Defending the Status Quo: On Adaptive Resistance to Electoral Gender Quotas is an exceptional book where Cecilia Josefsson examines the resistance strategies employed by male political elites against a complex endogenous institutional change: the adoption of gender quota laws. This outstandingly written book develops a detailed theory about resistance to gender quotas and is based on extensive qualitative fieldwork.
Gender quotas have been considered a “fast track” to achieve political inclusion for women (see Tripp and Kang, “The Global Impact of Quotas: On the Fast Track to Increased Female Legislative Representation,” Comparative Political Studies, 41(3), 2008). In regions like Latin America, gender quota laws, and more recently parity laws, have laid the groundwork for a significant increase in the number of women in parliaments since the 1990s. Yet, as the author points out, the comparative experience also indicates these reforms are never easy to adopt or implement, as the surrounding political negotiations are often intricate. Although gender quota laws are a common electoral institution, which have proved effective in increasing women’s representation, approximately 30% of countries around the world have not adopted them. In some instances, the adoption processes have been extremely lengthy, plagued with concessions, deficiencies, and shortcomings. It is thus unsurprising that many countries have ended up with suboptimal gender quota laws, limiting their impact on gender equality in politics.
As the author correctly highlights, the extensive comparative literature analyzing gender quotas laws has primarily focused on two issues. First, scholars have studied the factors behind the adoption of these reforms. This research has examined the influence of international norms, the pressures exerted by transnational and domestic advocacy groups on MPs and party leaders, the strength and unity of women movements, the presence of cross-party alliances in parliaments, and the cost–benefit analyses conducted by male political elites. Second, a complementary body of research has typically explored the challenges faced during the implementation of gender quota laws. These studies often involve analyzing the loopholes and weaknesses of these reforms, as well as the different tactics political parties employ to bypass the implementation of the reforms. While acknowledging the importance of these lines of inquiry, Josefsson proposes a different approach. She argues that to fully understand the lengthy processes leading to the adoption of gender quota laws, along with the failures of such reforms, researchers should shift the focus of the analysis. Rather than viewing these flaws as mistakes or compromises made by proponents of the laws (“gender equity entrepreneurs”), Josefsson suggests that we should examine the resistance strategies posed by male political elites (“defenders of the status quo”).
One of the most notable aspects of Josefsson’s research is the in-depth examination of the unique nature of gender quota laws. The author builds on existing literature highlighting the significance of understanding the specific features of gender policies to better comprehend their adoption (Htun and Weldon, “When Do Governments Promote Women’s Rights? A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Sex Equality Policy,” Perspectives on Politics, 8(1), 2010). Josefsson defines gender quota laws as a distinct type of “gender-equitable policy” eliciting a specific form of resistance. While all gender equality policies face resistance, as they challenge the conservative and patriarchal status quo, gender quotas are resisted by privileged individuals, particularly men who serve as MPs or hold other positions of political power. The adoption of gender quota laws represents a particular type of endogenous institutional change: the support of men MPs is required to pass them, but these same male MPs are incentivized to resist these reforms to avoid losing privileges. From this perspective, resistance is at the core of the political dynamics surrounding gender quota laws. As the author argues, gender quota laws are not only complex to adopt, but also challenging to implement, and even when they succeed, “conscious” resistance from male political elites should be expected.
The author develops a compelling argument on resistance (“the Resistance Stage Framework”). The book presents an expanded theoretical model to account for how defenders of the status quo resist the adoption of gender quotas throughout the entire policy cycle: the agenda setting, the policy formulation, the decision-making and the implementation. Drawing on insights from different institutional theories, the author depicts how male political elites maneuver through each stage of the policy cycle, adapting their strategies and discourses to resist gender quota laws.
The mechanisms of resistance are diverse and vary from one stage to another, ranging from silence and inaction in the agenda-setting stage, to minimizing the laws’ effectiveness during implementation. If resistance is successful, institutional change becomes stuck in one of the stages of the policy cycle. In other contexts, however, the advocacy strategies of gender equity entrepreneurs succeed, leading to the advancement and eventual approval of the laws. As Josefsson claims, in these cases, resisting actors are often forced to “jump on the bandwagon.” Nevertheless, even in such scenarios, these actors can achieve small victories by imposing restrictions on the laws, making gender equity entrepreneurs accept concessions. This resistance is also met by evading implementation taking advantage of loopholes in the approved reforms. Cecilia Josefsson’s theory is meticulous in detailing the resistance mechanisms at each stage of the policy process, clearly outlining their observable implications.
The book thoroughly analyzes the case of Uruguay, a consolidated democracy in Latin America with a highly institutionalized party system. Uruguay experienced a lengthy and wicked process leading to the adoption of a temporary gender quota law in 2009—at the end of the wave of quotas in the region—and a permanent one in 2017. The author carefully justifies the case selection, defining Uruguay as an “extreme case” of resistance. Through a case study spanning 34 years, from 1985 to 2019, and along five chapters, the author provides thick descriptions on how political elites initially disregarded the gender quota law, subsequently delaying its approval and deliberately designing it to diminish its impact. Ultimately, the fact the law was applied only partially highlights the challenges faced in achieving genuine gender equality in governance.
The author makes a compelling case on how male politicians across the ideological spectrum gradually adapted their rhetoric in the face of mounting pressures, that is, the persistent lobbying of women legislators, the amplification of the debate in the media, and the reputational costs of Uruguay’s status as one of the few Latin American countries without a gender quota law. Josefsson shows that, as the parliamentary debate advanced, actors initially resistant to the gender quota law strategically opted for the adoption of a restrictive version, primarily as a “blame-avoidance” strategy rather than a genuine commitment to gender equality. This is shown through an extensive and rigorous fieldwork. The author systematizes an impressive amount of diverse qualitative data, which comprise electoral lists, bill proposals, and more critically, 70 in-depth interviews and hundreds of pages of transcripts of parliamentary debates.
Although the book lacks a comparative chapter illustrating how the argument travels to other cases, this does not weaken its findings and contributions. Cecilia Josefsson’s work enhances our understanding of the adoption of gender quotas, representing an excellent example of how to study institutional change over time. In this vein, this book should not only be read by scholars interested in the subfield of politics and gender but also by those interested in an institutional change in a broader sense.
