Women's Representation Quotas in the Parliament: Descriptive versus Substantive Representation

Introduction

Women's representation is considered a pertinent component for community building, human rights practice, and economic growth, which sets the base for social change. However, women have been subjugated under patriarchal norms for centuries, limiting their representation and position in various indices – education, health, economic and political. With the turn of the 19th?century, globalization and interconnectedness amongst countries and states gained prominence. Potrafke and Ursprung (2012) have particularly stated that the growing impact of globalization was on women's political participation: 25 percent of global parliamentarians in 2021 are women compared to 13.40 percent in 2000.?

There is consensus on excluding women from the parliaments, both intentional and unintentional, based on socio-cultural-economic factors. The root cause of this exclusion starts at the socialization stage, wherein in many cultures, girl children are socialized to not participate in decision-making activities. This exclusion results in the domination of male narratives in social life, leading to male norm hegemony in political life. These male-dominated social and political norms refrain women from making decisions and enter and effectively function in men's environment. In the long run, the socialization process leads to gender stereotypes and perceptions, which deter women from contesting elections and discourage men from supporting women legislators.?

Childs and Lovenduski (2006) have justified the need for equitable representation and participation of women in politics on three grounds, namely –?

1.?????Justice:?Based on the equality principle of equal citizenship and equal opportunity, the 'justice' argument signifies that women's participation in politics is their fundamental human right.?

2.?????Pragmatic:?Based on the 'benefit-oriented principle, more women in politics will have a trickle-down effect a better turnout of voters. Moreover, a more comprehensive voter bank will display the collective conscience of the population during elections.?

3.?????Different:?Based on the social-conditioning principle, women bring a different dimension, opinions, and approaches to politics that the male population broadly ignores who dominates politics.?

Meena (2003) contends that women's presence in politics is a solace for the women population as it is believed that a women representative will voice their concerns and needs better.?Reingold (2006) has elaborated on the women parliamentarians bringing forth women agendas and women -pro legislations. Schwindt-Bayer (2006) states that women's presence and active participation in politics can transform the male-dominated heteronormative nature of politics and hence the patriarchal character of the society at large.?Bauser (2006) summarizes the equitable participation of women in politics as not just an end goal but critical for the democracies to function sustainably, cohesively, and responsibly.?

For women's effective participation in a male-dominated sphere of politics, the reservation of seats for women has emerged as a potent tool globally. The reserved seat system sanctions a certain percentage of seats reserved for women candidates. More than 100 countries have adopted the reserved seat system to accelerate the participation of women in politics. While the micro goal of this reservation is to allow women to participate in politics, the macro goal is that elected women candidates will challenge the societal inequalities, like harassment, unpaid care-work, that deter women from participating in politics. And this is where the linkage between the descriptive and substantive representation of women in the parliament comes forth.?

Hilal (2018) defines descriptive representation as the presence of women in the parliament upholding their identity as women. The descriptive representation is characterized by: (Ibid)

-???????Demographic characteristics of women?

-???????Lived experiences of being women?

-???????Number/percentage of women representatives?

By bringing their identity of being women to the parliament, descriptive representation aims to diversify the parliament and, through diversity, influence the decision-making process of the parliament.?On the other hand, substantive representation of women in politics refers to the impact created by women legislators for women demography as a collective. Thus under substantive representative, women legislators act for and on behalf of the women demography. The characteristics of substantive representation are:

-???????Debates, deliberations, and questions raised on women concerns and agendas

-???????Change in gender-stereotypical perception of women legislators?

-???????Priority to women-centric policies?

-???????Enactment of bills and acts that favour gender-equal policies?

-???????Position of women in the parliament

Prior literary works have established that mere presence or attendance of women in parliament (descriptive representation) does not translate to effective representation of women in the parliament (substantive representation). However, there is a need to establish a relationship between them.?

Literature

The 1990s witnessed an increase in women's parliamentary representation with the introduction of the reserved seat gender quota system. With the increase in women representatives in the parliament, the debate around the descriptive representation of women and the substantive impact created also gained prominence.?At the outset, it is argued that the direct correlation between the increase in numbers of women parliamentarians and the substantive impact of reforming the heteronormative nature of parliaments is complicated. Furthermore, there have also been reservations about the type of gender quota in action for women in parliament and the agency available to women to exercise it while ensuring that women are not considered a homogeneous group.?To delve into this 'complicated and rather than not straightforward' relationship, the paper will inspect four main approaches:?

1.?????Concept of Representation

2.?????Critical Mass Theory?

3.?????Politics of Presence

4.?????Gender Quota

Concept of Representation (COR)

The most contemporary scholarship that expounds on 'Women in Politics' is Pitkin's (1967) COR. COR underpins representation into four dimensions – formalistic, descriptive, symbolic,?and substantive. Under formalistic representation, consideration is given to institutions that grant authority to representatives and hold them accountable.??Under descriptive representation, consideration is given to the degree/percentage/number of representatives with reference to their lived experiences, characteristics, attitudes, ideologies, and perspectives. Symbolic representation refers to a change in one's attitude, behaviour, and perception because of representation. Substantive representation refers to the impact created to benefit the representatives' population. Pitkin (1967) highlights substantive representation over the others.?Though COR is not gender-specific, it has been applied longitudinally to the issues of gender and politics. While some argue that substantive representation is the heart of advocacy for women's representation at the parliaments, others rely on a diversified approach between the representatives and their constituents.?

Critical Mass Theory (CMT)

Historically, a nuclear physics concept, CMT states that a minimum amount of material is necessary to ignite a chain reaction that is anticipated to be irreversible, leading to new reforms. Thus, CMT propagates a directly proportional relationship between the magnitude of input and output. In the discourse of women's representation in the parliament, CMT argues that for the heteronormative nature of politics to be reformed and women-centric legislation to be introduced, the presence of a required percentage of women legislators, estimated at approximately 30%, is necessary. Hence, CMT associates women's descriptive representation in the parliament with substantive impact. Furthermore, international declarations have also justified this discourse on the principles of equal citizenship and rights.

It is critical to state here that application CMT for accelerating women's representation in the parliaments is credited with producing changes - from more women's restrooms built in South African parliament to creche facility in England's House of Commons; however, there is less evidence on far-reaching policy change. And this is where criticism against the CMT arises.?Childs and Krook (2008) revisited the claims made by previous works on CMT, and they concluded that CMT was only credited as an enabler for forming women coalitions to promote feminist policies and agendas and not as an end-point strategy. CMT's hypothesis of a direct linkage between input and output forces falls short in the world of human affairs, where women's adequate representation in the parliaments does not naturally lead to gender reforms in politics. Furthermore, the assumption that a certain percentage of women in the parliament is pertinent to drive successful intervention strategies for substantive impact' is also flawed.??CMT is also critiqued to create a glass ceiling by advocating a fixed number representation for women.?Therefore, there is a dire need to go beyond the descriptive representation of women parliamentarians and focus on why, when, and how women legislators become allies for the women community as a whole.?

Politics of Presence Theory (POPT)?????????????????????????????????????????????

POPT has emerged as a research question to fill the gaps of the CMT. POPT argues that the commonality of the lived experience of women legislators as women in a patriarchal socio-economic world will give them a better locus to transform the parliament into a more gender-inclusive space. Therefore, literature on the POPT states that the predominant qualification for women's presence in the parliaments is to voice concerns about women in the plenary. Furthermore, the POPT also emphasizes the conditioned nature that differentiates women from men, impacting their role as legislators. Lovenduski and Norris (2004) summarize that due to lived experiences of women in homes, at work, in communities, and in public spaces, women politicians are better equipped to accelerate their concerns and needs.??From this standpoint, men cannot equally influence politics for gender mainstreaming agendas. Thus, POPT takes a step forward from the CMT by advocating that both representation and ideas are necessary to bring about a policy change.?

However, the POPT is criticized for promoting essentialism. The narrative of 'only women can represent women' puts women in a homogenous, monolithic group and alienates men from the gender equality movement. Thenjiwe (1996) argues that this alienation will advance women representatives in the parliaments without challenging patriarchal norms and thus will not essentially create an impact it is believed to.?

Thus, the POPT further establishes the lack of consensus over the consequential relationship between descriptive and substantive representation.?

Gender Quota (GQ)

Krook (2008) states that GQs, their type, and the actors involved influence the impact created by the increase in representation of women legislators.?There are mainly two types of GQs that countries apply – Reserve Seats and Party Candidate Quotas. While reserve seats is a formal legislation for setting aside a fixed percentage of seats for women legislators, party candidate quotas are voluntarily enforced by the political parties (Ibid). It has been identified that countries and political parties might use these two types of GQs for gaining national or international goodwill or legitimacy, coalition formation, and/or political gains for the national ruling party. Waylen (2008) argues that state-driven GQs based on gender equality pledge become more symbolic than authoritarian regimes which makes the capacity of the women parliamentarians to contribute to substantive impact questionable. Krook (2008) states that GQs are more than often used by political parties for their hidden agenda - to win women's voter bank and enhance their electoral fortunes or elevate selected women to advance their propaganda.?

The two enforcement mechanisms employed for GQs are incremental and fast-track models. While the incremental model is based on equality of opportunity, the fast track model is based on equality of results. Also, the incremental mechanism is rooted in 'power from below' whereas the fast-track mechanism is built on 'power from above', making the latter prone to be merely a tokenistic representation of women legislators.?Furthermore, the actors involved in promoting GQs – the country and the political elitist-also impact the achievement of the GQs. Krook (2009) states that countries with higher global index ranking are less vulnerable to transnational pressure to approve GQs than lower-ranking countries. This means that GQs for lower-ranking countries that succumb to international pressure might not produce substantive representation.?Similarly, the influence of the political elitists influences GQs and their implementation.?Thus, the literature raises pertinent questions on the legitimacy of GQs to establish substantive representation.?

It is observed that each of the theories has built on each other and advanced the debate on the descriptive and substantive representation of women in the parliament. Though there is a certain amount of disagreement amongst the theories and their inferences drawn, and each suffers from shortcomings, these theories form the foundation of feminist literature and research on 'women in politics. Moreover, a probe into these theories is necessary for future research and findings.?

Conclusion

Since the 1990s, the critical eye over women's participation in politics has been strong. Due to various reasons, globalization, international conventions, the interconnectedness of democracies, power of resistance, women solidarity movements, and results of the global waves of feminism, there has been an uprise in the number/ percentage of women parliamentarians globally. However, this increase in women parliamentarians has not resulted in the impact that it was believed to make. Politics still is heteronormative, dominated by males, and women-centric legislation and policies are not considered an urgent priority. This is where the paper's research question 'Does the descriptive representation of women (presence) in the parliaments lead to substantive representation (representation)' arises. The journey to establish this relationship starts with understanding the foundation and fallacies of descriptive and substantive representation in the context of women parliamentarians. The paper concludes that though the descriptive representation of women is crucial as a foot in the door approach, it cannot hold the fort if substantive impact is not reached. The paper further establishes that the micro goal of women's representation can be to increase their presence in the parliament; however, the macro goal is the change in the social norms and especially the gendered nature of politics.?

Furthermore, to delve deeper into the complicated yet essential relationship between the descriptive and the substantive representation of women in parliament, the paper critically analyzes the literature on women's political representation. While COR underpins representation under various dimensions, the CMT establishes that for representation to be effective, it has to have an adequate number. While POPT states that women representatives can represent women's interests better, GQ states that active legislation is required to make special space for women parliamentarians. Despite the constant intervention, the past theories have not established a coherent relationship between the descriptive and substantive representation of women in politics.?

The paper cautiously chose the case study of Tanzania to try to fill the gaps and voids of the past literature. By inspecting the operational GQ in Tanzania for women parliamentarians, the paper examines if descriptive representation has led to substantive representation. The paper, after studying the growth GQ in Tanzania, concludes that though?for the liberation of women from gender stereotypes and them to be given equal opportunity to participate in politics, countries will need to go beyond legislative reforms and innovations and focus on altering societal structures and challenge patriarchal norms at the baseline (Britton 2002).??

Overall, the paper concludes that for GQs to be an effective tool to link descriptive and substantive representation of women in politics, agency, and resources will have to be given to women candidates, and men and masculinities will have to be involved, both in accessing and challenging their privilege, to reform politics.