Women's representation in Latin American legislatures : current challenges and new directions

Artículo originalThe growing number of women elected to national legislatures in Latin America has led to significant scholarly attention on the consequences of women’s presence in office. In this essay, I offer a brief overview of the literature on women’s substantive representation around the world and evaluate research on Latin America, specifically, in the context of six current debates. I suggest several ways that scholars of women’s representation in Latin America can address the challenges provided by these debates and move the field in new directions. This will contribute to the growing literature on women’s substantive representation, keeps Latin America at the forefront of it, and helps scholars, activists, and politicians better understand how Latin American legislatures are representing women and women’s interest

Die Repräsentation von Frauen in der Politik Lateinamerikas

Gegenwärtig stehen drei Frauen als Präsidentinnen an der Spitze lateinamerikanischer Staaten: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentinien (2011 wiedergewählt), Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica (seit 2010) und Dilma Rousseff in Brasilien (seit 2011). Frauen gewinnen in der Politik in Lateinamerika immer mehr Präsenz. Neben den genannten wurden in der jüngeren Vergangenheit noch drei weitere Frauen ins Präsidentenamt gewählt: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in Nicaragua (1990-1997), Mireya Moscoso de Arias in Panama (1999-2004) und Michelle Bachelet in Chile (2006-2010). Zahlreiche andere Frauen kandidierten chancenreich. In den Parlamenten konnten Frauen dank Geschlechterquoten innerhalb sehr kurzer Zeit viele Mandate erringen. Dennoch sind Frauen von der Ausübung realer politischer Macht noch weit entfernt. Innerhalb lateinamerikanischer Parlamente arbeiten Frauen vor allem daran, frauenpolitische Themen zu vertreten. Trotz stärkerer Präsenz wird die substanzielle Repräsentation von Frauen in Lateinamerika durch ein parlamentarisches Umfeld behindert, das für Frauen den Zugang zu wirklicher politischer Macht blockiert. Weibliche Abgeordnete sind nur selten in Führungspositionen in legislativen Kammern und ebenso wenig im Vorstand von mächtigen und traditionell als der "männlichen" Domäne zugeordneten Ausschüssen zu finden. In der lateinamerikanischen Gesellschaft nehmen Frauen und Männer sowohl die Wahlgesetze zur Förderung von Frauen als auch die Präsenz von Frauen in Parlamenten und das Durchsetzen frauenpolitischer Anliegen als positiv wahr. Die Repräsentation von Frauen führt zudem zu einer größeren Akzeptanz der repräsentativen Demokratie. Zwischen den einzelnen Ländern in Lateinamerika gibt es bezüglich des Frauenanteils in der Politik große Unterschiede. Allerdings ist in allen lateinamerikanischen Demokratien zumindest ein geringer Anstieg der Anzahl weiblicher Abgeordneter zu verzeichnen, und viele Länder haben den Frauenanteil in ihren Parlamenten substanziell verbessert

Looking for locals under a closed-list proportional representation system: The case of Portugal

Parties' motivation to include locals depends on the characteristics of the electoral system. This article analyzes where on the lists parties choose to position locals under closed-list proportional representation systems. Furthermore, it also investigates how that choice varies depending on two key district factors, namely district magnitude and whether or not the district is in a peripheral region. To that end, it draws on an original biographical data set of candidates for the Portuguese National Parliament (1983, 1995, 2002, 2005 and 2009). The findings show that there are fewer locals among the higher positions on the candidates' lists and among heads of lists. District magnitude and peripheral region effects go in the expected direction, but these effects are small.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Party Strategies, Constituency Links, and Legislative Speech

This article examines how parties organize legislative speech. Electoral incentives and legislative institutions affect speech participation. When electoral systems create personal vote-seeking incentives, parties are less concerned with screening speeches and more supportive of members seeking to garner name recognition. But in many countries, legislative rules and norms constrain opportunities for individual position taking during the lawmaking debates. We argue that parties resolve this dilemma by organizing speech participation into nonlegislative speeches and lawmaking debates. In each instance, different types of legislators are more likely to speak. We examine the case of Chile and test the implications of our theory with data on congressional speeches

The problem of constitutional legitimation: what the debate on electoral quotas tells us about the legitimacy of decision-making rules in constitutional choice

Proponents of electoral quotas have a ‘dependent interpretation’ of democracy, i.e. they have formed an opinion on which decision-making rules are fair on the basis of their prior approval of the outcomes these rules are likely to generate. The article argues that this position causes an irresolvable problem for constitutional processes that seek to legitimately enact institutional change. While constitutional revision governed by formal equality allows the introduction of electoral quotas, this avenue is normatively untenable for proponents of affirmative action if they are consistent with their claim that formal equality reproduces biases and power asymmetries at all levels of decision-making. Their critique raises a fundamental challenge to the constitutional revision rule itself as equally unfair. Without consensus on the decision-making process by which new post-constitutional rules can be legitimately enacted, procedural fairness becomes an issue impossible to resolve at the stage of constitutional choice. This problem of legitimation affects all instances of constitutional choice in which there are opposing views not only about the desired outcome of the process but also about the decision-making rules that govern constitutional choice