals to introduce quotas for internal party bodies and national election came from women in the center and left-wing political parties but with no visible effect for the presence of women in elected political bodies. It was only when legal quotas have been introduced that they brought significant changes in the representation of women in Slovene politics. This paper will focus on the importance of legal and institutional mechanisms that brought up more women in politics in the last elections at all levels but also on the limitations in the functioning of the quota regulations in the Slovene political and institutional context