Introduction

Fifty years ago politics was totally male dominated. In any political institution, a woman was an exception, a stranger. Since then, a process of engendering has taken place in politics, even if women are still vastly under-represented. It has been a slow process with great variations in time and space, and not without backlashes. But in terms of gender composition, the political arena will never look the same as it did in the 1930s and 1950s.

The recent adoption of gender quotas for public elections by countries all over the world represents an attempt to change traditional male dominance in politics and speed up the process of engendering. Although highly controversial, electoral gender quotas have during the last two decades been adopted in constitutions or in legislation in almost fifty countries, while in about fifty additional countries one or more of the political parties represented in parliament have introduced quotas for their own election lists (Dahlerup 2006; www.quotaproject.org).

This trend points to a new understanding of representative democracy – an understanding that is very far from James Mill's argument that a husband can represent the interest of his wife. But also far from the suffragists' demand for formal rights for women to vote and to stand for public election. Today, the global demand is for nothing short of gender balance in representation, or ‘parity democracy’, i.e., 50 per cent women and men in all political decision making.

INTRODUCTION

Constitutions and laws have recently been recognized by feminists as an important site through which decision making, influence, and power are organized and exercised. Given that laws contribute to the shaping of gender attitudes and values, laws could also be used as an instrument by which to create change. One example of constitution making in terms of gender is the adoption of electoral gender quotas. During the past ten years, an increasing number of states have enacted statutes to promote the number of women in public decision making. Today, forty-eight countries have introduced special measures in the form of legislative quotas stipulated in their constitution and/or electoral laws. In addition to these legal reforms, in more than fifty other countries at least one political party represented in parliament has adopted voluntary party quotas stipulated in its party statutes. This recent and rapid diffusion of gender quotas has been labeled a “fast track” to equal representation.

Legislative quotas have often been introduced at times when new constitutions were being written and structures of government were being rebuilt or as part of broader constitutional reforms. These situations have opened windows of opportunity for quota proponents to place questions of gender representation on the political agenda. The women's movement's long advocacy of and lobbying activities for more women in elected positions have also found more resonance, because international reputation is becoming increasingly important for political elites.