Bela Kornitzer Distinguished Professor and Chair of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Diana Z. O'Brien, has published a new article in the discipline's leading journal, American Political Science Review.

The article, titled, "Electoral Gender Quotas and Democratic Legitimacy," focuses on gender-quotas in world legislatures. In research spanning 12 democracies, O’Brien and her coauthors -- Amanda Clayton (UC-Berkeley) and Jennifer M. Piscopo (Royal Holloway University of London) -- show that citizens value women’s inclusion in politics and broadly view gender-balanced governing bodies as more legitimate. The findings challenge a common criticism of rules designed to increase women’s representation, suggesting that women’s political inclusion can strengthen confidence in democratic institutions.

Read the abstract below and the full article on the journal's website.

ABSTRACT:

Gender quotas are used to elect most of the world’s legislatures. Still, critics contend that quotas are undemocratic, eroding institutional legitimacy. We examine whether quotas diminish citizens’ faith in political decisions and decision-making processes. Using survey experiments in 12 democracies with over 17,000 respondents, we compare the legitimacy-conferring effects of both quota-elected and non-quota elected local legislative councils relative to all-male councils. Citizens strongly prefer gender balance, even when it is achieved through quotas. Though we observe a quota penalty, wherein citizens prefer gender balance attained without a quota relative to quota-elected institutions, this penalty is often small and insignificant, especially in countries with higher-threshold quotas. Quota debates are thus better framed around the most relevant counterfactual: the comparison is not between women’s descriptive representation with and without quotas, but between men’s political dominance and women’s inclusion.