Download Is Gender like Ethnicity?

Is Gender like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups
Author(s): Mala Htun
Source: Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 439-458
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Articles
Is
Gender
like
Ethnicity?
of
Identity
Representation
The
Political
Groups
Mala Htun
Some 50 countriesofficiallyallocateaccessto politicalpowerby gender,ethnicity,or both.Yetin theworld'selectoraldemocracies,
fromthoseusedforethnicgroups.The formerreceivecandidatequotasin parties;
the policiesusedforwomendiffersystematically
the latter,reservedseatsin legislatures.
Why?My explanationfocuseson thevaryingwaysthatgenderandethnicidentitiesintersect
with partisancleavagesand on the distinct"work"performedby the differentremediesfor underrepresentation.
Quotas,which
which
makespacewithin existingparties,areappropriatefor groupswhose boundariescrosscutpartisandivisions.Reservations,
suit groupswhoseboundaries
createincentivesfor the formationof group-specificpartiesand permitthem directrepresentation,
coincidewith politicalcleavages.Sincegenderis crosscuttingwhileethnicitytendsto be coinciding,womenreceivecandidatequoClaimsforinclusionviaquotasposelessof a challengeto liberalinstitutionsthan
taswhileethnicgroupsget legislativereservations.
Casestudiesof representational
claimsto differencethroughlegislativereservations.
politicsin France,India,andPeruillustratethe
argument.
Political
leaderstakeourmoney,leadus to war,andwrite
the laws that govern our lives. Must their ranksinclude
men and women, rich and poor, mastersand slaves?For
most of world history,the answerwas no. Men ruled;women
worked at home. Female interests were representedby husbands and fathers.The same was true for membersof subordinate ethnic groups:conquerorswould carefor colonialsubjects,
the rich for the poor, whites for browns, and so on.
As the twentieth century progressed,however,a consensus
emerged in internationalsociety and within democraticpolities that one social segment should not monopolize political
power.Specialeffortsweremade to includepreviouslyexcluded
groups-generally defined in terms of gender and ethnicity.
Today,some 50 countries officially allocate access to political
power along the lines of gender,ethnicity,1or both: they have
lawson the books reservinga fixednumberof electoralcandidacies or legislativeseats.Narrowingthe focus to electoraldemocracies revealsa fascinatingpattern:institutional remedies for
the underrepresentationof women and ethnic minorities (or
Mala Htun is assistantprofessorofpolitical scienceat the New
Schoolfor Social Research([email protected])
and
authorof Sex and the State:Abortion, Divorce, and the
Familyunder LatinAmericanDictatorshipsand Democracies. Theauthorgratefullyacknowledges
theassistanceand advice
Kanchan
Chandra,
of
JorgeDominguez,JenniferHochschild,
MarkJones,Courtneyung,Jim Miller,VictoriaMurillo,JackSnyder,Donna Lee VanCott,MyraWaterbury,
participantsin colat
the
New
School
and
Columbia
University,and
loquia
reviewers.
anonymous
majorities)assumedistinct forms.Women tend to receivecandidate quotas in political parties, whereas ethnic groups are
grantedreservedseats in legislatures.
How does gender differ from ethnicity?Why do democracies apply distinct policies to different previously excluded
groups?What does this imply about the normativestatus of
variousclaims to representationand the appropriateresponse
of liberalstates?
This article argues that different remedies for underrepresentation are logically appropriatefor differentgroups. Quotas, which make space within existing parties, suit groups
whose boundaries crosscut partisan divisions. Reservations,
which create incentives for the formation of group-specific
parties and permit them direct legislative representation,
suit groups whose boundaries coincide with political cleavages.Whereasgender tends to be crosscutting,ethnicity tends
to be coinciding. Women and men belong to all political
parties; members of ethnic groups, by contrast, frequently
belong to one only. In countries where it is mobilized, ethnicity is a central, if not the central principle of political
behavior;gender,though occasionallya consideration,almost
never defines how individuals vote and what parties they
affiliatewith.
Of course, actual politics do not always conform to functional requirements.Historicallegaciesmay get in the way of
with suitablepolicies.Thus counmatchinggroupcharacteristics
tries with traditionsof ethnic reservationshave given reserved
seats to women; one with a gender candidate quota applied
similar quotas to ethnic minorities. Yet when it applies the
"wrong"remedy, the state neglects the true causes of underrepresentationand fails to grant group membersrealaccessto
power. As we see in the Indian and Peruviancases discussed
September 2004 i Vol. 2/No. 3 439
Articles
I Is Genderlike Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
'
below, supposed beneficiariesof
..
.
these unwelcome remedies may
iprotest them and demand alternative policies.
Though the divergence between the modes of gender and
!:
ethnic representationcuts across
many countries, it has received
no scholarlyattention.We know
a great deal about women's
movements and women in pol_
itics, and a growing number of
works focus on gender quotas.
|
Hundredsof scholarshave studied ethnicidentityformationand
,.:..
mobilization; the causes and
consequences of conflict; and
institutional solutions for i.
dividedsocieties.Fewworksanalyze representational politics
acrossidentities.2Such a comparison is needed, however, if we are to understandwhy policy
solutions to women's underrepresentationdivergeso dramatically from those applied to ethnic groups. Comparing gender
and ethnicity also revealsthat claims made on these differing
bases have different implications for the liberalstate.
Group Representation Policies
Table 1 identifies countries with statutory gender quotas or
reservations,ethnic quotas or reservations,or both. (For descriptions of these policies, see tables la and lb at the end of
this article.)3As table 1 shows, about 50 countries use such
mechanisms, including old and new democracies; rich and
poor countries;Catholic, Protestant,Islamic, Confucian, and
Hindu societies; federaland unitary systems;and presidential
and parliamentaryregimes. Dozens of other countries without statutory measures uphold effective political arrangements to guarantee group representation, such as quotas
used voluntarily by political parties in over 30 countries; the
race-consciousdistricting practiced in the United States;and
the applicationof lower electoralthresholdsfor minority political organizationsin Denmark, Germany,Poland, and Romania. Notwithstanding the importance of these voluntary
arrangements,this paper is concerned exclusivelywith statutory mechanisms. Reliable cross-nationaldata on party statutes, their interpretation, and their enforcement were not
available.This is a fertile area for future research,since additional data have the potential to change the findings reported
here.4
Policiesto guaranteegroup representationgenerallyassume
one of two forms: candidate nomination quotas in political
partiesor legislativereservations.Quotas requirethat a minimum number of candidatesfielded by political partiesfor general election have certain demographic characteristics.The
ArgentineLeyde Cupos(or Quota Law of 1991), for example,
requiresthat women comprise a minimum of 30 percent of
440
Perspectives on Politics
8
0
4e
Is
0.
0
political party lists. Reservationsor reservedseats set aside a
fixed percentageof legislative seats for members of a certain
group. These may be filled through competitive election in
specially created districts (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribesin India), through election by voters registeredon separate rolls (Maoris in New Zealand), by the group member
receiving the most votes in general elections (constitutionally
recognized ethnic groups in Mauritius), or through designation by political parties (minorities in Pakistan).
Statesadopted these policies at differenthistoricalmoments.
In some countries, collective representationalrights constitute
part of the bargainstruck to ensure the viability of democracy
in a plural society. In such "consociational"or "consensus"
polities, each group is guaranteeda shareof power to preclude
secession and civil war. Other countries introduced collective
rights rather recently in response to the growth of identitybasedsocial movementsand their demandsfor the recognition
of culturaldiversity.These claims have mobilized concern for
the question of whether elites in power resemble,in their personal characteristicsand life experiences,the people they represent, thus transforminggroup representationfrom a matter
of state survivalinto a question of democraticlegitimacy and
social justice.
Considerabledebate surroundsthese policies. Liberalcritics
argue that granting rights to identity groups treats them as
essential givens, failing to acknowledge their dynamism and
fluidity, as well as internal injustices suffered by some members. Existing liberal institutions, moreover, can resolve the
domination and oppression inflicted on social groups since
these wrongs are ultimately suffered by individuals.5 Civic
republicansclaim that group-differentiatedrights undermine
common citizenship and rendersuspect a public good toward
which society could be oriented,6 while libertarians allege
that collective rights benefit the already privileged, increase
in-group inequality, and aggravatesocial divisions.7 Finally,
Table 1
Statutory group representation policies
For gender
For ethnicity
For both gender and ethnicity
Bhutan
Argentina
Belgium
Armenia
Croatia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Colombia
Bangladesh
Cyprus
Bolivia
India
Ethiopia
Brazil
Jordan
Fiji
Costa Rica
Kiribati
Pakistan
Lebanon
Peru
Djibouti
DominicanRepublic
Mauritius
Serbia and Montenegro
Ecuador
New Zealand
Taiwan
France
Niger
Greece
Samoa
Guyana
Singapore
Macedonia
Slovenia
Mexico
Switzerlanda
Morocco
Venezuela
Namibia
Nepal
NorthKorea
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Rwanda
Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
NOTE:Electoral
democraciesare in italics(FreedomHouse2003).
aSwitzerland's
cabinetseats by languagegroupis nottechnically
practiceof distributing
required
by
law,butis a deeplyentrenchedcustom(Steiner1990;Steiner2002).
socialscientistshavefound that policiespromotingthe descriptive representationof minorities may actuallyend up harming
their substantiverepresentation:for example, the creation of
so-called majority-minoritydistrictshelps to put more blacks
and Latinos in the U.S. House of Representatives,but it may
also facilitatethe election of legislatorselsewherewho areideologically hostile to their interests.8
Defenders of quotas and reservationspoint out that group
rights do not constitute a majordeparturefrom existing democratic practices.After all, some form of collective representation is inherent to the political process.As Justice Lewis E
Powell put it in a 1968 voting rights opinion, "The concept
of representationnecessarilyapplies to groups;groups of voters elect representatives;individualsdo not."9 Single-member
district systems define such groups by territory;other electoral regimes, such as national-list proportional representation, accommodate non-geographicallybased constituencies.
Liberal polities such as the United States and Canada have
traditionallydrawn geographicaldistrict boundaries around
"communitiesof interest,"be they regional, economic, environmental, or historical; by granting an equal number of
seats to states regardlessof population, the U.S. and Australian Senatesoffer privilegesto residentsof smaller,potentially
disadvantagedstates.10The point is that political institutions
inevitablymake decisions about the types of groups that gain
representation. Quotas and
reserved seats differ in degree,
but not in kind, from the everyday work states alreadyperform
on politically-relevant social
identities.
Gender Quotas and
Ethnic Reservations
in Electoral
Democracies
When we consider only electoral democracies, the following pattern emerges:states give
candidatequotasin politicalparties to women and reservedseats
in legislatures to members of
ethnic groups. As table 2 demonstrates, there are only four
exceptions to this rule. The
probability that a democracy
with group rights for women
will have candidate quotas is
0.86; in countries with measuresguaranteeingethnic representation,the probabilityis 0.94
that these take the form of legislative reservations.
What accounts for this divergencein modalitiesof genderand
ethnic representation?My argument can be summarizedin the following syllogism: (1) candidate quotas are more appropriatefor groups that crosscut
partisancleavages,while reservationssuit groups that coincide
with them; (2) gender identities tend to cut across parties,
whereas ethnic identities often overlap with partisan affiliations; (3) consequently,disadvantagedgroups that aredefined
by gender demand, and are granted,candidatequotas;ethnic
groups prefer,and receive,legislativereservations.
Quotasfor crosscuttinggroups; reservationsfor
coinciding ones
To understandthe differentuses of the two types of policies,
we must first explore the distinct means they use to improve
the representationof identitygroups.Quotas intervenein party
nomination proceduresby requiringthat a certainpercentage
of the candidatesfielded by a party be of a certaingroup. For
example, the quota may demand that around one-third of
positions on party lists be occupied by women and that they
alternatewith men in the rankorderingof candidates,as is the
casein Argentina,Costa Rica,Belgium,and Guyana.1'A quota
policy may thereforeprovokesome changesin the ways parties
go about nominating candidates,formulatinglists, and deciding who runs in what district. However, it does not alter the
overallstructureof incentives governing the political system.
Specifically,quotas do not affect issuessuch as counting rules,
September 2004 1 Vol. 2/No. 3
441
Articles
I Is Gender like Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
Table 2
Group representation rights in electoral democraci
Candidatequotas in parties
Peru
~a
as> ~a
Legislativereservations
Belgium
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
trast, guaranteegroup members
shareof power independently,
if need be, of existing parties.
Their objective is to facilitate
autonomy of political communities and electoral success of
group-specificparties.
Figure 1 depicts the location
of
crosscutting and coinciding
Fdii
India
groups in the party system. We
Kiribati
see that members of a crosscutMauritius
New Zealand
ting group belong to all parties,
whereas those of a coinciding
Niger
Samoa
tend to belong to a single
Serbia and Montenegro group
party, a set of political organiSlovenia
zations, or no party. Figure 2
Switzerland
Taiwan
illustratesthe "work"done by a
Venezuela
well-designed candidate quota.
Gender
The policy attacksthe discrimiArgentina
Bangladesh
Armenia
India(local)
nation sufferedby group memTaiwan
Belgium
in the party but permits
~bers
Tai~wan
Bolivia
to continue militating in
them
Brazil
it. Meanwhile, the party gains
Costa Rica
DominicanRepublic
representation in legislatures
Ecuador
through regularelectoralproceFrance
The demographiccharacdures.
Greece (local)
of its delegations may
teristics
Guyana
Macedonia
change, but the rules of interMexico
party competition remain the
Namibia(local)
same.
Panama
Figure 1 helps us see why a
Paraguay
candidatequotawould makelitPeru
tle sense for a coinciding group.
Serbia and Montenegro
is gained by makingspace
What
aAs identifiedby FreedomHouse in 2003. The table includesonly 1those countriesconsidered
for group members within all
electoraldemocracies.
partieswhen they tend to cluster at one end of the political
spectrum? In fact, a candidate
a
undermine
the
structure
minority group'spolitical organizaquota might
timing, the circumscriptionof electoraldistricts,
tions as its partisanopponents snatch up groupleadersin order
of the ballot, and so on that have been shown to exertthe most
to complywith the quota. Finally,figure3 clarifiesthe mechanpowerfuleffectson voter behavior,the partysystem, and interics of legislativereservations.They permita group'sparty,organal party structure.12
nizations, or independent representativesto gain power on
Reservationstakea differentapproach.They introducegrouptheir own and may furnishadditionalincentivesfor formation
specific avenuesof representationthat circumventthe existing
of minority parties.
partysystemand createnew electoralincentives.These include
In theory, a proportionalrepresentation(PR) electoralsysthe creation of: separateelectoral rolls, special electoral distem, particularlyone with low thresholds,would facilitatethe
tricts that limit competition to group members,exceptions to
representationof group-specificpartiesand organizations.PR
counting rules, and provisions for direct appointment to the
also avoidsa situation in which the state is compelled to assign
legislature.
individualsto specific groups (as requiredby the maintenance
Candidate quotas thus presume a differentsort of problem
of ethnic voter rolls or the reservationof certain districts for
from that addressedby reservations.The goal of quotas is to
take a categoryof people who belong to, but suffer from disgroup members), a practice that contradicts the fluidity and
contextual nature of many ethnic identities. In addition, PR
crimination in, mainstreamparties and propel them to posiis flexible, permitting the automatic adjustment of representions wherein they stand a chance of popularelection. Quotas
tational relationshipsto changing demographicsand political
thereforeprovidea means of assimilationand integrationinto
interests. Divided legislatures and reserved seat ratios, by
already existing political institutions. Reservations,by conEthnic
442
Perspectives on Politics
Figure 1
Cross-cutting versus coinciding groups
Cross-cutting groups
0Q
QO
0?
O@
@0
Party A
@?
Qo
QO
_ I
*Q
Party B
Party C
Coinciding groups
P0
00
00
00
Party A
Party B
Party C
contrast,often containno provisionfor periodicupdatingbased
on new census data.13Some countries, however,may opt for
reservedseatsin orderto preservean existingtwo-partysystem
a minor(unlikelyto be maintainedunderPR), to overrepresent
to
offer
access
to
as
ity,
privileged
power compensation for
historicaldisadvantage,or to name a particulargroupas deserving unique status.14
Crosscuttinggender versus coinciding ethnicity
The next step is to examine variation in the extent to which
gender and ethnic identities actually correspond to partisan
cleavages. For much of world history, politics has been the
exclusivedomain of men. Women gained the right to vote and
stand for office only in the twentieth century.Since the early
daysof genderintegrationin politics, however,politicalparties
have counted on both men and women as supporters.There
are few instancesof partiesdefined by gender, and none have
consistently won elections. To be sure, different parties send
men and women to office to varyingdegrees:women comprise
a largerportion of legislativedelegationsof the Left than those
of the Right. One reason is that the former have been more
likely to adopt voluntarycandidatequotas than the latter. 5 To
reduce the electoral advantagesuch policies may provide to
their opponents, partiesof the Right in severalcountrieshave
respondedby introducing, if not alwaysexplicit quotas, other
forms of affirmativeaction to improve women's opportuni-
ties.16Partypositions may differon women'srightsissuessuch
as abortion, but are converging-at least in theory-on the
goal of gender parityin representationalpolitics.
What about the gender gap? In advanced democracies,
women tend to vote for leftist partiesin greaternumbersthan
men. A few decadesago (and in many partsof the developing
world today) the opposite transpired:support for the Right
was greateramong women.17Though analysesof these phenomena tend to center on women's views, there is evidence
that men are the ones changing:in the United States at least,
transpositionof the gender gap is due to majorshifts in men's
The gap peakedin the U.S. presidential
partisanpreferences.18
of
when
elections 1996,
54 percentof women voted for Democrat Bill Clinton, as opposed to 43 percent of men.19While
significant for party strategy,these percentage point differences are small comparedto the overallvolume of female and
male support for variouspartiesand candidates.
The size of genderdifferencesin partysupportcontrastsvividly with the ethnicallyinflectedpoliticaldivisionscharacterizing manypluralsocieties.In patronagedemocraciessuchasIndia,
politics is driven by ethnic head counting.20Linguistic divisions in heterogeneousEuropeancountriessuch as Belgiumand
Switzerlandmap onto party-and party system-divisions.21
A largenumber of postcolonialsocieties in Africaand Asia are
dominatedby partieswhose relianceon the supportof exclusive
ethnicgroupslendsa "census-likequality"to elections.22In these
contexts and in the post-communist world, progresstoward
democratizationoften exacerbatedthe ethnic characterof politics, sometimeswith violent consequences.23Nine Israeliparties representingdistinct ethnic and religiousgroups came to
occupy nearlyhalf of the Knessetseats in the 1990s.24African
Americansin the United Statesidentify overwhelminglywith
the DemocraticPartyand evidenceof the salienceof racein predicting voting behaviorlies behind U.S. federalcourts'validation of districtingarrangementsdesignedto permit all citizens
to "electa candidateof their choice."25Even LatinAmericais
witnessingthe growthof ethnicparties:in the 1990s, thosemobilizing indigenous voters successfullycontested national elections in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,Guyana, and Venezuela
and local contests in Argentinaand Nicaragua.26
Ethnic boundariesare not always politically loaded, however, and not everyonehas a communal experienceof ethnicity. Its coincidencewith partisanand ideologicalcleavagesand
geographicconcentration is the effect of historical construction as well as political manipulation. Ethnic groups in some
countries, such as Afro-descendentsin Brazil, have features
usuallyassociatedwith genderidentity,such as low geographic
segregationand little correlationwith voting behavioror party
affiliation.Consequently,the affirmativeaction bill underconsideration in the BrazilianCongress calls for racialquotas in
parties,not for reservedseats in the legislature.27The stacking
of ethnicity on salient social divisions is the product, not the
premise, of a political process, an outcome to which the allocation of specific representationalrights surelycontributes.
For these reasons,there is an active debate among political
scientists about which types of institutions can best mold
September 2004
Vol. 2/No. 3
443
Articles
I Is Gender like Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentation of IdentityGroups
Figure 2
What quotas do
ethnic boundariescorrespondto
other salient cleavages.Gender
identities, however, almost always cut across them.
Step 1: Parties to lists
Party lists
>
Party
members -
Q
6
O
m
Party
Party A
Q
@?
i
receive quotas; ethnic
rWomen
'
groups receive reserved seats
Finally, we must establish that
,
V1
-Q
gender-baseddemandscenteron
quotas and that this is relatedto
the fact that women are spread
*
fi
Q
throughoutthe partysystem.We
^
need to show that the prefalso
?O,
of ethnic groups for
Jy (~erence
reserved seats flows from their
tendency to cluster in a single
party or organization.
Let us begin by analyzingcandidate quotas.Their diffusion is
a relativelyrecent phenomenon
resultingfromseveraltrends.The
first is the growth of the secondwavefeminist movement,which
identified male dominance in
political life as a problem and
questionedthe legitimacyof polities that tolerate it. Feminist
activismhelped forge new international norms of genderequality.Majoragreements,suchasthe
on the Elimination
Convention
~
?
Q EJ~ Oof
All Forms of Discrimination
AgainstWomen (CEDAW) and
the Platformfor Action adopted
*e
by governments at the 1995
Fourth World Conference on
@
Women in Beijing,endorseaffirmativeaction. Internationaland
(*)
regionalorganizations,suchasthe
*
B
Party B
Step 2: Parties to legislature
Legislature
^^??~
^O
(O?
*
Party A
ethnicity to promote democratic stability.Arend Lijpharthas
long advocated proportional representationand power sharing, policies that preservegroup identity but encouragecooperationamong ethnic elites. Donald Horowitz favorselectoral
rules that encouragepoliticians to make appealsacrossethnic
lines. And KanchanChandrahas found that when state institutions create incentives for politicians to mobilize different
dimensions of ethnic identity-by authorizing positive discrimination by caste, granting access to government jobs by
language, or recognition of statehood by tribe-ethnic parties will compete to occupy the center, thus avertingthe centrifugal spiral that undermines democracy.28Depending on
these institutional configurationsand other factors, ethnicity
is manifestin variedways in differentsocieties. Often enough,
444
Perspectives on Politics
United Nations, the European
Union, the Southern African
Development Community, the
Summitof the Americas,and the Associationof SoutheastAsian
Nations, have declaredthat growth in women'sleadershipcontributesto democraticconsolidation and economic and social
progress.
Another factor was the development of normative arguments that identified the gender composition of legislaturesas
an indicator of justice and the quality of democracy.Quota
advocates reconceptualizedpolitical equality to include not
just the right to vote and stand for office, but to bepresentin
office. A homogeneous legislatureof men, they argued, violates this fundamentalright. Meanwhile, partisansof deliberative democracystressedthe need for representativesto share
experienceswith their constituentsin orderto adequatelycommunicate citizen views in open-ended political deliberation.
PartyC
onist and Radical parties in
Argentina; the Party of the
Democratic Revolution and
National Action Party in Mexico; and the socialists, Rally for
the Republic,and the Union for
French Democracy in France
~
joined together to defeat the
Legislature
*l
5^
arguments of male colleagues
that quotas were undemocratic
and unconstitutional."Although
all women may not agree on
the substance of specific policy
outcomes, they do have a common interest in being present
when policy is being made."31
These politicians did not seek
^ ,p\
to form a separate women's
~party. Rather, they united in
'_~{}
0@
0@
{?
temporary alliances to maximize their leveragein demanding greater power within their
respectiveparties.
No Party
Party B
Party C
Party A
Second,mostpoliticiansregard
quotas as a temporarymeasure.
As morewomen gainpower,they
feminists
that
more
in
maintained
women
)reak
down
the
obstacles
Finally,
power
having
holding others back. Over time,
would introduce additional perspectivesto decision making
uota will become obsolete.
and tailor policy outcomes to suit a broadervarietyof citizen
nally,women'sactivismaroundquotas has been episodic.
interests.Ann Phillips sums up these variousdevelopmentsas
the adoption of quota laws, women'scoalitions have disa reorientationof democratictheory and practicefrom a "poled as their membersreturnedto their priorcommitments
itics of ideas"to a "politicsof presence."29
)ecamereabsorbedinto their parties.In some countriesa
law
in
Influcandidate
1991.
Argentinapioneered
quota
bly Argentina, Costa Rica, Belgium, and Guyanaenced by the successof candidatequotas in the SpanishSocialen'spresencein power increasedsignificantlyas a resultof
ist Party,Argentine female politicians from different parties
uota. Yet the feminization of legislativedelegations has
united behind the proposal.Though it was initially ridiculed
roducedmajorchangesin whatpartiesactuallydo. Though
women politicians have introducedfresh items to politby men, last-minute persuasionby PresidentCarlos Menem
and his interior minister helped to overcome this resistance.
igendas, their collective presence has thus far failed to
uce major shifts in policy and practice.32
Subsequently, the policy snowballed across the region. By
the end of the decade, ten other Latin American countries
hnic demands for reservations have followed a quite
had adopted legislative quotas, and an eleventh, Colombia,
*entpolitical logic. Ratherthan improvingthe legitimacy
introduced them for senior executiveappointments. Belgium
ready existing democracies, the granting of reserved
introduced a law in 1994 that states that a maximum of
has tended to occur as part of a founding compromise
two-thirdsof all candidatescould be of the same sex; in 1999
nsociational or consensus polities. In these countries,
France modified its constitution to call for gender parity in
legislatures, the allocation of ministerial portfolios
office
and
enacted
to
political
legislation requiring parties
hnicity, or fixed ratios of parliamentaryseats form part
field an equal number of men and women candidates.Meane elite bargainsnecessaryto make democracy possible.
while, under the influence of the United Nations, the Orgagroup has a constitutional share of power, giving it an
nization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),
tive not to defect from the existing political regime and
and the Stability Pact for South-CentralEurope, quota rules
rmine the survival of the state. As opposed to quotas,
were inserted into the electorallaws of most countries of the
h improve the leadership prospects of group members
former Yugoslavia,including Bosnia and Herzegovina,Macn existing parties, reservationspresume the existence of
edonia, and Serbia, including Kosovo.30
p-specificparties or organizations. Groups demanding
Three aspects of women's mobilization for gender quotas
vationsdo not want to be integrated into mainstream
stand out. First, multipartisanand ideologicallydiversecoalies. They want access to political power in their own
tions have backed the new policies. Women from the Per-
Figure 3
What reservations do
September 2004 1Vol. 2/No, 3 445
Articles | Is Genderlike Ethnicity?
The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
In Belgium, the constitution requiresthat there be an equal
number of French- and Dutch-speakingministers in the federalgovernmentand in the governmentof the Brusselsregion,
with the parliamentdivided between these two languagecommunities and their respectiveparty systems. In Switzerland,
language group quotas are used not only in the federalcouncil,33 but in other areas of government (such as the armed
forces) and in society as a whole (such as the executive committee of the Swiss soccer association).3 Lebanon is another
classic story of how ethnic reservationshelped forge the state.
The National Pact of 1943 reserved all major offices-the
president was to be a Maronite; the prime minister a Sunni;
the speakerof the house a Shiite; and so on-and fixed the
ethnic composition of the parliamentat a 6:5 ratio of Christians to Muslims.35
Elsewhere,the ethnic allocation of political power was codified in peace agreementsfollowing civil wars. International
mediators, with an eye toward establishing pluralist polities,
helped installforms of powersharingin virtuallyall of the new
statesformedafterthe breakupof Yugoslavia.Bosniaand Herzegovina has a three-memberpresidency comprised of a Bosniak, Serb,and Croat,aswell as a bicamerallegislativeassembly
dividedbetweenthesethreecommunities.In Serbiaand Montenegro, the bicameralfederallegislatureis divided between Serbians and Montenegrans. In Kosovo, seats are reserved in
parliamentfor Serbs, Roma, and other ethnic groups. (In less
polarizedCroatia and Slovenia, a smallernumber of seats are
reservedfor minorities.)36Other countries inherited powersharingfrom formercolonial rulers.In Fiji, the ethnic reservation of parliamentaryseats dates from colonial times, when
the British authorities sought to separateindigenous Fijians
from Indo-Fijiansand install themselves as mediators.After
the country'sindependence,the vast majorityof parliamentary
seats continued to be reservedby ethnicity.37
Some reservationspolicies reflect attempts to compensate
victims of slavery,colonialism,or a castesystemfor pastoppression. India'sreservationsfor Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes are intended to amelioratethe historic discrimination
sufferedby those at the lowest rungs of the caste system. New
Zealand'swhite rulersmade a similar attempt to compensate
oppressed minorities: the Maori RepresentationAct of 1867
installed four representativesin a legislatureof over 70 members.The number of seats laterincreasedto seven (representatives areelected by voterswho voluntarilyregisterfor a separate
Maori roll).38
In the late twentieth century, some disadvantagedethnic
groups demanded rights during constitutional reforms.
Respondingto indigenous mobilization, the Colombian Constitution (1991) createda two-seat senatorialdistrict for Indians and permitted the reservationof up to five seats in the
lower house for ethnic groups and other political minorities.
Venezuela had a similar experience:the 1999 constitutional
reform establishedthree reservedseats for "indigenouscommunities"in the nationalassemblyand permittedsocial movement organizationsto contest them, thus eliminatingthe party
registration barrier. In both countries, these seats granted
446
Perspectives on Politics
resourcesand visibility to indigenous partiesand movements;
as a result, they successfullycontested general elections and
gained power in local governance.39With the exception of
Peru, democratic states have always conferred ethnic group
rights in the form of reservations.
The Argument in Action
France,India, and Peruillustratethe theoreticalpropositionsI
haveadvanced.FranceandIndiashowus politicalactorsengaged
in pragmaticdebates,ponderingthe differencebetweengender
and ethnicity,though to opposite ends. Both honed in on the
crosscuttingnatureofgender.In France,thissupportedwomen's
claimsto representation;in India,it underminedit. Comparing
Indiaand Peruemphasizesa differentpoint. Though the countriesseem like exceptionsto my argument(see their location in
table 2), in fact they support it. India initially grantedreservationsto ethnicminorities,andPeruintroducedquotasforwomen.
Both governmentslatertried to apply the same policy to a differenttype of group:Indianwomen got reservationsand Peruvian indigenouspeoples receivedquotas.The two policieswere
subsequentlycriticizedby their alleged beneficiaries.By mismatching groupsand remedies,the Indian and Peruvianstates
not only failedto addressthe underlyingcausesof disadvantage,
but arguablyjeopardizedwomen'sand indigenouspeople'squest
for political equality.
Parite in France
In June 2000 the Frenchparliamentapproveda law requiring
that parties field an equal number of male and female candidates in legislativeelections. This turn of events is surprising
in a country that has prided itself on a republicantraditionof
an indivisible body politic and has long forbidden official
distinctions among citizens in terms of sex, race, ethnicity,
and religion. In fact, these nondiscriminationprincipleswere
invoked by the SupremeCourt in a 1982 decision that struck
down a quota law passed by Congress (the law would have
banned one sex from occupying more than 75 percent of the
places on lists of candidates for municipal elections). The
French court claimed that gender preferencescontradicted
republicanprinciplesof equalityand unity, which dictate that
citizens representthe nation as a whole, not discrete groups
or categories.40
Advocates of women's representationthus had to make a
case that their preferredpolicies were compatiblewith republican universalism.This requireddemonstratingthat the existing model was flawed for failing to incorporatesex differences
and that gender parity would not legitimize representational
rightsfor other social groups.Gender,they argued,is a unique
form of social difference.
Unlike ethnicity, race, and religion, which are socially constructed and changeable categories, sex is universal and
permanent:
Women do not constitute a category analogous to minorities, but half
of humanity, and their status is immutable. The young grow older,
one can change one's religion, people of color can intermix with
is widespread-,workersmayswitchprofesothers-miscegenation
sions,andso on. Butonceoneis borna manorwoman,onedoesnot
rarecaseof transsexuals).41
change(savein theextremely
which stressesthe unity
Both traditionalFrench"universalism,"
of men and women, and contemporaryAmerican"particularism," which collapses sex into other forms of difference, are
thereforemisguided. PhilosopherSylviaAgacinski,wife of former Socialist PremierLionel Jospin, arguesthat both political
traditionshave denied the real natureof sex:
bothsexesinanabstract
effacement
The"French"
byengulfing
proceeds
fromwhichonlythesingular
modelof a sexually
neutral
humanism,
effacementproceeds
human being can surface.... The "American"
in whichminoriwomenin a systematic
by drowning
particularism
tiesof allsorts(ethnic,religious,
cultural,
etc.)aregroupedtogether,
...
and bothsexesend up beingconsidered
pure"constructions."
boththese
feminism
simultaneously
Today,thenewFrench
challenges
in affirming
sexualdualityas the only
typesof sexualneutralization
Thisis whyit wasableto conwithinhumanity.
universal
difference
ceiveof thepariteidealin politics.42
The fact of sexual differencedivides humanity in two. As a
result, a republicanpolity that claims to include all citizens,
but in which only men hold power,unjustlyprivilegesone half
over the other. Parityfeminists did not want their arguments
to be leveled againsta legislatureof white Catholics, however.
Since sex is the only universalcategory,women arenot like any
other social group.
With this stance, parityadvocateswere able to anchor their
movement within republican discourse and find allies from
the mainstreamof Frenchpolitics.By denyingthat paritywould
or should lead to a cascadeof demands for other representational rights, they made their case more palatable.What is
more, they focused on the narrow objective of getting the
paritybill passed,and not broaderconsiderations,such as socioeconomic equality and policy change. By avoiding questions
aboutthe substantiverepresentation
of women'sinterests,French
feminists of diversepolitical and ideological stripeswere able
to smooth over their differencesand unite in a nonpartisan
movement. This also helped defray fears that right-wing and
conservativewomen would be attackedor disqualified,and by
the mid-1990s, most politicians had jumped on the parity
bandwagon.When it came to a vote in the national assembly,
the parityproposals-both the constitutionalamendmentand
the implementing legislation-were approved unanimously.
Following promulgation of the law, however, the large and
diverse movement began to disperse.What had held participants togetherwas support for parity,not a more comprehensive policy agenda or a sharedhistory of activism.43
The parity law worked well in the 2001 municipal elections, since municipal councilorsare elected under a semiproportionalclosed-listsystemand partieswererequiredto include
threewomen for every three men on the list. In cities of more
than 3,500 inhabitants where the parity law was applied,
women's presence on municipal councils rose to 48 percent.
Yet at the national level, where deputies are elected by the
first-past-the-postsystemin single-memberdistricts,the results
weredisappointing.Preferringto sufferfinancialpenaltiesrather
than comply with the quota, the center Right UMP nominated women to less than 20 percent of the districtswhere it
rana candidate,and even the SocialistPartynominatedwomen
to only 36 percent of districts.Most of these were losing districtsand the numberof women in the assemblybarelyincreased
(from 62 to 71 out of 576, or to 12 percent of the total).44
Reservationspolicy in India
Whereas the French state acknowledgedsocial difference in
the law only at the end of the twentieth century,in India such
recognition has a long tradition. Legislativereservationsfor
minoritieswere introducedduring Britishrule. FirstMuslims
(in 1909), then Christiansand Sikhs (in 1919) were granted
separateelectorates;at the same time, nominated seats were
granted to "untouchables"or dalits to offset inequities of the
caste system. The British had originally proposed that these
lower castes vote on separaterolls; a 21-day hunger strike by
Mohandas Gandhi, however, led to compromise. The 1932
agreement,known as the Poona Pact, reservedseats for dalit
candidatesto be elected by everyone.The Britishalso reserved
a number for women within these communal seat allocations
in provincial and national legislatures.Although favored by
British feminist Eleanor Rathbone, such reservationswere
opposed by the largestnationalIndianwomen'sassociationsas
well as the Indian National Congress, which contested the
introduction of any distinctions (whetherby gender,religion,
or caste) among Indians. Both groupsviewed Britishpolicy as
part of a divide-and-rule strategy against the nationalist
movement.45
The constitution promulgatedin 1950 rejectedcommunal
quotas as an organizingprinciple in favor of formal equality
and individual rights, with two exceptions. Recognizing that
equal treatment would be insufficient to amelioratehistoric
discriminationsufferedby the lowest social groups, the constitution upheld the British legacy of legislative reservations
for untouchables(ScheduledCastes)and introducedthem for
indigenous groups (ScheduledTribes).Similarconsideration,
however,was not extended to Muslims or women. Delimitation commissionsin each statedesignatedsingle-memberconstituencies in which only members of Scheduled Castes and
ScheduledTribescould stand for office, even though the electorate as a whole would vote for them (the number was proportionalto their shareof the population).The text authorized
a range of other policies to advance"backwardclasses"of citizens, including:reservedposts in governmentserviceand university admissions;scholarships,meals, supplies, and special
schools;and preferencefor economic developmentassistance.46
The debateover women'srepresentationdied down for severaldecades,but it was revivedin the 1970s when the government of India formed the Committee on the Statusof Women
to propose recommendationsfor improving their rights and
opportunities.Its reportwas to be launched in time for International Women'sYearin 1975. One of the thorniest issues
considered by the committee was gender reservations.After
weighing arguments for and against, it declined to recommend such policies at the national or state level, though it
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Articles I| s Genderlike Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
recognizedwomen's political underrepresentationas a serious
problem.
To justify its position, the committee drew a distinction
betweenwomen, who area "category,"and minority "communities," including those based on caste and religion. "There
can be no rationalbasisfor reservationsfor women," since "the
minority argumentcannot be applied to women. Women are
not a community, they area category.Though they have some
realproblemsof their own, they sharewith men the problems
of their groups, locality and community.Women are not concentrated in certain areas [or] confined to particularfields of
activity."47"Women'sinterestsas such,"the committee wrote,
"cannot be isolated from the economic, social, and political
interestsof groups, strataand classesin the society."48
Anticipating arguments made by French feminists in the
1990s, Indian expertsstressedthe differencebetween women
and ethnic minority communities, but as an argumentagainst
women'srepresentation,not in favorof it. The Committee on
the Status of Women did, however, borrow the institutional
model the state had used for Scheduled Castes and Tribesand
endorsed reservedseats for women in local governments.This
appearsto havebeen a compromisebetweenthose who rejected
women's representationaltogether and those who wanted to
recommend reservationsat all levels.49Indeed, many features
of the official reportarecontradictory,seeminglyreflectingthe
amount of dissentoverthe issue.Forexample,though it declares
that "the minority argument cannot be applied to women,"
the reportalso states that "thoughwomen do not numerically
constitute a minority,they arebeginning to acquirefeaturesof
a minority community"becauseof continued gender inequalities in class, status, and power.50The local-level recommendationswereadoptedin 1992 as the 73rd and 74th amendments
to the Indian Constitution, reservingfor women one-third of
the seats at the three tiers of the PanchayatiRaj institutions of
ruralself-governance,as well as in elected urbancouncils.51
The debatewas revivedin 1996 when MP and formerMinister for Women MargaretAlva proposed to amend the constitution to extend the women's reservationssystem to the
national and state legislatures.A lottery system would determine the single-memberdistrictsin which only women could
run, and thesewould rotateeverytwo elections.The bill would
also reserveone-thirdof the seatsallocatedto ScheduledCastes
and Tribesfor women of those communities.Though virtually
every political party supported the bill in their 1996 electoral
platforms, the parliamentarydebates over it were ferocious,
with some MPs almost coming to blows and others rushingto
the podium to tear up copies of the text.52
One of the main parliamentaryconcerns was the relationship between women's reservationsand rights for membersof
"otherbackwardclasses"(OBCs, a group the 1950 constitution had recognized as entitled to special protections). In a
1990 decision that provokedmassivecontroversy,the government had granted OBCs reservationsin its central bureaucracy,but not in nationaland statelegislatures.Entrepreneurial
MPs from the Hindu nationalistBharatiyaJanataParty(BJP)
demanded that the women's bill include subreservationsfor
448
Perspectives on Politics
lowercastes,a move that allowedthem to appearas champions
of the OBCs, but which mired the gender proposalin polemics surroundingcasterights.In addition, some legislatorscalled
for specialprovisionsin the bill for Muslims.As LauraDudley
Jenkins notes, "by endorsing the bill in party platforms and
then failing to pass it out of a sudden concern for backward
citizens or Muslims, politicians court the women's vote, the
backwardsvote, and the Muslim vote and simultaneouslyprotect their own hopes of reelection."53
Popularviews of the elitist natureof the women'smovement
also did not help the cause of the bill. Middle-classwomen
had assumed visible roles in protests against the decision to
grant OBCs central government reservationsand most feminist organizationshad failedto build ties to lowercastegroups.
During the debate, a prominent OBC politician declaredthat
the reservationbill was for "balkatiauraten"or short-haired
women, a referenceto upperclassurbanfeminists.54The comment tapped an underlyingfearthat, without subreservations,
the women's bill would end up benefiting only high-caste
Hindus.
As in France,political actorsin India highlighted the crosscutting nature of gender.Unlike ethnic groups, women transcend geographic, occupational, language, and religious
categories.In France,this meant that, in theory,women'srepresentationwould not threatenthe republicanuniversalisttradition. In India, by contrast,women'scrosscuttingstatusmade
it less likely that they would representthe caste and socioeconomic intereststhe reservationssystemwas supposedto advance.
Meanwhile, a group of dissidents argued that rather than
reservedseats,the bill shouldintroducea candidatequotawithin
political parties.The Forum for Democratic Reforms argued
that the reservationsproposal was seriously and inherently
flawed. By mechanicallyprovidingfor the entranceof women
into one-thirdof the seatsin the nationaland statelegislatures,
the bill failed to addressthe main problem impeding women's
effectiveparticipationin politics:genderdiscriminationin politThese activistsviewedasdisingenuousthoseIndian
icalparties.55
who
endorsed the bill while doing nothing for
politicians
women within their respectiveparties:
The verysamemalepartyleaderswho competewitheachotherin
forwomenhaveshown
ofspecialreservations
theirsupport
announcing
to includewomenin partydecisionmaking,oreven
littlewillingness
in
forwomen'sparticipation
to helpcreatea conduciveatmosphere
isevenmore
Infact,women's
theirownorganizations.
marginalization
of almostallpoliticalparin theday-to-day
functioning
pronounced
thatwe
it is urgentlyrequired
tiesthanin theLokSabha.Therefore,
in
to enhancewomen'spoliticalparticipation
makespecialmeasures
decisionmakingatalllevelsof our
waysthatwillhelptheminfluence
flawedif it
will remainseriously
societyandpolity.Ourdemocracy
failsto yield adequatespaceto women.56
Furthermore,the Forum argued,a system of women'sreservations would enable patriarchalleaders to solidify their positions. At the local level, political bosses regularlycompel their
wives, sisters,and daughtersto contest reservedseats.National
politicianswould duplicatethis strategyand the women entering politics would be mere fronts for male power.57
Pointing out that those countrieswith the highest levels of
women'srepresentationuse candidatequotas,not reservedseats,
these critics proposedan alternativebill. It would requirethat
one-third of candidatesnominated by political partiesfor general elections be women, though each party would be free to
choosethe constituencieswherethesewomen would run. Rather
than contesting women'sseats, female candidateswould compete against men and other women in general elections. To
ensure their success, partieswould need to nurturethese candidates.Women might thereforebecome legitimateleadersand
have a greaterpolitical base from which to advancewomen's
interests in parliament.58The Indian government has not
resolved these issues, so it is not yet clear whether quotas or
reservationswill emerge as the preferredremedy.
Quotas in Peru
While some Indian authoritieshave sought to apply to women
the samesystemthey had used for ScheduledCastesandTribes,
Peruvianofficials have employed a women's policy for indigenous peoples. In 1997 the Congressapprovedan electorallaw
requiringthat female candidatesmake up no less than 25 percent of the slots on party lists contesting national legislative
elections (the quota was later increasedto 30 percent). Several
years later, Peruvian leaders introduced the same remedyparty candidate quotas-for indigenous communities of the
Amazon region. Though intended as a response to their
demandsfor representation,the policy was criticizedby indigenous leaders for undermining their political organizations.
Like their ethnic counterpartselsewherein the world, Peru's
Amazonianand highlandIndianswanted reservedseatsin parliament, not quotas.
In a process of coalition building similar to what occurred
in France,Peruvianwomen politicians-representing both the
governing and opposition parties-initially joined forces in
the mid-90s to lobby for a quota law.Five congresswomenhad
attendedthe 1995 FourthWorldConferenceon Women, where
they debated the policy with delegates from other countries.
Upon theirreturn,a specialcommissionon women was installed
in parliament and quotas were the first item on its agenda.
Although the proposalinitially met with overwhelmingskepticism from other legislators, it eventually received a boost
from an unexpectedally: the President.Alberto Fujimori,the
only head of state to have attended the 1995 conference,
declaredhis support for quotas and the majorityin Congress
immediatelyfell in line. As in France,the proposalwas approved
unanimously.59Its effectson women'spresencein power,however, were more dramatic:in the first national election held
after the quota, the percentageof congressionalseats held by
women jumped from 11 to 20 percent.
Meanwhile, the 1990s witnessed the growing ethnic politicization of indigenous peoples in various Andean countries,
including Peru. Previously,a "peasant"or "poor"consciousness had tended to prevailover an indigenous one, and ethnic
prejudicewas perceived-and disguised-as class discrimination. The decreasingviability of class affiliationslike peasant
in the neoliberalera, combined with opportunitiesoffered by
global discoursesof multiculturalism,helped spawn mobilization along ethnic lines.60In 1998, organizationsfrom the Amazon and highland regions formed the PermanentConference
of PeruvianIndigenous Peoples, uniting previouslydisparate
organizationsto forge a common political platformand lobby
congressto recognizeIndian rights.61
After the 2001 election of PresidentAlejandroToledo, the
state became increasingly receptive to indigenous claims.
Though he frequentlydonned a poncho and espoused a populist discourse, former President Fujimori had undermined
indigenousland rights,and his effortsto centralizepower-he
canceled regionalelections-reduced Indian opportunitiesto
participatein politics. Toledo pledged to expand the rights of
indigenous peoples and createda high-level commission presided over by his wife, Belgian anthropologistElaine Karp,to
representtheirinterestsin the state.Fulfillinga campaignpromise, he also reinstatedregionalelections.62
The law regulatingthese elections, approvedby Congressin
early2002, declaredthatlistsof candidatesfor regionaland local
councils compriseno less than 30 percentwomen and a minimum of 15 percentof representativesof "nativecommunities"
or "originalpeoples"in those regionswherethey lived. According to the nationalelectiontribunal,the indigenousquotawould
be appliedin 11 (ofa total of 25) regions.63The groupstargeted
by the law include some 350,000 people speakingover40 languages,mostly residentsof the lowlandAmazon region.
Peru'sethnic quotas apply only to those Indiansconsidered
membersof "nativecommunities."What is the origin of this
term? In 1969 military ruler General Juan Velasco declared
that, "asan act of liberation,"the words indigenousand Indian
be purgedfrom official discourseand all peoples incorporated
into a "modern"class-basedsociety.64A 1974 law then reclassified the entireindigenouspopulationinto two groups:"native
communities"and "peasantcommunities."The formerbenefit
from the 2002 quota law, but the latter, who are far more
numerous, do not. "Peasantcommunities," or those indigenous peoples inhabitingthe country'shighland regions,comprise over 40 percent of Peru's28 million people.
Although it was designed to help them, severalAmazonian
Indian organizationscriticizedthe way the 2002 electorallaw
channeled their representationthrough existing political parties. These indigenous movements preferredinstead to form
their own autonomous organizationsand political platforms.
Emulating the success of similar organizationsin Bolivia and
Ecuador,where ethnic partieshad made majorelectoralgains
in the 1990s, representativesof various Peruviannative communities formed the Indigenous Movement of the Peruvian
Amazon (MIAP) and attemptedto field candidatesfor several
elections in the late 1990s and early2000s. The quota posed a
threat to this group, however, since its leaders were being
recruitedby mainstreamparties seeking to comply with the
law.65 One activist complained that, though the intention
behind the quota was good, the result was bad, for it would
only cause Indians to become more divided.66
Indians from both the Amazon and the highlands want
the Peruvianstate to guaranteetheir representationthrough
September 2004 Vol. 2/No. 3 449
Articles
I Is Gender like Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
legislativereservations,not candidate quotas. The programfor
constitutional reform advanced
by indigenous organizationsin
2003 calls for the creation of
special electoral districts, from
which Indians would directly
elect 30 percent of seats in the
national congress and regional
and municipal councils.67The
reservation of seats conforms
to the notions held by many
indigenous organizations that
political participationis not just
an individual but a collective
Table 3
Forms of gender representation in democracies and nondemocracies
Gender quotas in parties
ElectoralDemocracy
Yes
Argentina
Armenia
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Costa Rica
DominicanRepublic
Ecuador
France
Greece (local)
Guyana
Indonesia
Macedonia
Mexico
Namibia(local)
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Serbia and Montenegro
Nepal (national5%)
Women's legislative
reservations
Bangladesh
India(local)
Taiwan
right.68
Reservationsare but one element in the broader agenda
advanced by indigenous peoples in Peru. Indians want collectivepropertyrights,territorial
and cultural autonomy, deferNo
Djibouti
ence to customary law, and
Jordan
Morocco
bilingualeducation.These goals
Nepal (local)
contradict the model of the
NorthKorea
nation
mestizo
homogeneous,
Pakistan
and comprehensive legal order
Rwanda
installedin the AmericanrepubSudan
Tanzania
lics after their independence
Uganda
from Spain in the early nineteenth century. They challenge
the liberal state and its traditions of individual rights, since
mote the substantiverepresentationof the interestsof a disadcompleting the indigenous agendawould requirethe state to
vantagedor excludedgroup.The agentsof such representation
recognize multiple, collective forms of citizenship as well as
should thereforeexercisenot just symbolicbut effectivepower.
tolerate a pluralityof legal regimes.69
Partof the motive for choosing the right remedyis to reinforce
The Peruviancase helps show how legislative reservations
connections between leadersand the base that nourishesthem
advance group rights and reinforcedifferencesin a way that
candidate quotas do not. Quotas attack the discrimination
politically.Quotas improvethe position of women within those
suffered by individuals within parties to give them a better
partiesthat get them elected and advancetheir agendas;reservations
more
seats
reserved
of
A
elected.
of
chance
strengthenthose groupswhose very existenceis crucial
regime
getting
for
the
choare
whole
When
the
promotion of the rightsand interestsof their members.
legislators
group.
directlyempowers
the
created
and
districts,
sen from separateelectorates
Regimesthat lack a commitment to substantiverepresentaspecially
have little incentive to promote the right remedy.In states
tion
to
be
the
represented
right
policy confers on group members
with
their
of
a
candidate
but
not just by one of their kind,
military governments, one-party states, no-party states,
by
other
countriesthat fail to respectcivil liberties,legislative
and
between
links
the
choice. This mechanism strengthens
repreare
while
constituents
sentatives and their ethnic kin
subject to arbitrarydictatorialwill. Such polities
distancing
powers
lack
staa
distinctive
bestow
thus
them from others. Reservations
competitive party politics and the links of accountability
that
contus on the group as a political community. Quotas, by
they provide. Consequently, representationpatterns in
authoritarian
of
rest
polities differ from those observedin democratrast, collapse the group into the
political society.
cies. Women get reservedseats in legislatures,not candidate
Authoritarian Exceptions
quotas (see table 3), as do ethnic groups.Tolerationof democratic parties-which the quota remedy presumes-would
another
Peru
illuminate
and
The storiesof France,India,
aspect
undermine the survivalof these regimes.
to
is
not
Their
of quotas and reservations.
merely
purpose
We could also speculate that in extremely oppressive
into
bodies
or
cultured
insert differentlyconfigured, colored,
societies-which
to
aim
correlate,albeit imperfectly,to those without
measures
of
these
advocates
prolegislatures.Rather,
450
Perspectives on Politics
democratic governance-gender is not crosscutting enough
for candidate quotas. With their roles limited exclusively to
biologicalfunctions,women have not spreadout into the economy, society,and partysystemin ways characteristicof wealthy
democraticstates.Theircommon experiencesand interestscause
them to resemble a coinciding group more than a crosscutting category.This suggests there may be an inverse relationship between the collective identity of women and their
degree of liberation: the greater the success of the feminist
movement in pushing women in to the public sphere,the less
they have in common.
In any event, the introduction of women's reservationsin
some nondemocracies shows that even these states are not
immune to argumentsconnecting regimelegitimacywith gender diversity.In Morocco, partiesdecidedto reservethe 30-seat
national list for women after a three-yearprocessof mobilization and consultation in which internationalorganizationsparticularlythe United Nations DevelopmentFundforWomen
(UNIFEM)-played important roles.70 Subsequently,hundredsof delegatesattending the ArabWomen'sSummit in late
2002 approveda declarationcalling on Arab states to follow
Morocco'slead. In Pakistan,feminist mobilization and international benchmarkshelped provoke an expansionof the reservationssysteminheritedfrom the colonial period. (Unlike in
India,wherewomen'sseatswere abolishedafterindependence,
Pakistanupheld reservationsof between 5 and 10 percent in
national and provincial assemblies in various constitutions
adopted into the 1980s.) In 2000 the militarygovernmentof
GeneralPervezMusharrafexpandedthe reservationssystem to
17 percent at the national and provinciallevels and one-third
at the local level.71
Granting reservedseats to women allows nondemocracies
to respond to popular pressureand conform to international
norms without ceding ground to the competitivepartypolitics
presumed by candidate quotas. Yet the very nature of such
regimes prevents female-and male-legislators from representing citizen interestsand wielding effectivepower.
Conclusion
Advocatesand criticsof group representationfrequentlyfail to
distinguishbetweentypes of policies and the groupsthey apply
to. Yetthesedistinctionsareconsequentialfor normativedebates
about social differencein a liberalpolity. Gender- and ethnicbased demands present unique challengesto the liberaltradition. Becausethey areselfcanceling,quotasproducethe opposite
effect on group differencethan the self-reinforcingremedyof
reservations.
As a first cut at disaggregatinggroup claims to representation, I suggest that gender quotas be seen as analogous to a
class action and ethnic reservationsas a group right.72A class
action is a legal suit initiated by some plaintiffson behalf of a
largercollective of people in orderto vindicate a particularset
of rights.The classis constituted by virtue of having suffereda
similarwrong.The objectiveof the suit is to identifythis wrong
and put the plaintiffsin a position to recoverfor the individual
harms they have suffered.That is, a class action aims at the
erasureof an externallyimposed disability.A class action is
self-canceling:achievementof the claim extinguishesthe legal
identity of the class.
The logic of a class action correspondsclosely to that of
women'smobilizationfor genderquotas.They unite to contest
common experiences of political exclusion and discrimination. The quota remedyaims to transcendthese gender-based
disabilities, thereby erasing the conditions giving rise to the
claim in the firstplace. Once women enter political office, the
reasonsmotivating the quota movement disappear.The logic
of the quota is "toput the group out of businessas a group."73
As the Frenchcase shows, women from all partiesand ideologies united in the strugglefor quotas, but revertedto their
priorideologicaland politicalcommitmentsonce this goal was
achieved.This trajectoryparallelsthe cyclicalpatternsobserved
in women'smovementsmore generally:they emergeto oppose
problems(denialof voting rights,militaryrule, discriminatory
legislation)but dissipateonce the situation has been resolved.
Women may act like a group in order to get something, but
realign themselves as a category once they have it. Being
excludedfrom power makeswomen conscious of belonging to
a group; once they have power, this group identity tends to
weaken and dissipate.74
Ethnic reservations,by contrast,are a group right. Claimed
in orderto guaranteethe continued existenceof the group,they
areexercisedcollectivelyby groupmembers.Suchrightsareselfreinforcingratherthan self-canceling. Organizationsof Chinese in Mauritius, Croats in Bosnia, and Italian-speakersin
Switzerlandwill not dissipateonce representationalrightshave
been granted.On the contrary,sincelegislativereservationscreate incentivesfor the developmentof group-specificorganizations, their boundarieswill be strengthened.
Self-cancelingclaims for political inclusion have the reverse
effect of self-reinforcinggroup rights.Women seeking quotas
aim to have their differentposition absorbedby universalistic
institutions. Ethnic minorities demanding reservationswant
theirparticularismrecognizedand legitimized.These areopposite trajectories:women sufferfrom too much difference;ethnic groups, from too little. Claims for inclusion pose less of a
challenge to contemporaryliberal institutions than claims to
difference.75
The distinction between a class action and a group right is
an analyticalone I inferredfrom this study of representation
policies in contemporarydemocracies.It does not describeall
claims made on behalf of genderand ethnic identities. In fact,
gender claims may on occasion be self-reinforcing: some
women'smovementsaim at separatism;others arguethat their
essentialdifferencesfrom men requiredissimilartreatmentover
the long term. And ethnic claims may sometimes be selfcanceling:part of the rationalebehind reservationsin India is
to help break down caste distinctions; likewise, affirmative
action in the United States and Brazilseeks to make race less
determining for political opportunities, occupational status,
and social experience.
Nevertheless,selecting one remedyfor underrepresentation
over otherswill generallyshape the futuretrajectoryof a social
September 2004 I Vol. 2/No. 3
451
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I Is Gender like Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
group. A candidate quota promotes the integrationof group
members into existing political parties. Beneficiariesof the
quota may lateract to advancegroup interests,but they will do
so-save at episodic moments-as individuals,not as a group.
A legislativereservationproducesthe oppositeeffect:it strengthens ties among group members by connecting them through
channels of representationdistinct from those used for everyone else.Though moreconduciveto continuedcollectiveaction,
reservationshave the potential to magnify intergroupdifferences and impede development of the overlappingaffiliations
that underliea successfuldemocracy.The choice betweensoftening or hardeningdifferenceinevitablyarisesin the quest for
political justice. Policymakersdesigning institutions and the
scholarsadvisingthem should take notice lest they unwittingly
trade a legislatureof white men for a fragmented,even polarized political society.
Table la
Gender quotas and reservations
Country
National and local levels
Argentina
Armenia
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Colombia
Costa Rica
Djibouti
DominicanRepublic
Ecuador
France
Guyana
Jordan
Kosovo
Macedonia
Mexico
Morocco
Nepal
NorthKorea
Pakistan
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Rwanda
Serbia and Montenegro
Sudan
Taiwan
Tanzania
Uganda
Local level only
Greece
India
Namibia
Policy
30% of candidates
5% of partylists for PR elections
45 of 345 seats reserved forwomen in unicameralparliament;some seats reserved at local level
33% of candidates
30% of candidates for Chamber;25% for Senate; 30% for local councils
33% of candidates
30% of candidates
33% of executive appointments
40% of candidates
7 of 65 parliamentaryseats reserved
33% of candidates
35% of candidates
50% of candidates
33% of candidates
6 of 110 seats reserved in House of Representatives
33% of candidates
30% of candidates
30% of candidates
30 of 325 parliamentaryseats reserved
5% of candidates for lower house; 3 of 60 seats reserved in upper house; 20% of local seats
reserved
20% of 687 parliamentaryseats reserved
17% of seats reserved in nationalassembly (60 of 342) and Senate (17 of 100); 33% at local
level
30% of candidates
20% of candidates
30% of candidates
2 of 5 PR list seats reserved of a total of 220 in parliament;1 seat reserved on each local and
provincialcouncila
24 of 80 seats reserved in Chamberof Deputies
30% of nationaland local candidates in Serbia
35 of 360 nationalassembly seats reserved
Approximately10% of seats reserved in LegislativeYuan;25% at local level
48 of 295 (16%) of parliamentaryseats reserved; 25% of local councils
56 of 214 parliamentaryseats reserved; 33% of local councils
33% of candidates
33% of seats reserved
33% of candidates
is excludedfromtables1, 2, and3 becauseof smallnumberof reservedseats.
aPhilippines
Sources: InternationalIDEA2003; Htunand Jones 2002; Electionworld2003; Republicof Rwanda2003; BBC News 2004.
452
Perspectives on Politics
Table lb
Ethnic reservations
Country
Belgium
Bhutan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Ethiopia
Fiji
India
Jordan
Kiribati
Kosovo
Lebanon
Mauritius
New Zealand
Niger
Pakistan
Peru
Samoa
Serbia and Montenegro
Singapore
Slovenia
Switzerland
Taiwan
Venezuela
Policy
Halfof cabinet ministriesreserved for Frenchspeakers and half for Dutchspeakers; parliament
divides into Frenchand Dutchculturalcouncils when dealing withregionaland culturalissues.
10 of 150 seats reserved for representativesof Buddhistgroups
3 memberpresidency(Bosniak,Croat,Serb); in 42-memberNationalHouse of Representatives,
28 seats are allocated to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 14 seats to the
RepublikaSrpska;the 15-memberHouse of Peoples consists of 5 Bosniaks, 5 Croats, and 5
Serbs
5 of 166 seats reserved for Afro-Colombians,indigenous peoples, and other politicalminorities
in Chamber;2 of 102 seats reserved for indigenous peoples in Senate
5 of 153 seats in unicameralassembly reserved for ethnic minorities
24 seats reserved for Turks (unfilled)and 1 seat each for Maronite, Roman-Catholicand
Goumenianminoritiesof 80 in nationalassembly
22 of 117 upperhouse seats (Councilof the Federation)reserved for representativesof minority
nationalities
23 and 19 of 71 seats reserved for Fijiansand Indo-Fijians,respectively
79 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and 41 for Scheduled Tribes of 543 in the LokSabha
(lower house of parliament);Prime Ministerhas the rightto appoint up to 2 Anglo-Indiansto
the same chamber
12 of 110 seats for Christiansand Chechens/Circassians
1 of 39 seats for Banabans
20 of 120 seats reserved for minoritycommunities
Of 128 nationalassembly seats: Maronites(34), Sunnis (27), Shiites (27), Greek Orthodox(14),
Greek Catholics(8), Druzes (8), ArmenianOrthodox(5), Alaouites(2), ArmenianCatholics(1),
Protestants (1), ChristianMinorities(1)
8 of 70 seats are filled by the "best losers" representingthe four constitutionally-recognized
ethnic communities(Hindus,Muslims,Chinese, and Franco-Mauritian/Creole
Christians)
7 of 120 seats reserved for Maorisin unicameralparliament
8 of 83 seats reserved for nationalminoritiesin unicameralparliament
10 of 342 lower house seats reserved for minorities
15% of candidates in 11 (of 25) regions must be members of "nativecommunities"
2 of 49 seats in unicameralassembly (Fono) reserved for part-or non-Samoans
91 seats reserved for Serbs and 35 for Montenegrinsof 126 in unicameralassembly; 4 reserved
seats for Albaniansin Montenegroelections
Parties and alliances contesting the 14 multimemberGroup Representation Constituencies
must includean ethnic minoritycandidateon the ticket;the policyguarantees that 9 seats will
be occupied by Malays and 5 by Indiansor other minoritiesof a total of 93 in parliament
2 seats of 90 in unicameralassembly reserved for Hungariansand Italians
4 seats for Germanspeakers, 2 for Frenchspeakers, and one for Italian-speakersin 7-member
Federal Cabinet
8 seats reserved for overseas Chinese and 8 for aboriginalgroups in 225-seat LegislativeYuan
3 of 165 seats in unicameralnationalassembly reserved for indigenous peoples
Sources: Reynolds n.d.; Inter-Parliamentary Union 2003; CIA 2003; Electionworld 2003; Carr 2003; Republic of Singapore 2003.
Notes
1 Ethnicity is used here as an all-encompassingterm referring to social groups differentiatedby kinship, tribe, skin
color, religion, caste, language,race and other markers
of communal identity.This broad definition of ethnicity,
though somewhat at odds with the popular use of the
term, is becoming more common in socialscience as scholarsseekexplanationsfor the causes-and consequences-of
political phenomena motivated by ethnic identities.
See Chandra2004; Varshney2001; Horowitz 1985.
2 An exception is Anne Phillips's ThePoliticsof Presence,
which at severalpoints comparesthe pursuit of gender
parityand ethnic minority representation.See Phillips
1995.
3 Most of the data come from IDEA 2003; Reynolds n.d.;
Parline2003; Electionworld2003. I attempted to confirm each case in the country-specificscholarlyliterature
and in governmentwebsites, and made adjustments
accordingly.Some of these sources are mentioned in
footnotes.
4 The availabilityof more dataon formaland informalpracticeswithin partiescould revealmorewidespreaduse of ethnic candidatequotas. Partiesin India, for instance,
regularlyapply ethnic quotas for leadershipposts. See
September 2004 1Vol. 2/No. 3 453
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| Is Gender like Ethnicity?The PoliticalRepresentationof IdentityGroups
Chandra2004. For more information about gender quotas in parties,see IDEA 2003.
5 Kukathas1992; Okin 1999; Trebble2002; Miller 2002.
6 Elshtain 1995.
7 Sowell 1990.
8 Cameron, Epstein, and O'Halloran 1996. For a critique
and response,see Lublin 1999 and Epsteinand O'Halloran
1999.
9 Quoted in Phillips 1995, 92.
10 Kymlicka 1995, 134-38.
11 Jones, forthcoming.
12 The literatureon how electoralrules affect the party system and political behaviorbegins with Duverger'slaw
and is vast. See, for example,Cox 1997; Careyand Shugart
1992; Lijphart1990; Shugart 1995; Jones 1995; Ames
1995.
ratherthan the "pre13 PR thus permits "self-determination"
determination"of ethnic groups. See Lijphart1985. Lani
Guinier also endorsesPR to allow for the representation of"voluntaryinterestconstituencies,"ethnic and otherwise. See Guinier 1994.
14 Lijphart1985.
15 Reynolds 1999; Caul 2001.
16 Baldez2004; Matland and Studlar 1996.
17 Inglehartand Norris 2003.
18 Kaufmannand Petrocik 1999.
19 Center for AmericanWomen and Politics 1997.
20 Chandra2004.
21 Deschouwer 2002; Heisler 1990; Steiner 2002.
22 Horowitz 1985, 332.
23 Snyder2000.
24 Yishai 2001.
25 Dawson 1994; Grofman, Handley, and Niemi 1992.
26 Van Cott, n.d.
27 Telles 1999; Htun 2004; Samuels, n.d.
28 Lijphart1977; Horowitz 1985, 1991; Chandran.d..
29 Young 1990; Mansbridge1999; Williams 1998; Phillips
1995.
30 Htun andJones2002; Nordlund 2003; Carton 1999; Corrin 2002; StabilityPact 2002; Dahlerup 2002.
31 Friedman2000, 291.
32 Rodriguez2003; Jenson and Valiente 2003; Htun and
Jones 2002.
33 The council is generallycomprisedof four Germanspeakers,two French-speakers,and one Italian-speaker.
34 Deschouwer 2002; Heisler 1990; Steiner 1990; Steiner
2002.
35 Horowitz 1985; Lijphart1986.
36 Birch 2002; Birch et al 2002; Darmanovic 2003;
UNHCR and OSCE 2002; Embassyof Croatia,n.d.; Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, n.d.
37 Reilly 2001.
38 Galanter 1984; Walker 1992.
39 Van Cott 2003; EfrenAgudelo 2002.
40 Bird 2001; Sineau 2003.
41 Mossuz-Lavau1998, 83.
454
Perspectives on Politics
42 Agacinski2003, 18.
43 Giraud and Jenson 2001; Bird 2002; Jenson and Valiente
2003; Mazur 2001.
44 Bird 2002.
45 Galanter 1984; Jenkins 1999; Pedersen,forthcoming.
46 Galanter 1984; Wilkinson 2000.
47 Governmentof India 1974, 304.
48 Ibid.
49 The annex to the official reportcontains three notes of dissent written by four committee members.Two of the
notes oppose reservationsaltogether;the other, signed by
two membersand running eleven paragraphs,supports
reservationsat the national and state levels. See Government of India 1974.
50 Ibid., 301.
51 The seatsmay be allocatedby rotationto differentconstituencies; one-third of council chairmanshipsmust also be
reservedfor women. For analysisof the local reservations see Tekchandani,Jyoti, and Sharma 1997; Lakshmi, Jyoti, and Sharma2000.
52 Keating 2002; Jenkins 1999.
53 Jenkins2003, 169. See also: Nath 1996.
54 Jenkins2003, 170.
55 This is the case not just in India but more generally.
Data from the United Statesshow that when they run,
women have as good a chance as men to get elected.Their
low numbersin power owe to the unwillingnessof parties to nominate women as candidates,not discrimination in the electorate. See Darcy, Welch, and Clark
1994.
56 Forum for Democratic Reforms2000.
57 Kishwar1999, 126-27.
58 Forum for Democratic Reforms2000.
59 Promujer1998.
60 Yashar,forthcoming;Jung, n.d.
61 Van Cott, n.d.
62 Ibid.
63 JuradoNacional de Elecciones2002a; JuradoNacional
de Elecciones2002b.
64 Chase Smith 1982.
65 Van Cott, n.d.; Rice, forthcoming.
66 WraysPerezof the Inter-EthnicDevelopment Association of the PeruvianForest (AIDESEP);interviewedby
Donna Lee Van Cott, July 11, 2002.
67 Comisi6n Organizadorade la Consulta Indigena sobre la
ReformaConstitucional 2003.
68 As mentioned earlier,Colombia and Venezuelahad
grantedthem legislativereservationsin the early 1990s.
69 Stavenhagen2002; Van Cott 2003; Yashar1999.
70 Rachida2002.
71 Pakistanalso reserves7 percentof seatsfor technocrats.Various national plans for women had endorsed a 30 percent reservationsscheme, as did representativesof eleven
political parties.See Reyes 2002; Weiss and Bari 2002.
72 I am gratefulto John Comaroff for helping me with this
formulation.
73 Fraserarguesthat this logic characterizesredistributiveremedies for class-basedsocial injustice. See Fraser1997, 18.
74 Accordingto David Miller, a categoryconsists of all those
persons fitting a properdescription,while a group is "a
set of people who by virtue of their sharedcharacteristics
think of themselvesas forming a group."See David
Miller 2002, 178.
75 Brian Barry,for example, arguesthat classicalliberalism
is perfectlycompatiblewith special treatmentfor members of disadvantagedgroups as long as the objective
of such treatmentis to make the need for it "disappearas
rapidlyas possible."He contrastssuch remedieswith
the permanentgroup rights favoredby those he deems
multiculturalists:"if the group [no longer needed] special
rights,that would not be regardedas a causefor celebration, because it would be taken to suggest that the support for the group'sculture had been insufficient to
prevent its membersfrom assimilatingto that of some
largeror more powerful group."See Barry2002, 13.
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