Gender Quotas and Transformative Politics

Abstract

Gender quotas have become the preferred tool to increase women’s presence in decision-making bodies all over the world. Despite their uneven implementation and limited concrete outcomes, which depends on the context in which they are adopted, gender quotas have elicited and continue to elicit many hopes for gender equality, social change and, more broadly, social justice. Looking closely at the normative arguments upon which gender quotas’ adoption rests, this paper asks whether gender quotas can contribute to social transformation, and under which conditions. It investigates how current conceptualizations of gender quotas narrow their scope and their potential contribution to transformative politics, and proposes some venues to articulate gender quotas in the framework of a broader social justice project. In particular it stresses that institutions and complementary measures are an important factor in gender quotas’ success in bringing effective social change.

Keywords: political representation, critical mass, gender equality, social justice, discursive politics