This study uses district-level data from national legislative elections in 19 Latin American countries to evaluate the effect of gender quota legislation, in concert with other electoral rules, on the election of women legislators. Well-designed quota legislation has a profound positive impact on the election of women, regardless of the type of party list (closed or open). Where quota legislation is in force, the use of closed lists on average results in a greater percentage of women legislators elected to office than does the use of open lists. However, this difference is not as great as would be expected based on the prevailing conventional wisdom and is primarily the consequence of the superiority of the closed-list systems when the number of seats a party wins in a district (party magnitude) is two. With one important exception, party magnitude is generally unrelated to women's electoral success in the region.
Alcántara Sáez, M. (Ed.). (2008). Politicians and politics in Latin America. Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner.
2.
Baldez, L. (2007). Primaries vs. quotas: Gender and candidate nominations in Mexico, 2003. Latin American Politics and Society, 49(3), 69-96.
3.
Beck, N.J., Katz, N., & Tucker, R. (1998). Taking time seriously: Time-series-cross-section analysis with a binary dependent variable. American Journal of Political Science, 42, 1260-1288.
4.
Caul Kittilson, M. (2006). Challenging parties, changing parliaments: Women and contemporary elected office in Western Europe. Columbus : Ohio State University Press.
5.
Dahlerup, D. (Ed.). (2006). Women, quotas and politics. New York: Routledge.
6.
Htun, M.N., & Jones, M.P. (2002). Engendering the right to participate in decision-making: Electoral quotas and women's leadership in Latin America. In N. Craske & M. Molyneux (Eds.), Gender and the politics of rights and democracy in Latin America (pp. 32-56). New York: Palgrave .
7.
Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2003). Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change . New York: Cambridge University Press.
8.
Jones, M.P. (2004). Quota legislation and the election of women: Learning from the Costa Rican experience. Journal of Politics, 66, 1203-1223.
9.
Krook, M.L. (2005). Politicizing representation: Campaigns for candidate gender quotas worldwide. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York.
10.
Larserud, S., & Taphorn, R. (2007). Designing for equality: Best-fit, medium-fit, and non-favourable combinations of electoral systems and gender quotas. Stockholm: International IDEA.
11.
Matland, R.E. (2005). Enhancing women's political participation: Legislative recruitment and electoral systems. In J. Ballington & A. Karam (Eds.), Women in parliament: Beyond numbers, a revised edition (pp. 93-111). Stockholm : International IDEA.
12.
Matland, R.E. (2006). Electoral quotas: Frequency and effectiveness . In D. Dahlerup, (Ed.), Women, quotas and politics (pp. 275-292). New York: Routledge.
13.
Matland, R.E., & Taylor, M.M. (1997). Electoral system effects on women's representation: Theoretical arguments and evidence from Costa Rica. Comparative Political Studies, 30, 186-210.
14.
Meier, P. (2004). The mutual contagion effect of legal and party quotas. Party Politics, 10, 583-600.
15.
Moñtano, S. (2007). Women's contribution to equality in Latin America and the Caribbean. Santiago, Chile: ECLAC.
16.
Norris, P. (2004). Electoral engineering: Voting rules and political behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
17.
Payne, J.M., Zovatto, D.G., & Mateo Díaz, M. (2007). Democracies in development: Politics and reform in Latin America (expanded and updated edition). Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.
18.
Phillips, A. (1995). The politics of presence. New York: Oxford University Press.
19.
Quota Project. (2007). Global database of quotas for women. Stockholm: International IDEA and Stockholm University. Available from http://www.quotaproject.org
20.
Schmidt, G.D. (2005, August). Is closed list PR really optimal for the election of women? A cross-national analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association , Washington, DC.
21.
Schmidt, G.D., & Saunders, K.L. (2004). Effective quotas, relative party magnitude, and the success of female candidates: Peruvian municipal elections in comparative perspective. Comparative Political Studies, 37, 704-734.
22.
Schwindt-Bayer, L.A. (2006). Still supermadres? Gender and the policy priorities of LatinAmerican legislators. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 570-585.
23.
Shvedova, N. (2005). Obstacles to women's participation in parliament . In J. Ballington & A. Karam (Eds.), Women in parliament: Beyond numbers, a revised edition (pp. 33-50). Stockholm: International IDEA.
24.
Studlar, D.T., & McAllister, I. (2002). Does a critical mass exist? A comparative analysis of women's legislative representation since 1950. European Journal of Political Research, 41, 233-253.
25.
Tomz, M., Wittenberg, J., & King, G. (2003). Clarify: Software for interpreting and presenting statistical results [Computer software]. Boston: Harvard University.
26.
Tripp, A., & Kang, A. (2008). The global impact of quotas: On the fast track to increased female legislative representation. Comparative Political Studies, 41, 338-361.
