Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T03:40:03.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Gender like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2004

Mala Htun
Mala Htun
Affiliation:
Mala Htun is assistant professor of political science at the New School for Social Research (htunm@newschool.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Some 50 countries officially allocate access to political power by gender, ethnicity, or both. Yet in the world's electoral democracies, the policies used for women differ systematically from those used for ethnic groups. The former receive candidate quotas in parties; the latter, reserved seats in legislatures. Why? My explanation focuses on the varying ways that gender and ethnic identities intersect with partisan cleavages and on the distinct “work” performed by the different remedies for underrepresentation. Quotas, which make space within existing parties, are appropriate for groups whose boundaries crosscut partisan divisions. Reservations, which create incentives for the formation of group-specific parties and permit them direct representation, suit groups whose boundaries coincide with political cleavages. Since gender is crosscutting while ethnicity tends to be coinciding, women receive candidate quotas while ethnic groups get legislative reservations. Claims for inclusion via quotas pose less of a challenge to liberal institutions than claims to difference through legislative reservations. Case studies of representational politics in France, India, and Peru illustrate the argument.Mala Htun is author of Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance and advice of Kanchan Chandra, Jorge Domínguez, Jennifer Hochschild, Mark Jones, Courtney Jung, Jim Miller, Victoria Murillo, Jack Snyder, Donna Lee Van Cott, Myra Waterbury, participants in colloquia at the New School and Columbia University, and anonymous reviewers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2004 , pp. 439 - 458
Copyright
© 2004 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agacinski, Sylviane. 2003. The turning point of feminism: Against the effacement of women. In Beyond French feminisms: Debates on women, politics, and culture in France, 1981–2001, ed. Roger Célestin, Eliane DalMolin, and Isabelle de Courtivron, 17–22. London: Palgrave.
Ames, Barry. 1995. Electoral strategy under open-list proportional representation. American Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 406–33.Google Scholar
Baldez, Lisa. 2004. Elected bodies: The gender quota law for legislative candidates in Mexico. Legislative Studies Quarterly 29 (2): 231–58.Google Scholar
Barry, Brian. 2002. Culture and equality: An egalitarian critique of multiculturalism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
BBC News. 2004. Bangladesh law boosts women MPs. May 16, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3719227.stm.
Birch, Sarah. 2002. The 2000 elections in Yugoslavia: The “bulldozer revolution.” Electoral Studies 21 (3): 499–511.Google Scholar
Birch, Sarah, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu, and Kieran Williams. 2002. Embodying democracy: Electoral system design in post-Communist Europe. London: Palgrave.
Bird, Karen. 2001. Liberté, egalité, fraternité, parité … and diversité? The difficult question of ethnic difference in the French parity debate. Contemporary French Civilization 25 (2): 271–92.Google Scholar
Bird, Karen 2002. Who are the women? Where are the women? And what difference can they make? The effects of gender parity on French municipal elections. Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 28–September 2.
Cameron, Charles, David Epstein, and Sharyn O'Halloran. 1996. Do majority-minority districts maximize substantive black representation in Congress? American Political Science Review 90 (4): 794–812.Google Scholar
Carey, John, and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1992. Presidents and assemblies: Constitutional design and electoral dynamics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carr, Adam. 2003. Psephos. Adam Carr's election archive. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/.
Carton, Ann. 2001. The general elections in Belgium in June 1999: A real breakthrough for women politicians. European Journal of Women's Studies 8 (1): 127–35.Google Scholar
Caul, Miki. 2001. Political parties and the adoption of candidate gender quotas: A cross-national analysis. Journal of Politics 63 (4): 1214–29.Google Scholar
Center for American Women and Politics. 1997. The Gender Gap: Voting Choices, Party Identification, and Presidential Performance Ratings. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/∼cawp/Facts/ggap.pdf.
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why ethnic parties succeed: Patronage and ethnic head counts in India. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chandra, Kanchan. N.d. Ethnic parties, and democratic stability. Unpublished manuscript.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 2003. The world factbook. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.
Comisión Organizadora de la Consulta Indígena sobre la Reforma Constitucional. 2003. Programa de derechos colectivos de los Pueblos indígenas del Perú. Acuerdos de Consulta Nacional Indígena del 14.4.2003 sobre reformas constitucionales reordenados como propuestas programáticas. http://peru.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/1672.php.
Corrin, Chris. 2002. Developing democracy in Kosova: From grassroots to government. Parliamentary Affairs 55 (1): 99–108.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary. 1997. Making votes count: Strategic coordination in the world's electoral systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Croatia, Embassy of. N.d. http://www.croatiaemb.org/politics/Politics_FrameSet.htm.
Dahlerup, Drude. 2002. Using quotas to increase women's political representation. Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. Stockholm: International IDEA, 2002. http://www.idea.int/women/parl/ch4a.htm.
Darcy, R., Janet Welch, and Susan Clark. 1994. Women, elections, and representation. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Darmanovic, Srdjan. 2003. Montenegro: Dilemmas of a small republic. Journal of Democracy 14 (1): 145–53.Google Scholar
Dawson, Michael. 1994. Behind the mule: Race and class in African-American politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Deschouwer, Kris. 2002. Falling apart together: The changing nature of Belgian consociationalism, 1961–2001. Acta Politica 37 (1, 2): 68–85.Google Scholar
Efrén Agudelo, Carlos. 2002. Etnicidad negra y elecciones en Colombia. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 7 (2): 168–97.Google Scholar
Electionworld. 2003. http://www.electionworld.org.
Elshtain, Jean. 1995. Democracy on Trial. New York: Basic Books.
Epstein, David, and Sharyn O'Halloran. 1999. A social science approach to race, redistricting, and representation. American Political Science Review 93 (1): 187–91.Google Scholar
Forum for Democratic Reforms. 2000. Enhancing women's representation in legislatures. An Alternative to the Government Bill for Women's Reservation. Manushi 116 (January–February). http://free.freespeech.org/manushi/116/alterbill.html.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1997. Justice Interruptus: Critical reflections on the “postsocialist” condition. New York: Routledge.
Freedom House. 2003. Electoral Democracies. http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/democracies.pdf.
Galanter, Marc. 1984. Competing equalities: Law and the backward classes of India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Giraud, Isabelle, and Jane Jenson. 2001. Constitutionalizing equal access: High hopes, dashed hopes? In Has liberalism failed women? Assuring equal representation in Europe and the United States, ed. Jyette Klausen and Charles S. Maier, 69–88. London: Palgrave.
Grofman, Bernard, Lisa Handley, and Richard G. Niemi. 1992. Minority representation and the quest for voting equality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Guinier, Lani. 1994. The tyranny of the majority: Fundamental fairness in representative democracy. New York: Free Press.
Heisler, Martin O. 1990. Hyphenating Belgium: Changing state and regime to cope with cultural division. In Joseph V. Montville, 177–95. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1991. A democratic South Africa? Constitutional engineering in a divided society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Htun, Mala. 2004. From racial democracy to affirmative action: Changing state policy on race in Brazil. Latin American Research Review 39 (1): 6089.Google Scholar
Htun, Mala, and Mark Jones. 2002. Engendering the right to participate in decision making: Electoral quotas and women's leadership in Latin America. In Gender and the politics of rights and democracy in Latin America, ed. Nikki Craske and Maxine Molyneux, 32–56. London: Palgrave.
India, Government of. 1974. Towards equality. Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India. New Delhi: Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Department of Social Welfare.
Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. 2003. Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. New York: Cambridge University Press.
International IDEA. 2003. Global Database of Quotas for Women. A Joint Project of International IDEA and Stockholm University. http://www.idea.int/quota/index.cfm.
Inter-Parliamentary Union. 2003. PARLINE Database. http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp.
Jenkins, Laura Dudley. 2003. Identity and identification in India: Defining the disadvantaged. London: Curzon Press.
Jenkins, Laura Dudley 1999. Competing inequalities: The struggle over reserved legislative seats for women in India. International Review of Social History 44 (1): 53–75.Google Scholar
Jenson, Jane, and Celia Valiente. 2003. Comparing two movements for gender parity: France and Spain. In Women's movements facing the reconfigured state, ed. Lee Ann Banaszak, Karen Beckwith, and Dieter Rucht, 69–93. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, Mark P. 1995. Electoral laws and the survival of presidential democracies. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Jones, Mark P. Forthcoming. Quota legislation and the election of women: Learning from the Costa Rican experience. Journal of Politics.
Jung, Courtney. N.d. Critical liberalism: What Democrats have to learn from the Mexican Zapatistas. Unpublished manuscript.
Jurado Nacional de Elecciones. 2002a. Ley de elecciones regionales. Ley no. 27683. March 15, 2002. Lima, Peru.
Jurado Nacional de Elecciones 2002b. Press Release no. 103-2002-OCII/JNE.
Kaufmann, Karen M., and John R. Petrocik. 1999. The changing politics of American men: Understanding the sources of the gender gap. American Journal of Political Science 43 (3): 864–87.Google Scholar
Keating, Christine. 2002. The women's reservations bill in India: Disrupting the postcolonial sexual contract. Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 28–September 2.
Kishwar, Madhu. 1999. Off the beaten track: Rethinking gender justice for Indian women. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kukathas, Chandran. 1992. Are there any cultural rights? Political Theory 20 (1): 105–39.Google Scholar
Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural citizenship: A liberal theory of minority rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lakshmi, Josyula, Kiran Jyoti, and Priti Sharma. 2000. Daughters of the 74th Amendment. A study of women elected to municipal bodies in Karnal and Delhi. New Delhi: Multiple Action Research Group.
Lijphart, Arend. 1977. Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lijphart, Arend 1986. Proportionality by non-PR methods: Ethnic representation in Belgium, Cyprus, Lebanon, New Zealand, West Germany, and Zimbabwe. In Electoral laws and their political consequences, ed. Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, 113–23. New York: Agathon Press.
Lijphart, Arend 1990. The political consequences of electoral laws, 1945–85. American Political Science Review 84 (2): 481–96.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend 1995. Self-determination versus pre-determination of ethnic minorities in power-sharing systems. In Will Kymlicka, 275–87. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lublin, David. 1999. Racial redistricting and African-American representation: A critique of “do majority-minority districts maximize substantive black representation in Congress?” American Political Science Review 93 (1): 183–86.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. Should blacks represent blacks and women represent women? A contingent “yes.” Journal of Politics 61 (3): 628–57.Google Scholar
Matland, Richard E., Donley T. Studlar. 1996. The contagion of women candidates in single-member district and proportional representation electoral systems: Canada and Norway. Journal of Politics 58 (3): 707–33.Google Scholar
Mazur, Amy G. 2001. Drawing lessons from the French parity movement. Contemporary French Civilization 25 (2): 201–19.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 2002. Group rights, human rights, and citizenship. European Journal of Philosophy 10 (2) 178–95.Google Scholar
Mossuz-Lavau, Janine. 1998. Femmes/hommes pour la parité. Paris: Presses de sciences.
Nath, Meenakshi. 1996. Cutting across party lines: Women members of Parliament explain their stand on reservation quotas. Manushi 96 (September–October). http://free.freespeech.org/manushi/96/intvus.html.Google Scholar
Nordlund, Anja Taarup. 2003. International implementation of electoral gender quotas in the Balkans—A fact-finding report. Research Program on Gender Quotas, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University. Working Paper Series 2003, 1. http://www.statsvet.su.se/stv_hemsida/statsvetenskap_04/quotas/a_nordlund_wps_2003_1.pdf.
Okin, Susan Moller. 1999. Is multiculturalism bad for women? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pedersen, Susan. Forthcoming. Eleanor Rathbone and the politics of conscience. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Phillips, Anne. 1995. The politics of presence. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the welfare state? Reagan, Thatcher, and the politics of retrenchment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Promujer. 1998. Poder politico con perfume de mujer: Las cuotas en el Perú. Lima: Movimiento Manuela Ramos and Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Rachida, Tahri. 2002. Femmes, gouvernance: Participation, pourcentages, impact et pouvoir. Cas du Maroc. Quatrième Forum Global sur la réinvention du rôle de l'Etat. Marrakech, Morocco, December 10–11, 2002.
Reilly, Benjamin. 2001. Democracy in divided societies. Electoral engineering for conflict management. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyes, Socorro L. 2002. Quotas for women for legislative seats at the local level in Pakistan. Perempuan di Parlemen: Bukan Sekedar Jumlah. Stockholm: International IDEA. English translation available at http://www.idea.int/gender/wip/PDF/Indonesian/English_translations/CS_Pakistan_Reynes.pdf.
Reynolds, Andrew. 1999. Women in the legislatures and executives of the world: Knocking at the highest glass ceiling. World Politics 51 (4): 547–72.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Andrew. N.d. Comparative approaches to race, and districting. Unpublished paper.
Rice, Roberta. Forthcoming. From peasants to Politicians: The politicization of ethnic cleavages in Latin America. PhD diss., University of New Mexico.
Rodríguez, Victoria E. 2003. Women in Contemporary Mexican Politics. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Rwanda, Republic of. 2003. The Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda. http://www.cjcr.gov.rw/index.htm.
Samuels, David. N.d. Sources of mass partisanship in Brazil. Unpublished manuscript.
Shugart, Matthew Soberg. 1995. The electoral cycle and institutional sources of divided presidential government. American Political Science Review 89 (2): 327–43.Google Scholar
Sineau, Mariette. 2003. Parité in politics: From a radical idea to a consensual reform. In Beyond French feminisms: Debates on women, politics, and culture in France, 1981–2001, ed. Roger Célestin, Eliane DalMolin, and Isabelle de Courtivron, 113–26. London: Palgrave.
Singapore, Republic of. 2003. Singapore Elections. http://app.elections.gov.sg/index.asp.
Slovenia, Republic of. N.d. Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. http://www.dz-rs.si/en/aktualno/spremljanje_zakonodaje/ustava/ustava_ang.pdf.
Smith, Richard Chase. 1982. Liberal ideology and indigenous communities in post-independence Peru. Journal of International Affairs 36 (1): 73–82.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jack. 2000. From voting to violence: Democratization and nationalist conflict. New York: W. W. Norton.
Sowell, Thomas. 1990. Preferential policies: An international perspective. New York: William Morrow.
Stability Pact. 2002. Gender Task Force, Progress Report June 2002, Stability Pact Working Table 1 Meeting ISTANBUL. http://www.stabilitypact.org/gender/istanbul-2002.doc.
Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. 2002. Indigenous peoples and the state in Latin America: An ongoing debate. In Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous rights, diversity, and democracy, ed. Rachel Sieder, 24–44. London: Palgrave.
Steiner, Jürg. 1990. Power sharing: Another Swiss “export product”? In Conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies, ed. Joseph V. Montville, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 107–14.
Steiner, Jürg 2002. Consociational theory and Switzerland—revisited. Acta Politica 37 (1, 2): 104–20.Google Scholar
Tekchandani, Bharti, Kiran Jyoti, and Priti Sharma. 1997. They Call Me Member Saab: Women in Haryana Panchayati Raj. New Delhi: Multiple Action Research Group.
Telles, Edward. 1999. Ethnic boundaries and political mobilization among African Brazilians: Comparisons with the U.S. case. In Racial politics in contemporary Brazil, ed. Michael Hanchard, 82–97. Durham: Duke University Press.
Trebble, Adam James. 2002. What is the politics of difference? Political Theory 30 (2): 259–81.Google Scholar
UNHCR, and OSCE. 2002. Ninth Assessment of the Situation of Ethnic Minorities in Kosovo. http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/minorities/min_rep_09_eng.pdf.
Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2003. Institutional change and ethnic parties in South America. Latin American Politics and Society 45 (2): 1–39.Google Scholar
Van Cott, Donna Lee. N.d. From Movements to Parties: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics in Latin America. Unpublished manuscript.
Varshney, Ashutosh. 2001. Ethnic conflict and civil society: India and beyond. World Politics 53 (2): 362–98.Google Scholar
Walker, Ranginui. 1992. The Maori People: Their political development. In New Zealand politics in perspective, ed. Hyam Gold. 3rd ed. Auckland: Longman Paul, 379–400.
Weiss, Anita, and Farzana Bari. 2002. Struggling for a political voice: Women contesting the system in Pakistan. Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Washington, DC, April 4, 2002.
Wilkinson, Steven. 2000. India, consociational theory, and ethnic violence. Asian Survey 40 (5): 767–91.Google Scholar
Williams, Melissa. 1998. Voice, trust, and memory: Marginalized groups and the failings of liberal representation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Yashar, Deborah. 1999. Democracy, indigenous movements, and the postliberal challenge in Latin America. World Politics 52 (1): 76–104.Google Scholar
Yashar, Deborah. Forthcoming. Indigenous movements and the state in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Yishai, Yael. 2001. Bringing society back in: Post-cartel parties in Israel. Party Politics 7 (6): 667–87.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.