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International IDEA, 2002, Women in Parliament, Stockholm (http://www.idea.int). This is an English version of Mala
N. Htun, “Mujeres y poder político en Latinoamérica”, in International IDEA, Mujeres en el Parlamento. Más allá de los
números, Stockholm, Sweden, 2002. (This translation may vary slightly from the original text. If there are discrepancies in
the meaning, the original Spanish version is the definitive text).
CHAPTER 1
Women in Political Power in Latin America
Mala N. Htun
This chapter provides an overview of women’s participation in parliament in
Latin America. It analyses the reasons for and obstacles to women’s gains in
power, including socio-economic factors, public attitudes to women in
leadership and the role of political parties and electoral systems. Taking
these into account, it examines the affirmative action strategies adopted by
Latin American countries to expand women’s opportunities. The chapter also
considers whether women’s greater presence in power has made a difference for
policy. In certain circumstances, women have organized into multipartisan
political alliances to promote specific law and policy changes to advance
women’s rights. Ultimately, however, advancing women’s rights in the region
depends on the consolidation of democracy, sustainable development and the
promotion of equitable economic growth.
As in the rest of the world, women have historically been severely under-represented in elected office in Latin
America. Women’s presence in political decision-making has never equalled men’s. Recognizing that this under-
representation poses a threat to democracy, political equality, and justice, more and more people – including male
politicians and opinion leaders – have endorsed measures to increase women’s presence in power. In the 1990s, eleven
Latin American countries adopted quota laws establishing minimum levels for women’s participation as candidates in
national elections. Though their results vary depending on electoral rules and party compliance, the quota movement
marks a watershed in public attitudes toward women in power and in official commitments to women’s equality.
As a result of quotas, social and economic development, and cultural changes, women’s presence in power in Latin
America has grown, in some countries dramatically. From an average of 9 per cent in 1990, by 2002, women’s
representation in the lower houses of Congress had increased to 15 per cent. Women’s share of the Senate grew from an
average of five per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2002. And, whereas women occupied 9 per cent of ministerial posts in
1990, by 2002 this had increased to an average of 13 per cent and as high as 25 per cent in some countries. Yet
considerable obstacles remain to women’s achievement of decision-making parity with men, and women’s presence in
power continues to vary across countries. Not all countries have adopted quota laws for women, and in some countries
where the laws do exist, they are weakly implemented or not enforced. Moreover, quotas, when they succeed in bringing
women into power, do not always grant women the resources they need to use that power effectively.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Latin American countries made significant moves in the direction of political democracy and
free market capitalism. With the exception of Cuba, those countries suffering under military dictatorship and
authoritarian one-party systems made the transition to free elections and competitive party politics. Many countries also
embraced free market principles by liberalizing trade, privatizing state-owned enterprises, reducing regulations, balancing
budgets, reforming exchange rate policies, and the like.
Freer politics and freer markets, however, have not everywhere led to an unequivocal advance in citizen rights and
economic well-being. Many countries still suffer from alleged abuses of human rights by state agents, corruption, high
crime rates, and an ineffective judicial system. In the 1990s, the region’s average rate of economic growth was 2 per cent
per year, and income distribution was the most unequal in the world. Averaging across the region, one-fourth of national
income goes to the richest 5 per cent of the population (and 40 per cent goes to wealthiest 10 per cent).
1
Brazil has
enjoyed the region’s highest average growth rates since the 1950s (at 2.5 per cent), but is also the most unequal. Average
2
growth rates since the 1950s have been lower than 1 per cent in Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua
and Venezuela. Clearly, this variation in the economic and social conditions of different countries is consequential for
the status of women.
Table 1.1 Women in Power in Latin America – A Snapshot
Country % Ministers
% Chamber of Deputies
(or unicameral parliament) % Senate
A
r
g
entina 8% 31% 36%
Bolivia 0% 12% 4%
Brazil 0% 7% 6%
Chile 25% 13% 4%
Colombia 19% 13% 10%
Costa Rica 18% 35%
Cuba 10% 28%
Dominican Republic 8% 16% 7%
Ecuador 7% 15%
El Salvador 25% 10%
Guatemala 8% 9%
Honduras 26% 9%
Mexico 16% 16% 16%
Nicaragua 8% 21%
Panama 25% 10%
Paraguay 8% 3% 18%
Peru 7% 18%
Uruguay 0% 12% 10%
V
enezuela 21% 10%
TOTAL 13% 15% 12%
Sources: Inter-American Dialogue. 2001. Women and Power in the Americas. A Report Card.
Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue; Inter-Parliamentary Union. February 2002. Women
i
n National Parliaments. Available on the internet at http://www.ipu.or
g
. (Percentages are
r
ounded off.)
Table 1.1 shows that women’s share of power, while quite high in some countries (such as Argentina and Costa Rica),
and is low in others (such as Brazil and Guatemala). On average, women’s opportunities to participate in parliament
have improved, but gains have not been evenly distributed.
Levels of women’s participation in power in Latin America are close to the world average. According to the Inter-
Parliamentary Union, women make up over 14 per cent of the lower houses of congress around the world, and 14 per
cent of the senates. The averages across the 19 countries of Latin America are 15 and 12 per cent, respectively.
Table 1.2 Women in Parliament
World Region Women as % of Lower House or
Unicameral Parliament
Women as % of Senate
Nordic countries 38.8% ---
Europe (OSCE countries) 16.8 % 14.8 %
Americas 15.8% 16.6%
Asia 15.6 % 12.1%
Europe (excl. Nordic countries) 14.7% 14.8%
Latin America* 15.0% 12.0%
Sub-Saharan Africa 12.8 12.8 %
Pacific 11.3 % 25.9 %
Arab states 4.6 % 2.5 %
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union. February 2002. Women in National Parliaments. Available on the internet at
http://www.ipu.org
*Author’s calculations for the Latin American average.
3
Latin American averages lag behind those of the Nordic countries, are comparable to Asia and the rest of Europe, slightly
ahead of Sub-Saharan Africa, and well ahead of the Arab states. Latin America leads the Pacific region in terms of
women’s participation in the lower house of Congress but is far behind the Pacific’s high average for the Senate.
Women’s Position in the Economy and Society
Latin American women’s capabilities and opportunities have grown, on average, in recent decades. Women’s situation
is worse than men’s, however, and women’s status varies dramatically across countries, regions, socio-economic
classes, and racial and ethnic groups.
Data shows that on average, women’s situation has improved and women are becoming more integrated into the public
sphere of work and education:
• Women’s life expectancy: 73 years in 1999, compared to 68 years in 1980.
• Fertility: 2.6 children per woman in 1999, compared to 4.1 in 1980.
• Prevalence of contraceptives: 60 per cent of women aged 15–45 in 1998, compared to 45 per cent in 1980.
• Labour force participation: women represented 35 per cent of the labour force in 1999, compared to 28 per cent
in 1980.
• Literacy: 13 per cent of women aged 15 and over were illiterate in 1998, compared to 23 per cent in 1980.
• Secondary school enrolment: 67 per cent of secondary school-aged girls enrolled in 1998, compared to 54 per cent
in 1980.
2
Yet these improvements in women’s status and integration into the public sphere vary significantly across countries and
across social classes and regions within individual countries. Maternal mortality, for example, ranges from a high of 390
per 100,000 live births in Bolivia to a low of 21 in Uruguay.
3
Fertility varies from a high of 4.9 children per woman in
Guatemala to a low of 2.3 in Brazil.
4
Within individual countries, women from lower-income families are much less likely to work outside of the home
than women from families with higher incomes. In the region as a whole, 61 per cent of women from families with
incomes in the top 10 per cent work outside of the home compared to merely 37 per cent of women from the bottom 30
per cent. By contrast, 86 per cent of men from the top 10 per cent, and 83 from the bottom 30, work outside the home.
5
The main reason for this gap is education, which the Inter-American Development Bank concludes is “by far the most
relevant and important factor in explaining labour force participation decisions”. As they become more educated, women
opt to have fewer children, become exposed to alternative life choices, and enjoy higher incomes. Education also affects
the likelihood that a woman will work in the formal, as opposed to the informal, sector.
6
The situations of rural, indigenous and Afro-Latin women may be significantly different from those of urban and
paler-skinned women. Data from the north-east of Argentina, for example, show that 40 to 60 per cent of rural homes,
many of which are headed by women, are in poverty.
7
In Peru, children of indigenous backgrounds are more likely to
start school late and to repeat grades once in school, which contributes to overall lower levels of educational attainment.
8
Studies from Brazil have found that race matters for educational attainment, employment opportunities and earning
power. White Brazilians aged 10 and over averaged over six years of schooling in 1996, whereas darker-skinned
Brazilians had just over four years of schooling.
9
In terms of wage gaps, however, gender may matter more than race.
One study found that in earnings gender inequality was less than racial inequality. Though women, on average, had
more education than men, they earned lower wages regardless of race.
10
Advances in the situation of some women put them in a better place to gain access to power. Many politicians, for
example, have legal training and legal backgrounds, and in some countries, women make up half or more than half of
law students. This suggests that women are moving into the “eligibility pools” out of which potential leaders emerge and
are recruited. As data on income distribution and ethnic and regional disparities suggest, however, other women
continue to lag behind.
Public attitudes about women’s leadership
Studies show that the Latin American public supports women in power. A poll of around 2000 Latin Americans in five
major cities, conducted by Gallup on behalf of the Inter-American Development Bank and the Inter-American Dialogue
in 2000, suggests that public attitudes toward women’s leadership may be helping to expand opportunities for women.
11
The Latin Americans surveyed in the study were optimistic about women’s performance in politics and women’s
future prospects. Fifty-seven per cent said that women’s greater presence in political office would lead to better
4
government. Over 90 per cent claimed they would be willing to vote for a woman as president, and 69 per cent believed
that their country would elect a woman president over the next 20 years. Sixty-five per cent agreed that women’s quota
laws were “mostly good” for the country.
Latin Americans felt that women were effective leaders and would outperform men in several areas. Sixty-six per cent
agreed that women are more honest than men, and 85 per cent agreed that women are good decision-makers. Sixty-two
per cent of people expressed the belief that women would do better than men at reducing poverty, 72 per cent at
improving education, 57 per cent at combating corruption, 64 per cent at protecting the environment, 59 per cent at
managing the economy, and 53 per cent at conducting diplomatic relations. On defending public security and running
the army, however, only 44 and 20 per cent, respectively, said that women would outperform men.
Another interesting finding of the study was that Latin Americans care about a politician’s position on women’s rights
issues. Fifty-seven per cent claimed that a candidate’s opinion on women’s rights would be “very important” to their
decision about whom to vote for in the next presidential election. Forty-four per cent of those surveyed would be more
likely to vote for a presidential candidate who promised to appoint equal numbers of men and women to the cabinet.
Forty-two per cent said that such a promise would not affect their vote.
The results of the survey suggest that public attitudes may be a decreasingly salient obstacle to women gaining
political office. Latin American publics say they are willing to vote for qualified women and believe that women do better
than men at contending with a range of problems and issues. These survey results resemble the findings of similar studies
in the United States, which have been interpreted to mean that the barriers to women gaining power lie not with the
electorate but with party and institutional structures.
12
Indeed, in spite of public opinion, women continue to be elected
to office at lower rates than men. To explain why, we should look at the potential constraints posed by political
institutions –parties and electoral systems – on women’s candidacies.
Women and Political Parties
Parties are the gatekeepers to women’s advancement to political power. To gain positions of political leadership,
women must work through political parties that have the unique ability to field candidates for political office. Parties,
however, have historically been highly gendered institutions that incorporated women on a different basis from men and
in ways that impeded their access to leadership positions. In many countries, women still make up half of party members
but rarely enjoy equal status with men on party executive boards and among candidates for popular elections. Women
joined “women’s bureaus” of political parties that mobilized voters and supported male candidates by hosting meetings
and fundraisers. Unlike male-dominated bureaus for peasants, labourers, students, and the like, these women’s bureaus
were not derived from a class position or occupation that women could organize around to press their collective
demands. Rather, women were recruited “as women, whose primary association as a group was with private life”.
13
Not
surprisingly, women’s representation in party leadership is low relative to their overall participation in parties.
In the 1980s and 1990s, many women’s bureaus reoriented themselves to serve, not as support staff, but as advocates
of women leaders in the party. In Mexico’s Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), for example, the women’s bureau was
transformed from a matronly organization into an effective base to promote women’s entry into mainstream leadership
positions. In the period surrounding Mexican national elections of 1997 and 2000, the PAN’s National Secretariat for
the Political Promotion of Women lobbied local and national party leaders to include women as candidates. In the 2000
elections, the Women’s Department succeeded in enforcing some affirmative action measures for women’s candidacies.
These measures were applied to the composition of the proportional representation (PR) lists (in Mexico’s mixed system,
200 of the 500 deputies in Congress are elected through PR lists in each of five electoral circumscriptions). One measure
specified that a woman occupy one of the first two slots on each of the five lists. A second measure required that
throughout the list, if the official candidate were a man, his alternate would have to be a woman, and vice versa. The
final rule was that the party committee of each state postulate men and women in equal numbers for the internal
elections in which party members elected candidates to the party list.
14
After the elections, 12 per cent of the PAN’s
deputies were women, and 13 per cent of the senators.
Women also succeeded in convincing many parties to adopt quota rules for popular and internal elections. Latin
American parties with quotas are shown in Box 1.
5
Box 1. Political Party Quotas in Latin America
15
Country Political Party Quota
Brazil
Partido dos Trabalhadores 30%
Partido Socialista
30%
Partido por la Democracia
40%
Chile
Partido Demócrata Cristiano
20%
Costa Rica
Partido Unidad Social Cristiana 40%
El Salvador Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional 35%
Partido Revolucionario Democrático
30% Mexico
Partido Revolucionario Institucional
30%
Nicaragua Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional 30%
Paraguay Asociación Nacional Republicana
20%
Venezuela Partido Acción Democrática
20%
Nonetheless, the track record of parties in promoting women’s candidacies varies significantly. Scholars have
hypothesized that women’s success depends on the nature of the party organization and party ideology. It is argued that
women will enjoy greater opportunities in rule-oriented, bureaucratic parties than in unstructured or clientelistic
parties.
16
When a party is rule-bound, potential candidates can better understand the nomination process and hold party
leaders accountable to these rules. Studies have also found that women tend to fare better in parties of the left, since left
ideology favours the representation of marginalized social groups and women’s movements have closer ties to the left.
17
One multi-country study found that the electoral strength of left-wing parties was a powerful predictor of women’s
representation in power.
18
In Latin America, the key distinction is between party systems (i.e. the whole collection of parties in a country and
their relationships to one another and the electorate) that are institutionalized and party systems that are poorly
institutionalized or “inchoate”. Institutionalized party systems enjoy stability in the rules and nature of partisan
competition, parties with stable roots in society as well as consistent rules and structures and popular legitimacy.
19
While there is evidence that parties with clear and stable rules and procedures would be advantageous to women, it
may also be the case that systems with less formal procedures create opportunities for women. In Latin America,
women’s representation in congress in countries with institutionalized party politics and bureaucratic, rule-oriented
parties, such as Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay, is high to average (at 13, 35 and 12 per cent, respectively). However,
women’s presence in congress in countries with more personalistic, informal parties and a more weakly institutionalized
party system, such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru (at 12, 15 and 18 per cent, respectively), also ranges from high to
average. In countries with weak political systems, voters may be turning to women, historic political outsiders, for a fresh
start. It may also be the case that rule-bound party institutions have gender biases that are difficult to change, and that
more disorganized parties provide greater opportunities to women.
In general, citizen identification with political parties in Latin America is low and parties have relatively weak roots in
society. For example, Latinobarómetro surveys show that on average, only about 15 per cent of Latin Americans feel
close to a political party. In over half of Latin American countries, moreover, fewer than 40 per cent of citizens see
parties as essential to national progress.
20
Nonetheless, as the central institutions for aggregating citizen preferences and
translating these into policy, as well as the only groups able to field candidates for elected office, parties are an
indispensable component of democracy. Many Latin American parties have made attempts at reform by introducing
more transparent rules and open primaries for candidate selection. These reform efforts may open up greater
6
opportunities to women to rise to leadership.
As in other countries around the world, Latin American parties of the left tend to elect more women than parties of
the right.
21
Leftist parties are also more likely to adopt internal quota rules and quotas for popular elections. Yet women
are not doing so badly as one might expect in parties of the Right, relative to the total numbers of women legislators in
each country. Women comprise 13 per cent of the deputies elected by Chile’s rightist
Renovación Nacional (RN) party
and 12 per cent of Mexico’s right-wing PAN deputies. Eighteen per cent of the deputies belonging to Peru’s Frente
Independiente Moralizador (FIM) party are women. And women’s share of seats among deputies in Brazil’s right-wing
Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), five per cent, is very low, but only one percentage point lower than women’s share of
Congress generally. Even if they are unwilling to adopt quotas guaranteeing women a certain level of representation,
parties of the right in Latin America have taken measures to promote women into decision-making and to adopt policy
positions advancing women’s interests.
22
Parties, although historically presenting obstacles to women’s advancement, have begun to change, even parties of the
right. But the pace of change is slow and women’s opportunities vary across parties. However, in Latin America, a party-
by-party analysis of women’s opportunities remains to be done.
Women and Electoral Systems
Various studies have shown that electoral rules are consequential for women’s chances to get elected. Countries with
proportional representation (PR) tend to elect more women than countries with majoritarian, or winner-take-all,
systems.23 Why? As Richard Matland argues in Chapter 4, in PR systems (where seats are allocated to parties based on
the percentage of the total vote they receive) parties have an incentive to “balance” the ticket by including candidates
with ties to a variety of social groups (such as women) and candidates representing different party factions and
constituencies. In majoritarian systems, by contrast, the incentives are different. Parties tend to field those candidates
that have a realistic chance of winning more votes than any other candidate. In most cases, party leaders feel that their
top candidates are men.
Indeed, 1999 data from 53 countries show that women made up an
average of 20 per cent of members of Congress in PR systems, 15 per cent in
mixed systems (in which part of the legislature is elected using PR and part
using single-member districts), and 11 per cent in majoritarian systems.
24
Many variations exist within the family of PR systems, however, and some of these may be better for women than others.
Closed-list systems (where the elector votes for a party list, and party leaders control the order in which candidates
appear on the list) tend to be more successful at electing women than open-list systems (where the voter votes for an
individual candidate). Yet some scholars argue that open lists, which allow voters to elect women regardless of where
party leaders place them on the list, increase women’s chances.
25
Even when the electorate wants to elect women,
however, gender differences in campaign budgets and media coverage may harm the fortunes of women candidates.
PR systems with higher electoral thresholds (that establish a national minimum vote percentage required for a party to
gain a seat) are held to be more women-friendly than lower thresholds that permit small parties to gain a limited number
of seats (as these seats are usually held by men). And, the larger the district magnitude, the more seats a party is likely to
win in a district, and the greater the chances are that women will be included on the ballot and elected.
Besides providing incentives (or not) for party leaders to include women as candidates as a means of “balancing” the
ticket, electoral rules wield significant influence over party structure. Although scholars are only beginning to focus on
this process, a small number of works have hypothesized about how electoral rules affect the power of party leaders to
control the nomination process, including the nomination of women. Without nomination control, party leaders have a
harder time applying women’s quotas or responding to activists’ calls for the greater inclusion of women. Features like
open and closed lists determine whether party leaders can control the selection of candidates and the order in which
candidates appear on the list. Other factors affecting party leader control are rules that grant incumbents the automatic
right to run for re-election (such laws, called “birthright candidate” laws, are currently in force only in Brazil). Therefore,
electoral rules are important not just for their effects on how candidates get elected, but also for the ways they shape
internal party rules and party structures.
26
7
Eighteen of the Latin American countries for which
electoral information was available use some version of PR,
although three countries are mixed systems combining closed-
list PR and single member districts. Among the list PR
countries, eight use closed lists and five use open lists.
Uruguay has a factional list system, in which votes are pooled
at the party level, distributed proportionally to the factions,
and then distributed to each faction’s lists of candidates. In
Colombia’s personal list system, the vast majority of lists
contain only a single candidate. Votes are pooled across these
sub-party lists, not at the party level (see Table 1.3).
27
Different sets of PR rules are associated with different levels of
women’s representation. The mean level of women’s
representation for the lower house of Congress was 17 per
cent in the closed-list systems, 13 per cent in the mixed
systems, and 12 per cent in the open-list systems. This
provides tentative confirmation that closed-list systems are
better for women. The closed-list number is significantly
affected by the cases of Argentina and Costa Rica, however,
both of which use quotas to elect legislators, and both of
which apply placement mandates to the position of women on
party lists.
Quotas for Women
Between 1991 and 2000, 11 Latin American countries
adopted quota laws establishing a minimum level of 20 to 40
per cent for women’s participation as candidates in legislative
elections. Venezuela has since, however, rescinded its quota
law. A twelfth country, Colombia, enacted a law requiring
that women occupy 30 per cent of appointed decision-making
positions in the executive branch of government (see Table
1.4).
Argentina was the first country
to adopt quotas in 1991.
There, a multi-party group of
women politicians and women
activists united to convince
their male colleagues to
support the quota. Women
were inspired by the use of
quotas in Spain’s Socialist
Party and by international
norms and agreements about
sex equality. Quotas would not
have been approved, however,
without the support of (then)
President Carlos Menem and
members of his inner circle.
These male politicians, embarrassed at low levels of women’s representation, sought to gain women’s votes and to “go
down in history” as those who had made a difference for women in power.
Argentina’s pioneering move triggered debates on quotas in countries around the region. Argentine women politicians
Table 1.3: Electoral Systems in Latin America (for
the Lower House of Congress or
Unicameral Parliament)
Electoral System Country
List PR: Closed List Argentina
Costa Rica
Dominican
Republic*
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Paraguay
List PR: Factional Closed List Uruguay
List PR: Personal List Colombia
List PR: Open List Brazil
Chile
Ecuador**
Panama
Peru
Mixed System(Closed List PR
plus
Single Member Districts)
Bolivia
Mexico
Venezuela
Source: Mainwaring and Shugart (1997); Htun and
Jones (2002).
* Beginning in May 2002, elections in the Dominican
Republic will be conducted with open lists.
** In addition, 15 per cent of Ecuador’s Congress is
elected from a single, national closed list.
Table 1.4 Latin American Quota Laws
Country Date of Law Quota Percentage
Argentina 1991 30 (Chamber and Senate)
Bolivia 1997 30 (Chamber)
25 (Senate)
Brazil 1997 30 (Chamber)
Colombia 2000 30 (in appointed executive posts)
Costa Rica 1997 40 (Unicameral)
Dominican Republic 1997 25 (Chamber)
Ecuador 1997 20 (Unicameral)
Mexico 1996 30 (Chamber and Senate)
Panama 1997 30 (Unicameral)
Paraguay 1996 20 (Chamber and Senate)
Peru 1997 25 (Unicameral)
8
travelled to other countries to share their experiences with quotas and spoke of quotas at an important meeting at the
Latin American Parliament in São Paulo in early 1995. These exchanges motivated many women to introduce their own
quota proposals. The decisive push for quotas came, however, with the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women held
in Beijing. The Beijing Platform for Action endorsed women’s right to participate in decision-making. Specifically, the
Platform called on governments to ensure “women’s equal access to and full participation in power structures and
decision-making,” and to consider adopting affirmative action policies to achieve gender parity in decision-making
bodies.
The Beijing Platform and the shared experience of many women politicians at the 1995 Conference helped unite
women around the idea of quotas and provided normative leverage against governments. By endorsing the Platform,
governments had made a commitment to promoting women to decision-making.
28
Have quotas actually helped more women get elected? On average, quotas boosted women’s representation by eight
percentage points, but the effects of quotas have varied significantly across countries (see Table 1.5).
Table 1.5 Results of Quotas in Latin America
Country Legislative
Body
% Women
(before law)
% Women
(after law)
Change (in %
points)
Argentina Chamber 6 30 +24
Senate 3 36 +33
Bolivia Chamber
Senate
11
4
12
4
+1
0
Brazil Chamber 7 6 -1
Costa Rica Unicameral 14 35 +21
Dominican
Republic
Chamber 12 16 +4
Ecuador Unicameral 4 15 +11
Mexico Chamber
Senate
17
15
16
16
-1
+1
Panama Unicameral 8 10 +2
Paraguay Chamber
Senate
3
11
3
18
0
+7
Peru Unicameral 11 18 +7
Average 9 17 +8
Source: Mala Htun and Mark Jones, “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, eds. Nikki Craske and Maxine Molyneux
(London: Palgrave, 2002) and author’s calculations based on recent election results.
The effectiveness of quotas depends largely on the nature of a country’s electoral system. Quotas work best in closed-list
PR systems where the law contains a placement mandate for women candidates. These placement mandates, which
require parties to place women in high positions on the party list, preclude parties from placing women in decorative
positions lower on the list where they stand no chance of being elected. Quotas also tend to work better in large, multi-
member districts (this is explained in Matland’s chapter). In districts with few members, only the party’s top candidates
– generally men – tend to get elected. When the district magnitude is larger, more of a party’s candidates, including
those in lower positions on the party list, will win seats.
29
These factors explain the success of quotas in the Argentine Chamber and Senate, the Costa Rican Congress, and the
Paraguayan Senate, the only cases where women’s presence has come close to meeting the level of the quota. Argentina
has a strict placement mandate in a closed-list system, and parties that failed to comply with the mandate have been
taken to court. Costa Rica also has a placement mandate and a closed-list system. In elections for the Paraguayan Senate,
the combination of the large single national electoral district (from which 45 senators are elected) and the electoral
success of the two largest parties permitted even women low on the list to get elected.
Table 1.5 shows that women’s presence also jumped sharply in Ecuador, although this was largely attributable to the
fact that voters tended to vote for party lists instead of individual candidates (due to their lack of familiarity with changes
in the electoral law), and parties strategically placed their most popular candidates at the top, middle and bottom of their
respective lists.
30
9
The details of the quota law are very important. Many parties have complied with quotas in the most minimal way
possible permitted by law. In Mexico, the quota law does not specify the types of candidacies quotas apply to. As a result,
parties have tended to include women on the ballot as suplentes, or alternate candidates. In the 2000 Mexican elections,
around 60 per cent of the suplentes on the three largest lists were women. In Argentina, the quota law’s placement
mandate requires that women be placed in every third position on the party list. Parties have tended to comply with this
mandate in a minimalist manner by including women candidates in third positions, not in first or second. In Costa Rica
before 2000, there was no placement mandate, and parties tended to place women near the bottom of party lists. In
2000, however, the Supreme Court issued a ruling interpreting the law to require that women be placed in electable
positions on party lists. As a result, women’s presence in Congress jumped from 19 to 35 per cent after the 2002
elections, the first time the placement mandate was in effect.
The poor results of quotas in Brazil provide dramatic evidence for need to draft quota laws very carefully. Brazil’s law
states that parties must reserve 30 per cent of candidate slots for women, but does not require that parties actually fill
these slots. Since Brazilian electoral law allows parties to postulate 50 per cent more candidates than seats being contested
in a district, a party may, in practice, postulate a full slate without including any women. For example, if a district elects
10 members to congress, each party is permitted to postulate 15 candidates. The quota law requires that parties reserve
four of these slots for women. If a party is unwilling to recruit women, it may postulate 11 male candidates to the
electorate and still not violate the law.
31
These examples suggest that for quotas to work, the law must be as specific as possible and contain no loopholes
permitting parties to avoid postulating women or to comply with quotas merely by placing women in supplementary or
decorative positions on the ballot. In addition, activists need to be willing and able to mobilize to monitor
implementation of the quota. In Argentina, the present norm of party compliance with quotas developed only after
women activists repeatedly challenged noncompliant lists in court.
Women in Power: Do They Make a Difference?
Even if quotas, social changes, and shifting cultural attitudes combine to expand women’s opportunities to gain
power, the question remains of whether women’s greater presence makes a difference for policy outcomes. Are
women’s legislative and policy priorities better served by having more women in power, or can male politicians just as
effectively represent women’s needs in the political process?
It is important to keep in mind that not all arguments in favour of women’s representation focus on consequences for
policy outputs. Some people argue that women’s presence in power is a simple question of fairness. The systematic
discrepancy between women’s participation at the middle and bottom of organizations and their presence in decision-
making is clear evidence of an injustice, it is argued. Fairness demands that women get their proper share of power
regardless of whether they use this power to promote women’s interests.
In Latin America, the greater presence of women in national legislatures coincided with unprecedented attention to
women’s rights issues like domestic violence, reproduction and family law. Women from different political parties
formed alliances to put women’s issues on the policy agenda and then to pressure their male colleagues to support
changes in the law. In the 1990s, at least 16 Latin American countries approved legislation to help victims of domestic
violence. Several countries launched programmes to improve women’s reproductive health, including cervical cancer
screening programmes, family planning and AIDS prevention. A few countries reformed their constitutions to endorse
principles of equal rights between men and women, and several more modified family law provisions that had granted
husbands and fathers unequal authority in the household. It is unlikely that Latin American legislatures would have
devoted as much attention to women’s rights issues without the work of women representatives.
One dramatic example of the potential changes women leaders brings comes from Mexico. In 2000, Rosario Robles,
then mayor of Mexico City, broke the Latin American abortion stalemate by introducing legislation to modify the city’s
criminal code on abortion matters. The proposal, approved through support by the PRD ((Partido de la Revolución
Democrática))and PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) parties, legalized abortions performed if the mother’s
health (not just her life) is at risk and if the fetus has birth defects. Robles accepted the long-standing feminist argument
that abortion is a public health problem, since resorting to clandestine abortions poses grave risks for women’s lives and
health. No other Latin American country has liberalized its abortion laws since the 1940s.
In general, however, Latin American women have disagreed seriously about the issue of abortion. It has been much
easier for women to form political alliances around issues like domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape and quotas than
around abortion. In order to maintain these alliances, moreover, sometimes women have had to agree in advance to keep
abortion off of the agenda.
10
Women’s alliances may also be shaped by partisan and other political conflicts. Women are elected through political
parties, and most need to maintain their partisan positions and power bases. Sometimes party loyalties conflict with the
promotion of gender issues and the formation of alliances with other women. There is evidence, moreover, of the growth
of “instrumental feminism,” defined as “the promotion of individual women leaders and/or their parties through events
and mechanisms designed for women’s advancement as a whole” in a way that ends up thwarting real gains in women’s
rights. In Venezuela, for example, women have sponsored legislation and managed local women’s centers to benefit
themselves and their parties, not out of a concern for other women.
32
Finally, not all women are democrats. After former
Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori assumed office following fraudulent elections in May of 2000, he installed four
women in leadership positions in the national congress who had to act as defenders of the regime.
33
In these and other
ways, women’s political behavior may conform to the corrupt and clientelistic patterns that have long been present in
Latin America. Women, after all, are not above politics.
Conclusion
The 1990s saw steady growth in women’s participation in political power in Latin America. Women’s representation in
the lower houses of congress increased from an average of 9 per cent in 1990 to 15 per cent in 2002; in the Senate, from
5 per cent to 12 per cent in 2002; and among ministers, from 9 per cent to13 per cent in 2000. These numbers put
Latin America behind Europe, on par with Asia, and ahead of Africa, the Pacific and the Middle East. In 2002, 10
countries had on the books quota laws setting a minimum level for women’s participation as candidates in national
elections. (An eleventh country, Colombia, applied a quota of 30 per cent to senior appointed posts in the state.) On
average, these quotas boosted women’s presence in congress by eight percentage points.
Moreover, Latin American countries have made some gains that are not reflected in numbers. Although Panama and
Nicaragua are the only countries in the region to have elected a woman head of state, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador
have also had women presidents (although they were not elected directly). In Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru and
Venezuela, women have run for president with a realistic chance of winning. In more countries, women have served as
vice presidents, and women have governed the region’s (and world’s) two largest cities, São Paulo and Mexico City. In
Mexico in the 1990s, women led two of the country’s three largest political parties.
34
Notwithstanding these gains, significant challenges remain. Women have gained power in many countries, but not in
all countries. In several countries, quota laws have been weakly implemented and therefore produced few improvements
for women (though in other countries, quotas pushed women into a critical mass). Women comprise at least half of
political party members in many countries but have not achieved parity with men in party leadership. Women’s political
alliances have not always been successful in withstanding competing pressures of party loyalty, and not all women who
have achieved formal office have been able to wield enough political power to accomplish an agenda of women’s rights.
Advancing women’s right to participate in power, women’s civil rights, and women’s equal opportunities is linked to
the consolidation of democracy, to social development and to equitable economic growth. As long as the region’s income
gaps widen, many Latin American women will lack basic capabilities and remain excluded from eligibility pools for
leadership. As long as millions of citizens are struggling to meet basic needs, there will be limited political space to build
coalitions around a women’s rights agenda. And as long as state institutions suffer from problems of corruption,
inefficiency and mismanagement, it will be difficult to implement new policies such as quota laws. The embrace by so
many leaders of the principle of equal opportunity for women is a cause for celebration, but Latin America requires
further economic, political and social transformations to translate this principle into practice.
Endnotes
1
Inter-American Development Bank. 2000. Development Beyond Economics: Economic and Social Progress in Latin America. 2000
Report. Washington: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 4.
2
Data on women’s social position is from the World Bank (available on the internet at: http://genderstats.worldbank.org).
3
UNICEF (available on the internet at: http://www.unicef.org/statis).
4
United Nations Development Program. 2001. Human Development Report. Available on the internet at
http://www.undp.org/hdr2001.
5
Inter-American Development Bank. 1999. Facing Up to Inequality in Latin America. Economic and Social Progress in Latin America.
1998–1999 Report. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 57.
6
Ibid, p. 62.
11
7
Subsecretaría de la Mujer. 1999. Mujeres en Argentina. Estado de situación a 5 años de Beijing. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Relaciones
Exteriores. p. 42.
8
Grupo Impulsor Nacional. 1997. Del compromiso a la acción. Después de Beijing, qué ha hecho el estado peruano? Lima: CESIP. p. 32.
9
Articulação das Mulheres Brasileiras. 2000. Políticas Públicas para as Mulheres no Brasil. 5 anos após Beijing. Brasília, p. 59.
10
Lovell, Peggy. 1994. “Race, Gender, and Development in Brazil,” Latin American Research Review 29, no. 3. , p. 20.
11
See: Inter-American Dialogue. 2001. Politics Matters: A Dialogue of Women Political Leaders. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American
Dialogue. Available at: www.thedialogue.org
.
12
Darcy, R,, Welch, Susan and Janet Clark. 1994. Women, Elections, and Representation. Second Edition Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
13
Friedman, Elisabeth. 2000. Unfinished Transitions: Women and the Gendered Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936–1996.
University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 96.
14
Personal Interviews with Margarita Zavala and Sandra Herrera, executive secretary and director of the Women’s
Secretariat of the PAN, Mexico City, August 2000.
15
Htun, Mala and Mark Jones. 2002. “Engendering the Right to Participate in Decisionmaking: Electoral Quotas and
Women’s Leadership in Latin America”. In Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America, Nikki
Craske and Maxine Molyneux (eds). London: Palgrave.
16
See also: Caul, Miki. 1999. “Women’s Representation in Parliament: The Role of Political Parties”. Party Politics Vol. 5, No. 1;
Norris, Pippa. “Breaking the Barriers: Positive Discrimination Policies for Women”. In Has Liberalism Failed Women? Jyette Klausen
and Charles S. Maier (eds.) (Forthcoming).
17
Caul, op. cit., p. 81.
18
Reynolds, Andrew. 1999. “Women in the Legislatures and Executives of the World: Knocking at the Highest Glass Ceiling”. World
Politics 51, 4 (July), p. 569.
19
Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully. 1995. “Introduction: Party Systems in Latin America”. In Building Democratic Institutions:
Party Systems in Latin America, Mainwaring and Scully (eds.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 4–6.
20
Inter-American Development Bank. 2000. Development Beyond Economics: Economic and Social Progress in Latin America. 2000
Report. Washington: Johns Hopkins University Press pp. 181–2.
21
These conclusions are based on analysis of five Latin American countries. Htun, Mala. “Electoral Rules, Parties, and the Election of
Women in Latin America”. Paper prepared for delivery at the 97
th
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San
Francisco, 30 August–2 September 2001.
22
Htun, Mala. 2001. “Electoral Rules, Parties, and the Election of Women in Latin America”. Paper prepared for delivery at the 97
th
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 30 August–2 September.
23
Norris, Pippa. 2000. “ Women’s Representation and Electoral Systems”. In The Encyclopedia of Electoral Systems,
Richard Rose (ed.). Washington DC: CQ Press.; Darcy, R., Susan Welch and Janet Clark. 1994. Women, Elections, and
Representation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Vengroff, Richard, Lucy Creevey and Henry Krisch. 1999.
“Electoral System Effects on Gender Representation: The Case of Mixed and MMP”. Paper Presented at the Annual
Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Matland, op. cit.
24
Norris, Pippa. 2000.
25
Rule, Wilma and Matthew Shugart. 1995. “The Preference Vote and the Election of Women”. Voting and Democracy
Report, available at www.fairvote.org
. The resolution of this issue likely depends on who is most biased, party leaders or
the electorate. Preference voting allows a feminist electorate to elect women against the desire of sexist party leaders,
while closed-list systems permit party leaders to ensure the election of women in spite of a sexist electorate.
26
See, for example: Carey, John. 1997. “Institutional Design and Party Systems”. In Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies, Larry
Diamond, et al. (eds). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997.
27
Archer, Ronald P and Matthew Shugart. 1997. “The Unrealized Potential of Presidential Dominance in Colombia”. In
Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart (eds). New York: Cambridge University
Press. p. 133–4.
28
Htun and Jones. 2002. pp. 34–35.
29
Htun and Jones. 2002. pp. 39–40.
30
Htun and Jones. 2002. pp. 52–53, fn. 7.
31
Htun, Mala. 2001. “Women’s Leadership in Latin America: Trends and Challenges”. Politics Matters: A Dialogue of Women Political
Leaders. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue. p. 16.
32
Friedman, Elisabeth. Unfinished Transitions. p. 255.
33
Blondet, Cecilia. 2001. “Lessons from the Participation of Women in Politics”. In Politics Matter: A Dialogue of Women Political
Leaders. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue. p. 53.
34
Inter-American Dialogue. Women and Power in the Americas. p. 11.
12
References and Further Reading
Darcy, R., Susan Welch, and Janet Clark. 1994. Women, Elections, and Representation. Second Edition. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press.
Htun, Mala and Mark Jones. 2002. "Engendering the Right to Participate in Decisionmaking: Electoral Quotas and
Women's Leadership in Latin America," in Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America, Nikki
Craske and Maxine Molyneux (eds.) London: Palgrave.
Mala Htun. 2001. “Advancing Women’s Rights in the Americas: Achievements and Challenges.” Working Paper.
Leadership Council for Inter-American Summitry. Miami: North-South Center, University of Miami. Available at:
www.thedialogue.org.
Politics Matters: A Dialogue of Women Political Leaders. 2001. Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Dialogue. Available at:
www.thedialogue.org
.
Women’s Participation in Mexican Political Life, ed. Victoria Rodríguez (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998).
Readers are advised to peruse the numerous articles and references at: www.pippanorris.com
.
