4. Quotas and Affirmative Action to increase female participation in political life

"On a strictly interim basis, affirmative action measures may be taken. Wherever the measure chosen is a quota system, it is proposed that the quota should not target women, but that, in the spirit of equity, it may be established that neither sex may occupy a proportion of seats inferior to a given percentage."
Extract from IPU Plan of Action (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1997:61).

Quotas have been used selectively in some E.U. member states, and are regarded as temporary measures to compensate for the inequality of women's representation in public life. Two types of quotas exist that are aimed at increasing female political participation, both at elections and in senior posts within government or public administration. These are either:

• Quotas created through national legislation, or
• Quotas created by political parties

Quotas created through national legislation aim to influence the result of an election; namely to guarantee that a certain number or percentage of seats are given to women. Quotas that are established through political parties aim to affect candidature; this is achieved through ensuring that a specified number of candidates are women or that neither sex numbers over a certain level on the electoral lists.

Criticisms of Quotas

Where affirmative action plans in the form of quotas have been introduced, noticeable results have been achieved in terms of an increase in women successfully standing for election (and holding office at senior levels of government). Nevertheless, the use of quotas remains controversial.

Criticisms of quotas include:

• the fairness of such mechanisms
• whether it is merely tokenism
• the establishment of a hierarchy between those M.P.s that were elected "on merit" through all stages of the election process, and those female M.P.s that were elected using a reserved seat
• if it is sufficient alone to affect female representation or if other specific measures are needed to strengthen it

Opponents of quotas argue that they are discriminatory, interventionist and fundamentally undemocratic. Many countries (including Italy, the United Kingdom and France) have rejected the use of quotas at a national level with the argument that it is essentially at odds with the precept of equality between both sexes which has been enshrined either in their constitution or national legislation. Quotas aimed at increasing the number of women in political life have been criticised for being discriminatory against other under represented groups in society: if women are represented through quotas, why shouldn't other groups be similarly represented? Moreover, it has been claimed that passing a constitutional amendment would be a permanent rather than a temporary measure to compensate for the lack of women in elective bodies.

"Yes, the quota system has facilitated women's access, not only in parties applying quotas but also in other parties. Quotas, once established, are not questioned but introducing exact quotas can create turbulence: throwing out well established politicians for the benefit of less experienced women can be felt unfair."

Excerpt from Sweden on the appraisal of the quota system, quoted in Inter-Parliamentary Union (1997:75).

Quotas also attract criticism for being tokenistic, claiming that individual competence and political commitment should be the basis for selection rather than the need to ensure a certain number of women are represented in parliament. In the United Kingdom, women hold 28% of publicly appointed posts, a figure achieved without the use of quotas. The British government has stated that using quotas would undermine women's efforts to demonstrate their abilities on merit. There is also a danger that quotas lead to a hierarchy within M.P.s themselves, between those who were elected without the help of quotas (and experiencing all the stages of the election process) being somehow superior to those who did use quotas. This reinforces the already disadvantaged place women hold in public life.

Finally, quotas cannot be seen as being a complete solution to female under representation in public life. The use of quotas has to be accompanied by other measures, such as the placement of women in high rankings on electoral roles. This is shown by the example of the Belgian Socialist Party, who, despite the application of a one third quota to the electoral role, have fewer than a third of their elected candidates as women because the quota does not affect the places of female candidates on the party list, and they are often near the bottom (Inter- Parliamentary Union, 1997:75). Belgium, the only country with a legislative quota, is only 11th in the E.U. for women parliamentarians. Other measures needed include heightened publicity to encourage more women to stand (so increasing the range of candidates and competency from which to select), placing more women in visible political positions and having more family friendly work practices within parliaments.

While quotas remain controversial, they are frequently debated within the legislatures of the member states. Although they have often been rejected as a way of correcting the gender imbalance within parliaments, such debate is useful in that it publicly highlights the existence of such inequality and asks for practical solutions to this persisting problem. When quotas have been adopted, there has also been a "snowball" effect as other parties realise that the selection or appointment of more women (either with or without quotas) is a way to broaden their electoral appeal.

Quotas created through national legislation

Quotas established by law uniformly affect all political parties in that country. Of all the E.U. member states, only Belgium has a national law which has established a quota for women in political representation. This law, passed on 24 May 1994, specifies that there should be a statutory quota of 25% female candidatures on party lists in every election (this figure is to increase to 33.3% from 1999 onwards). If the quota is not fulfilled, then the law specifies that positions on the list which are legally reserved for women but not occupied by female candidates will remain blank. Therefore, if not enough women are put on the list, then the number of candidates will be reduced in equal measure. The success of this measure was shown in the 1994 local elections, when the number of female candidates elected to the local councils increased by half to 20% of the total (it had previously been around 10%).

Apart from Belgium, both France and Italy have attempted to establish quotas through national legislation. In 1982, France passed a law establishing a quota of 25% female candidatures on party lists for municipal elections. However, this was legally challenged, and in September 1982, the Constitutional Council ruled that such legislation was incompatible with the principle of equality and therefore unconstitutional. In Italy, two electoral laws were implemented in 1993; the first law stated that on party lists, neither sex could be represented by more than 75% of all candidates. The second law established that male and female candidates would appear alternately on party lists (known as the "zipper system"). However, in 1995, the Constitutional Court declared the laws unconstitutional on the basis of violating equal treatment legislation.

In addition to national legislation controlling electoral practice, other quota systems exist for candidates appointed to committees or advisory bodies in an attempt to promote more women in public life generally. An example of this is Finland, where a 1987 law specifies that women and men must sit on consultative councils, committees and other decision-making bodies in as equal a manner as possible. This law was amended in 1995, stipulating that at least 40% of one sex (either male or female) must be represented. As a result of this law, the number of women on such decision-making bodies has risen from 25% in 1980 to 48% in 1996.

In Denmark, the Parliament passed a law in 1985 also stating that all public committees must have a gender-balanced composition; the law stated that any organisations represented on a committee had to nominate both a woman and a man for each position, and it would then be up to the minister responsible to select among the candidates in a manner that would achieve a gender-balance. This has resulted in an increase of female representation on public committees, rising from 12% to 37%. In 1991, the Danish Parliament subsequently decided that all government institutions and state bodies should have affirmative action plans (including the establishment of targets for women in high-ranking positions). In the light of the Beijing Platform for Action, it is hoped that other member state governments will follow this policy.

Quotas created by political parties

Nine of the member states have a system of quotas applied at party level. In Table 6, these are examined by country and party.

The Nordic countries have especially used quotas successfully over a longer period of time than other member states. For example, the Danish People's Socialist Party introduced quotas in the early 1970s, specifying that either sex had to be represented with at least 40% of electoral candidates. The effects of quotas can clearly be seen in the consistently higher numbers of women in the parliaments of these countries over time.

Another example of the use of quotas by parties is the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which established the use of quotas for both electoral office (33%) and internal party structure (40%). This has resulted in an increase of women elected to 33.7%, and an increase in women at senior levels of the party hierarchy.

However, quotas applied by parties can be overridden by national judiciaries. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party's introduction of all-female shortlists for 50% of vacant and winnable seats was overturned by an Industrial Tribunal in January 1996, which ruled in favour of rejected male candidates that the policy was against the "Sex Discrimination Act" of 1975. The result has been that the selection process from all-female shortlists was suspended, and the Party announced that the policy would not be continued after the next election.

Instead of using a strict quota system with a fixed percentage of female candidates (or a minimum number of candidates of either sex), some parties are now establishing through custom or unofficial rules, methods of selecting candidates that is almost identical to applying a quota. The clearest example of this is in Norway (although not a member state), where all political parties aim to include 50% of women in their party lists, despite many not having an established quota system.

The use of quotas alone is not sufficient to ensure high levels of female political representation (refer to above note about Belgium): often other forms of affirmative action is needed, especially concerning party lists (see Table 7). In Sweden, the KDS party has an informal agreement to apply the "zipper system" (alternating the sexes on the party list). The zipper system is very popular in Sweden, with five parties using it to achieve a gender balance. Its success can be seen in the high level of female parliamentarians returned over elections of the past 15 years.

With the decline of female membership of political parties in the E.U. since the 1980s (from an already low level), it is likely that quota systems will increasingly be adopted by parties as a way of attracting more women, both as voters and potential candidates.

Table 6

Figures compiled from Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1997:67

* Unless otherwise stated, quotas established are through rule or custom

Table 7

Figures compiled from Inter-Parliamentary Union (1997:40-41)

European Parliament: March 1997