Sanford School of Public Policy

Duke University

THE EFFECT OF GENDER QUOTAS ON WOMEN’S POLITICAL

ENGAGEMENT: CROSS NATIONAL COMPARISON AND CASE STUDY

Masters Project

Prepared by

Agustina Laurito

Advisor

Kristin Goss

April 25, 2011

Acknowledgements

I thank my advisor Kristin Goss for her support and encouragement during the completion of this project. I also thank Judith Kelley and Elizabeth Ananat for their helpful comments during my prospectus review meeting. Finally,I thank Rocio Garay for her research assistance in Argentina.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ...... i Introduction ...... 1 Background and theory ...... 2 Women‟s political participation ...... 3 Data and Methods ...... 3 Research Design...... 3 Data ...... 4 Dependent Variables ...... 5 Independent variables ...... 5 Country level comparison between men and women ...... 6 Regression Analysis ...... 9 Political Action variables ...... 10 Participation in political parties ...... 10 Model specification: the impact of legislated quotas ...... 12 Specifications with regressions for men and women ...... 15 Discussion ...... 19 Case Study: Women‟s political engagement in Argentina ...... 21 Gender quotas in Argentina ...... 21 Women‟s participation trends in Argentina ...... 24 Increased visibility for women politicians ...... 25 Political and economic instability ...... 27 Ripple effects of quotas ...... 30 Conclusions ...... 31 Bibliography ...... 33 Primary Sources ...... 36 Appendix ...... 37

Executive Summary

Research Question

In this paper I look at the effect of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement. In particular I ask whether the enactment of a gender quota encourages women to become more involved in politics by sending the signal that politics is not an activity reserved for men.

Data and Methods

Sources of data

The main source of data for the outcome variables is the World Values Survey (WVS) five wave dataset (1981-2008) that includes surveys conducted in 87 countries, the total number of respondents is 257,597. The first wave of the WVS was carried out in 1981, a second wave of the WVS took place in 1990, the third wave took place in 1995, the fourth wave took place in 1999-2000, and the last wave was carried out in 2005-2007.

The final sample is reduced. I selected the countries that provided information of at least one point in the past before the enactment of the quota and one point after the enactment of the quota. The treatment group is composed of all those countries that established a quota at some point during the survey and the control group is composed of those countries that never established a gender quota. The resulting groups include 21 countries that have a quota with 88,749 respondents, and 23 countries without a quota and 76,587 respondents in this group. Countries that score a 3 on Freedom House‟s Freedom in the World Index were also dropped from the dataset.

Data on the independent variable existence of a gender quota was obtained from the Quota Project as well as secondary sources.

Research Design

In the first part of the analysis I compare differences in women‟s political engagement for countries with a quota and for countries without a quota on five outcomes: discuss politics with friends, taken political action, signed a petition, participated in a demonstration and membership in a political party. In this section I assume that quotas would not have an effect on men and I use them as the control group.

In the second part of the study, I try to estimate the effect of quotas on women‟s political engagement using regression analysis. The model includes country and time fixed effects and an interaction term (quota*female) to capture the effects of quotas on women‟s political engagement. This model also includes clustered standard errors at the country level.

Because gender quotas can be established by political parties or legislatures I include one specification that controls for whether a quota is legislated or not. i

As two further specifications I use a fixed effects model to estimate the effects of quotas only for women and for men.

Case study

In the second section of the paper I conduct a case study focused on Argentina to try to illuminate the different mechanisms that can explain women‟s increased levels of political engagement and the potential effects of gender quotas. In particular, I focus on three mechanisms: greater visibility of women politicians, importance of political and economic crises and ripple effects of gender quotas that can explain increased levels of political engagement for women.

Conclusion

The analysis in this paper does provide conclusive results about the effect of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement. Given the limitations of this study in terms of data and potential omitted factors in the analysis, the symbolic impact of quotas needs to be further explored. The case study points out that the enactment of a gender quota contributes to the visibility of women politicians; it is possible then that quotas have an indirect effect on women‟s political engagement. Quotas also can start a debate about the role of women in politics and in other institutions that can also contribute to women‟s mobilization and interest in politics. However, there are many other potential factors that can influence women‟s political engagement after the enactment of a quota and that are not being taken into account in this study. If quotas were also debated along with other policies that benefit women this could explain increased levels of women‟s political engagement.

Further studies of this phenomenon need to take into account these contextual factors, as well as others related to the potential effect of political institutions such as the electoral system on the effect of quotas. Finally, as part of the policy feedbacks literature, this paper concludes with the idea that there should be further studies that explore the mechanisms that lead some laws and policies to have feedback effects.

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Introduction

Equal participation of women in political life is important to foster inclusive and representative democracies and it is also a key aspect of the global agenda for gender equality as evidenced by the Beijing Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals. As an affirmative action measure to encourage women‟s representation in politics, gender quotas have been adopted by many countries around the world.

However, although their effects in increasing women‟s representation as elected officials have been widely documented, their symbolic impact has been less studied. Research on policy feedbacks has shown that public policies have effects on people‟s political behavior. In some cases such as Social Security they encourage participation while in others, for example, welfare they have the opposite effect (Campbell 2003). Following this idea I seek to contribute to the study of the symbolic impact of gender quotas and policy feedbacks by trying to answer the question of whether gender quotas encourage women to become politically engaged by sending the signal that politics is not an area reserved for men.

But estimating this effect is not an easy task. There are a number of individual and contextual level factors that can influence the relationship that I am trying to isolate. For this reason this study will be divided in two sections. In the first section I try to estimate the effect of quotas using a large dataset for many countries. In the first part of the section I describe women‟s political engagement in four relevant outcomes for women living in countries with a quota and using men as a control group. This section shows that women‟s political engagement diverged for men in most countries, although it is not possible to isolate from this analysis other factors that could influence women‟s political behavior.

In the second part of the section, I estimate a regression model that includes both women and men living in countries with a quota and in countries without a quota in a model with country and time fixed effects. I also include model specifications to further tease out the potential effects of quotas. The first regression analysis did not provide significant results that there is an effect of quotas, but when restricting the sample to women and men the story is less clear. Although there are many factors that could influence the results, it seems that the puzzle of how quotas influence women‟s political engagement remains.

The last part of this study, then, focuses on analyzing the case of Argentina to try to identify the different mechanisms through which quotas might influence women‟s political engagement. In this sense, other than the direct effects hypothesized earlier, quotas may have indirect effects. On one hand, quotas may lead women to become more engaged in politics by increasing the visibility of women politicians and leaders. On the other hand, quotas may lead to increasing mobilization efforts on the part of organizations especially directed at women. I will consider these potential alternative explanations in this paper.

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Although I don‟t find conclusive results to support the hypothesis of this study, it was also not possible to reject it. I conclude with a reflection on the need to conduct more studies that focus on the symbolic impact of gender quotas, potential additional factors to consider and the need to explore the mechanisms that cause some laws and public policies to have feedback effect while others don‟t.

Background and theory

The symbolic impact of quotas can be connected to studies on policy feedbacks (Mettler and Soss 2004, Mettler 2002, Pierson 1993). According to this view, public policies have consequences for mass politics (Mettler and Soss 2004: 56). Public policy not only affects how citizens engage in the political process, but also if they decide to participate and their understanding of their rights and responsibilities (Mettler and Soss 2004: 61, Campbell 2003).

In recent work, Eileen McDonagh (2009, 2010) takes a policy feedback approach to study the effect of gender quotas among other “maternalist policies”. McDonagh places her attention on the state; in particular she cares about how policies send a message to voters that contains specific characteristics associated with the state, and that consequently affect people‟s ideas of who is eligible to govern (McDonagh 2009: 6). She studies three policies that introduce maternal traits into the state and quotas are one such policy. Her argument is that quotas produce a change in gender relations that will cause people to elect more women. She compares the US with other countries and finds that attitudes toward women politicians tend to change in countries with a gender quota. This work, however, does not explore the impact of quotas on areas of political participation other than running for office and electing women candidates, as one of her main concerns is the dearth of women political leaders in the US.

In this sense, one of the most relevant articles for the purpose of this study is Zetterberg (2009). In this article the author also takes a policy feedbacks approach and explores the effect of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement in Latin America. He works with the Latinobarometro dataset and compares seventeen Latin American countries. He focuses on variables related to political attitudes and political activities. Overall, he doesn‟t find an effect of quotas on women‟s political engagement. However, there are some caveats. The author notes that not enough time might have elapsed between the implementation of the quota to have effects. Furthermore maybe the effect of the quota depends on whether its adoption was publicized. Although the author considers that countries in Latin America are similar, this may not be the case. Latin American countries are similar in terms of language and religion, but they are different in terms of their ethnic composition. Countries like Guatemala have indigenous majorities that it is possible to assume experience different levels of participation. On the other hand, Krook, Franceschet and Piscopo (2009) mention that some studies found changes in voter attitudes that increase women‟s political efficacy and involvement.

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Women’s political participation

There is a specific body of literature that studies women‟s political participation and civic engagement. Some of these studies focus on specific organizations; others deal with issues of citizenship. Many of the works take a historical perspective, while some of the literature studies the role of women and their organizations during democratic transitions (Waylen 2010).

Verba et al (1997) specifically address the gap between women and men‟s political participation and civic engagement, as well as the differences in their knowledge of politics. They conclude that women tend to participate less than men and that they are less knowledgeable about politics. Sandovici and Davis (2010) conclude along the same lines, for the European countries they study, that women tend to participate less than men in traditional venues and that; instead, they tend to engage in non-traditional forms of political participation. Non traditional forms of participation in this article refer to when people stop buying certain products, for example. Desposato and Norrander (2009) study the gender gap in Latin America. They take into account contextual and individual characteristics, and they find a consistent gap between men‟s and women‟s political participation. This difference extends both to conventional activities such as following political news and discussing politics with friends, and unconventional activities such as demonstrating, blocking traffic and occupying buildings. In this sense, if women participate less than men because they perceive that politics is not a sphere for women, then the enactment of a gender quota might contribute to reduce this gap by increasing women‟s interest in politics and levels of participation, while not having an effect on men.

Along these lines, Verba et al (1997) ask if there is an “implicit message” that politics is still an arena for men, so they proceed to study whether the presence of female candidates encourages women‟s political participation. In this article their evidence is inconclusive, but in a later work (Burns et al. 2001) they find that the presence of women candidates has a positive effect in encouraging women to participate more and become more interested in politics.

The review of the literature on policy feedback and women‟s political participation shows that studies that look into the symbolic effect of quotas, and in particular the effect of quotas on women‟s political participation and engagement are inconclusive and rare. This project will be a direct contribution to this research agenda along the lines of Zetterberg (2009) by providing an empirical analysis using a different dataset and model comparing several countries and a case study of the impact of quotas on political and civic engagement in Argentina.

Data and Methods

Research Design

In the first part of this study I compare the differences in women‟s political engagement for countries with a quota and for countries without a quota. Countries that did not enact a quota will be in the control group. I will also compare women as the treatment group and men as the control

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group in countries with a quota. These are descriptive statistics that provide a general sense of the relationship between women‟s political engagement and quotas on various outcomes.

To try to estimate the effect of quotas on women‟s political engagement, I will conduct a regression analysis on selected outcomes. I will use a model with country and time fixed effects and an interaction term (quota*female) to capture the effect of quotas on women‟s political engagement. The number of countries will be reduced depending on the available points of data to allow for enough degrees of freedom to estimate the relationship. I will only control for those factors that change over time and in the different countries, and I will include in the model relevant individual level controls.

The effect of quotas might depend on whether quotas are legislated or established voluntarily for certain political parties. In this case, I will include this specification in the model following the hypothesis that legislated quotas would have a greater effect as they send a clearer signal of the possibility of women‟s involvement in politics.

Data

Ideally I would work with panel data that follows the same individuals over time and tracks their level of political engagement. Unfortunately, no such data are available for the outcomes of interest, so I had to identify a dataset that would provide enough countries that have established a quota and enough countries that have not established a quota as well as several years of data to rule out that any changes in the levels of political engagement respond to a preexisting trend.

I identified the World Values Survey (WVS) 5 wave dataset (1981-2008) as the main source of data for the outcome variables. This dataset includes surveys conducted in 87 countries; the total number of respondents is 257,597. The first wave of the WVS was carried out in 1981, a second wave of the WVS took place in 1990, the third wave took place in 1995, the fourth wave took place in 1999-2000, and the last wave was carried out in 2005-20071.

The final sample is reduced. In those cases where countries established a quota I only use the countries with one year of data available prior to the adoption of the quota and one year of data available after the adoption of the quota. I only focus on the effect of gender quotas on democratic countries so 7 of the 53 countries left were also dropped from the dataset. To determine whether a country was a democracy or not I used Freedom House‟s index of Freedom in the World. Those countries that had a score of 3 (not free) during the entire period or that changed at some point to a score of 3 were dropped from the dataset. 4,656 observations had missing data for the sex variable, and those observations were dropped from the data set. This variable was recoded women=1 men=0. The total sample is composed of 44 countries with a total number of respondents of 165,336.

1 WORLD VALUES SURVEY 1981-2008 OFFICIAL AGGREGATE v.20090901, 2009. World Values Survey Association (www.worldvaluessurvey.org). Aggregate File Producer: ASEP/JDS, Madrid. 4

As table 1 shows I divided the countries in two groups. To establish the treatment and control groups, countries were coded according to whether they established a quota at some point during the period covered by the survey. The treatment group is composed of all those countries that established a quota at some point during the survey and the control group is composed of those countries that never established a gender quota. The resulting groups include 21 countries that have a quota with 88,749 respondents, and 23 countries without a quota and 76,587 respondents in this group.

Dependent Variables

The variable active membership in political parties (a102) is coded in the WVS: 0-not a member, 1- inactive membership, 2 –active membership. They respond to the following question: “Now I am going to read out a list of voluntary organizations; for each one, could you tell me whether you are a member, an active member, an inactive member or not a member of that type of organization?” For purposes of analysis this variable was recoded as a binary variable indicating membership in political parties regardless of the distinction of active or inactive: 0 – not a member 1- member.

The variables for political action include: signing a petition (e025, e025b), joining boycotts (e026, e026B), attending lawful demonstrations (e027), joining unofficial strikes (e028) and occupying buildings or factories (e029). These variables are coded: 1-have done, 2-might do, 3- would never do. They respond to the following question: “Now I'd like you to look at this card. I'm going to read out some different forms of political action that people can take, and I'd like you to tell me, for each one, whether you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it or would never, under any circumstances, do it?”

The variable how often discusses political matters with friends (a062) is coded: 1-frequently, 2- ocassionaly, 3-never. It responds to the question: “When you get together with your friends, would you say you discuss political matters frequently, occasionally or never?”

For the regression analysis all variables will be coded as binary variables. I will code the middle category “might” as a 1. However, as a check I will also run the models coding the middle category as a 0 and I will compare those results. Missing values will be handled by listwise deletion, excluding them from the analysis.

Independent variables

Whether a country has a quota or not will be an indicator variable coded: 1-has quota, 0-doesn‟t have quota. Data on the independent variable will be obtained from the Quota Project developed by the Swedish international intergovernmental organization International IDEA, the Inter- Parliamentary Union and Stockholm University. The dataset contains updated information about different countries with a quota system disaggregated into the different types of quota: voluntary political party quota, reserved seats or legislated quota. It also includes level of implementation

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of quota: lower house, upper house, sub-national level. The variables for type of quota will be included in the model specification as dummies.

In many cases the Quota Project provides the year a quota was adopted. In those cases where the dataset doesn‟t provide with the year a quota was enacted to include in the dataset, this information was obtained from secondary sources such as Dahlerup (2006) and Zetterberg (2009), and primary sources such as government documents of national legislation. In many instances the Quota project indicates relevant quota legislation.

Table 1: Treatment and Control Groups

Country Year quota Quota type Country Treatment group Control Group Argentina 1991 legislated Albania Australia 1994 political party Bangladesh Brazil 1997 legislated Bulgaria Chile 2003 political party Canada Czech Republic 1990s political party Taiwan Hungary 1990s political party Colombia India 1992 reserved seat Finland South Korea 2004 legislated Georgia Mexico 1996 legislated Indonesia Morocco 2002 legislated Japan Pakistan 2000 legilsated Moldova Peru 1997 legilsated New Zealand Poland 1990s legislated Nigeria Romania 2004 political party Norway Slovakia 1990s political party Sweden Slovenia 1992* political party Turkey South Africa 1990s political party Ukraine Spain 1997 political party Macedonia Great Britain 2001 political party Uruguay Serbia 2002-2004 legislated Venezuela Montenegro 1999 - United States Germany Bosnia and Herzegovina * Slovenia established a legislated quota in 2004 Source: Author's calculations based on VWS Data

Country level comparison between men and women

Assuming that quotas do not have an effect on men, I use them as the control group to compare to the level of women‟s political engagement and how it changed before and after the quota was

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introduced in five outcomes: discuss politics with friends, political action, petitions, demonstrations and participation in political parties. All graphs are reported in the appendix, but table 2 shows the conclusions from this analysis. To show a trend in political engagement before and after the enactment of a quota, in most cases I only used countries that provided at least three years of data for the relevant outcomes.

In the case of discussing politics with friends three of the six countries that were graphed for this outcome show a positive change in women‟s political engagement compared to men. However, there is no change for the other three cases. Countries such as Argentina and Mexico show that women became more interested in politics in the period after the enactment of the quota, but this is not the case for India. Although India has a sub-national level quota so it is possible to argue that if quotas have a symbolic impact it may be lower in this case. In Spain although the level of women‟s engagement didn‟t increase in the period after the enactment of the quota, it stabilized stopping a decreasing trend in the previous years. It is not entirely clear from this comparison what the effect of quotas on women‟s interest in politics is, indicating that further analysis of this outcome might be necessary2.

For the variable has taken political action in most countries women‟s political engagement seems to increase in the time period after the enactment of a quota when using men as a control group. In most countries the percent of women who reported having taken political action was lower when compared to men, but this changed after the enactment of the quota resulting in women surpassing men in their political actions. Of the eleven countries that I graphed, seven showed this trend. In four of those countries (South Korea, Poland, South Africa and Peru) women take less political action than men after the quota.

When looking at the other political action outcomes participated in demonstrations and signed a petition the situation is similar to the previous outcome. In all cases when using men as a control group the differences in participation between men and women decrease, and in some cases there is a clear divergence with women surpassing men. As table 2 shows, for this two outcomes five of the 11 countries show a positive change in women‟s levels of political engagement, while three of the countries show no change.

For the outcome membership in political parties we could only graph four countries. Two of those countries Argentina and Australia show a positive change after the enactment of the quota, while South Korea and Spain show no change. The results from this analysis are inconclusive, but provide an indication that quotas might have an effect on women‟s participation in political parties.

2 The WVS does not include enough points of data to estimate this effect with this current model; due to these constraints this outcome won‟t be further analyzed. 7

Table 2: Change in women‟s political engagement after the enactment of a gender quota Discuss politics Has taken Has signed a Has participated in Membership in Country with friends political action petition demonstrations political parties

Argentina + + + + + Australia + + + 0 + Brazil + + + Chile 0 0 + India 0 + + + South Korea + 0 0 0 Mexico 0 - - + Peru - 0 - Poland + + - South Africa + + 0 - Spain 0 0 0 0 0

(+) Increase after quota (-) Decrease after quota (0) No change after quota

This table only looks at whether women‟s political engagement changed with respect to men after the quota. Although men served as the comparison group, this graph does not include references to whether their level of political engagement changed as well. Source: Author‟s calculations based on data from the WVS and quota project

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This analysis shows that overall in countries with a quota women‟s levels of political engagement increased when compared to men after the adoption of that policy. This is the case, in particular, for political action variables where most of the countries show a positive change. The potential impact of quotas on the other two outcomes is not as clear. Although at first glance it would seem that women become more politically active after the enactment of a quota, it is not possible to conclude at this stage that these changes respond to the adoption of a gender quota. There are contextual factors that could influence our results both at the country level such as the state of the economy or the levels of political stability, the role of organizations in recruiting members, the role of activists in organizing political actions, the differences around the adoption of the quota in the various countries, along with differences in the design of the quota. However, even if these contextual factors exert an influence, it is not clear why they would have a particular effect on women and not on men. In the next part of this study I seek to answer this puzzle by estimating a regression to try to isolate the effect of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement.

Regression Analysis

To determine the causal effect of gender quotas I conduct a regression analysis on four of the five outcomes that were previously analyzed. The variables related to political action showed some interesting patterns that seem worthy or further exploration, the same occurs with participation in political parties. Unfortunately, there aren‟t enough points of data to estimate the regression for the outcome discuss politics with friends.

The model relies on country and time fixed effects to control for all those things that remain constant in the different countries and that are constant through time. We only include controls at the country level for those factors that vary with time. In this sense, the model includes a control for whether the country transitioned to a democracy in the period that is covered in the dataset. This variable was created using Freedom House‟s Freedom in the World Index. Countries that experienced a transition from a score of 1 (free) to a 2 (partly free) or vice versa were coded as 1 for experienced transition, all other countries were coded as 0. I also included a control for attitudes toward women‟s equality with the variable democracy: women have the same rights as men. This variable is a numerical scale that goes from one to ten. One means that women having the same rights as men is not an essential characteristics of a democracy, and ten means that it is an essential characteristic of a democracy.

To capture the effect of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement the model includes an interaction term (quota*female). I also included the binary variables for the existence of a quota and for whether the respondent is a woman.

Finally, I included in the model individual level controls related to age, marital status, education and labor force participation which can affect a woman‟s ability to participate in politics. Not including them in the model would have created the potential for omitted variable bias.

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Finally, it is not possible to assume that the individual level observations in each country are independent, so the model includes a correction for this by clustering the standard errors at the country level. All of the variables had missing data that was dealt with using listwise deletion. Finally, all the regressions were conducted using STATA.

It is important to note that due to the limitations of the dataset it was not possible to include all countries in the model. Instead, the model includes just those countries that had enough points of data and allowed enough degrees of freedom to estimate the relationship. Because of this, the final number of observations and the final number of countries was reduced. In total the regression clustered for 30 countries. The year variable was recoded as a linear variable going from year 1 to year 5. Year 1 indicates the period before the adoption of the quota and year 2-5 indicates the period of the adoption or the post-adoption of the quota3.

The political action outcome variables were converted into binary variables and coded as 0 if respondents reported that they had never taken political action and as 1 if they reported that they have taken or that they might take. Membership in political parties was also converted into a binary variable with 0 indicating no membership in a political party and 1 indicating active/inactive membership. I estimated the regressions using OLS4.

Political Action variables

When using the overall model, the coefficients associated with both the existence of a quota and the interaction term that would capture the effect of quotas on women are positive, indicating that quotas would increase a woman‟s chances of taking political action. However, these coefficients are not statistically significant. For the other variables: petitions and demonstrations the situation is reversed. The existence of a quota has a negative effect on the chances that a woman will sign a petition, but this coefficient is not statistically significant. The same scenario is repeated in the case of participating in demonstrations. Women living in a country with a quota are less likely to participate in demonstrations compared to women living in a country without a quota and to men; however this coefficient is not statistically significant5. Table 3 contains a summary of these results.

Participation in political parties

For the outcome participation in political parties, the coefficient associated with the existence of a quota has a positive effect on participation in political parties that is statistically significant. On the other hand, the interaction term that signals the extra effect of quotas on women‟s

3 As a check I also ran the same model with the year variable coded from 1981 to 2008. Finally, I also ran the model with only those countries with at least four points of data. In this case the coefficient was slightly higher, but also not statistically significant. These checks were conducted using OLS and logit regressions. 4 I also ran the models with logit regression. 5 As a check for these results I ran the same model but instead of coding the middle category as a 1, I included those respondents with those who said that they have never taken political action. The results from these regressions confirm the results in the first model. 10

engagement is also positive but not statistically significant. There doesn‟t seem to be a difference in the levels of participation in political parties for women who live in countries with a quota and countries without a quota and women compared to men. Women in general seem to participate less in political parties when compared to men and this results is statistically significant.

Table 3: Effect of Gender Quotas on Women's Political Engagement

Political Political Action Petitions Demonstrations Parties

gender quota 0.00546 0.135*** 0.0421*** 0.0190** (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

quota*female 0.0119 -0.0213 -0.0191 0.00326 (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01)

women -0.00821 -0.0178 -0.0351** -0.0276** (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

regime change -0.000157 -0.236*** -0.198*** 0.0208*** (0.00) (0.00) (0.01) (0.01)

age -0.0000348 -0.000385 -0.00128* 0.00152** (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

married 0.00248 0.0221** 0.0101 0.00374 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

has children 0.00268 0.00436 0.00331 0.00491 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

incomplete elementary 0.0100 -0.123** -0.0530 -0.0120 (0.02) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03)

complete elementary 0.0147 -0.0680* -0.0102 0.0264 (0.02) (0.03) (0.05) (0.04)

incomplete secondary 0.0450 0.0256 0.0697 0.0291 (0.03) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03)

complete secondary 0.0434 0.0416 0.0920* 0.0507 (0.03) (0.02) (0.04) (0.03)

some university 0.0495 0.103*** 0.181*** 0.0707*

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(0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.03)

university degree 0.0499 0.114*** 0.196*** 0.0661* (0.03) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03)

women same rights men 0.00184 0.0111*** 0.0109** -0.000456 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

employed -0.0171* 0.108* 0.0539* -0.0625** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

housewife -0.0418* 0.0384 -0.0403 -0.0872*** (0.02) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

student -0.0132 0.124** 0.0671** -0.0846*** (0.01) (0.04) (0.02) (0.02)

retired_other -0.0258* 0.0417 -0.0361 -0.0852*** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

unemployed -0.0205* 0.0543 0.0307 -0.0870** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

Constant 0.966*** 0.494*** 0.265*** 0.666*** (0.02) (0.06) (0.06) (0.05) country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes clustered SE Yes Yes Yes Yes

Observations 38785 37503 37584 38924 Adjusted R-squared 0.274 0.243 0.110 0.208

Standard errors in parentheses *** * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 p<0.001 Source: Author's calculations based on WVS data

Model specification: the impact of legislated quotas

Most countries with a gender quota can have a legislated quota or a voluntary political party quota. As their names indicate legislated quotas imply that there is a specific piece of legislation, either the electoral law or the Constitution that establishes the percent of candidates on party lists that should be women or that can‟t belong to the same sex. Voluntary political party quotas, on

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the other hand, are established by each political party as they choose. There is no fixed percentage that has to be met and enforcement depends on the political party.

In general the literature points out that legislated quotas are more effective in increasing the number of women in parliaments, especially when they are accompanied by strong enforcement mechanisms. The second hypothesis of this study posits that legislated quotas, because they are adopted by the state, would send a clearer signal that politics is not only a place for men. Following this idea, I specify the previous regression model controlling for the existence of a legislated quota6.

When controlling for the existence of a legislated quota the effect of quotas on women‟s political action is positive but also not statistically significant in the general political action variable. For the other outcomes related to political action, including legislated quotas in the model does not change the previous result. Women‟s political action for the variable petition in countries with a quota continues to be negative and not statistically significant. The same results are replicated when running the regression for demonstrations. Results from these regressions are reported in table 4.

This specification also does not change the effect of quotas on women‟s participation in political parties. This effect continues to be positive but not statistically significant.

Table 4: Effect of Legislated Gender Quotas on Women's Political Engagement

Political Political Action Petitions Demonstration Parties

gender quota 0.000258 -0.245*** 0.347*** -0.0120*** (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

quota*female 0.0119 -0.0213 -0.0191 0.00326 (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01)

women -0.00821 -0.0178 -0.0351** -0.0276** (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

legislated quota -0.000905 0.309*** -0.204*** 0.293*** (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

regime change -0.00627 -0.165*** -0.0238** 0.284*** (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

age -0.0000348 -0.000385 -0.00128* 0.00152**

6 India has a system of reserved seats. Although it is only for the sub-national level, it was considered as legislated quota. I also ran the model dropping this country including the country and obtained non-significant results. 13

(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

married 0.00248 0.0221** 0.0101 0.00374 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

has children 0.00268 0.00436 0.00331 0.00491 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

incomplete elementary 0.0100 -0.123** -0.0530 -0.0120 (0.02) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03)

complete elementary 0.0147 -0.0680* -0.0102 0.0264 (0.02) (0.03) (0.05) (0.04)

incomplete secondary 0.0450 0.0256 0.0697 0.0291 (0.03) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03)

complete secondary 0.0434 0.0416 0.0920* 0.0507 (0.03) (0.02) (0.04) (0.03)

some university 0.0495 0.103*** 0.181*** 0.0707* (0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.03)

university degree 0.0499 0.114*** 0.196*** 0.0661* (0.03) (0.03) (0.05) (0.03) women same rights men 0.00184 0.0111*** 0.0109** -0.000456 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

employed -0.0171* 0.108* 0.0539* -0.0625** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

housewife -0.0418* 0.0384 -0.0403 -0.0872*** (0.02) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

student -0.0132 0.124** 0.0671** -0.0846*** (0.01) (0.04) (0.02) (0.02)

retired_other -0.0258* 0.0417 -0.0361 -0.0852*** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

unemployed -0.0205* 0.0543 0.0307 -0.0870** (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.02)

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Constant 0.966*** 0.494*** 0.225*** 0.141** (0.02) (0.06) (0.06) (0.04) Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Clustered SE Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 38785 37503 37584 38924 Adjusted R-squared 0.274 0.243 0.110 0.208

Standard errors in parentheses * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 ***p<0.001" Source: Author's calculations based on WVS data

Specifications with regressions for men and women

Although the results from these regressions suggest that quotas may not have an effect on women‟s political engagement, there are many other factors that could affect these results. Following Burns et al (2001) I run two separate regressions restricting the sample to men and women. According to these authors women and men experience social institutions differently, so using two separate regressions allows seeing how those processes work differently for the two groups (Burns et al 2001: 49).

The country level analysis suggests that in some cases women‟s levels of participation experience a positive change after the enactment of a quota. For this reason, I ran two separate regressions7 to compare women living in a country with a quota with women living in a country without a quota and another regression restricting the sample to men. In this case, I included both the binary variable indicating whether a country has a quota or not and for whether that quota is legislated or not. I also included the same individual level controls, time and country fixed effects and I clustered the standard errors at the country level.

When restricting the sample to women, the regression shows a positive but not statistically significant effect of gender quotas on the general variable for political action. On the other hand, the existence of a legislated quota has a negative effect on women‟s political engagement in this general variable but it is also not statistically significant. As table 5 shows the results of this regression seem to align with our previous conclusions. In the case of petitions when restricting the sample only to women the effect of quotas is negative and statistically significant and also larger than in our previous regression. On the other hand, the existence of a legislated quota has the opposite effect, it increases the chance that a woman would sign a petition and it is also statistically significant. When taken together these two coefficients offset each other and the overall effect of quotas is reduced. A similar situation is replicated for the outcome of peaceful demonstrations. For participation in political parties the coefficient associated with the existence

7 As a check I also ran these regressions with the year variable coded from 1981-2008 and for only the countries in the dataset that have at least four years of data. The results were comparable to those being reported. 15

of a gender quota shows a small positive effect on the chance of women participating in political parties, but the existence of a legislated quota has the opposite effect; both coefficients are statistically significant.

Table 5: Effect of Gender Quotas on Women's political engagement (women only)

Political Action Petitions Demonstrations Political Parties

gender quota 0.00809 -0.415*** -0.193*** 0.0287*** (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.00)

legislated quota -0.00828 0.355*** 0.167*** -0.0100* (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.00)

regime change 0.00468 -0.268*** -0.186*** -0.00489 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

age -0.000114 -0.000944* -0.00150* 0.00127** (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

married -0.000988 0.0184* 0.00356 0.00390 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

has child 0.00411 -0.00141 -0.00490 0.00177 (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

incomplete elementary 0.0258 -0.141* -0.0933 -0.0334 (0.04) (0.06) (0.07) (0.04)

complete elementary 0.0377 -0.0856 -0.0254 0.00101 (0.04) (0.05) (0.07) (0.05)

incomplete secondary 0.0752 0.0137 0.0484 0.00824 (0.04) (0.05) (0.07) (0.05)

complete secondary 0.0681 0.0247 0.0692 0.0284 (0.04) (0.05) (0.07) (0.05)

some university 0.0774 0.0762 0.151* 0.0441 (0.04) (0.05) (0.07) (0.04)

university degree 0.0766 0.101 0.181* 0.0381 (0.04) (0.05) (0.07) (0.05)

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women same rights men 0.00115 0.00848** 0.0112** -0.00215 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

employed -0.0141* 0.127* 0.0965 -0.0917*** (0.01) (0.05) (0.06) (0.02)

housewife -0.0324* 0.0588 0.00595 -0.112*** (0.01) (0.05) (0.06) (0.02)

student -0.00931 0.154** 0.116* -0.111*** (0.01) (0.05) (0.05) (0.02)

retired_other -0.0237* 0.0724 -0.00569 -0.109*** (0.01) (0.05) (0.06) (0.02)

unemployed -0.0164* 0.0746 0.0806 -0.101*** (0.01) (0.05) (0.06) (0.02)

Constant 0.946*** 0.741*** 0.449*** 0.742*** (0.04) (0.08) (0.09) (0.06) Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Clustered SE Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 20021 19320 19335 20100 Adjusted R-squared 0.312 0.283 0.132 0.197 Standard errors in parentheses * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 *** p<0.001" Source: Author's calculations based on WVS Data

Assuming that quotas would not have an effect on men, I also ran the regression only for this group. For the first outcome political action the coefficient associated with the existence of a quota for men is positive and quite large. On the other hand the existence of a legislated quota has an equally large negative effect in this case. Taking these two coefficients together seems to align with my assumption that quotas don‟t affect men. The existence of a quota seems to have a large negative effect on men on their chances of signing a petition that is statistically significant. But looking at the coefficient associated with the existence of a legislated quota it is possible to see that it has an almost equally large positive effect and that is also statistically significant. This situation is replicated when looking at the outcome participating in demonstrations. In this case, however, the positive effect of the existence of a legislated quota is larger than the negative effect of the existence of a gender quota. Both coefficients are statistically significant. On the other hand, existence of a quota has a positive effect on men when looking at the outcome participation in political parties and this effect is statistically significant at the 5 percent

17

confidence level. Having a legislated quota has a slight negative effect, but this coefficient is not statistically significant. Table 6 contains a summary of these results.

Table 6: Effect of Gender Quotas on Men's Political Engagement

Political Action Petitions Demonstrations Political Parties

gender quota 0.395*** -0.289*** -0.0533*** 0.0101* (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

legislated quota -0.391*** 0.351*** 0.171*** 0.00867 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

regime change -0.00767* -0.140*** 0.00424 0.0137** (0.00) (0.01) (0.01) (0.00)

age 0.0000743 0.000217 -0.000953 0.00181*** (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

married 0.00492 0.0230* 0.0124 0.000531 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)

has children 0.00000288 0.00853 0.00960 0.00681 (0.00) (0.01) (0.02) (0.01)

incomplete elementary -0.00446 -0.0910* 0.00350 0.0138 (0.01) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04)

complete elementary -0.00935 -0.0446 0.00918 0.0555 (0.02) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04)

incomplete secondary 0.0115 0.0390 0.0937* 0.0513 (0.02) (0.03) (0.03) (0.04)

complete secondary 0.0155 0.0576 0.117** 0.0741 (0.01) (0.03) (0.03) (0.04)

some university 0.0192 0.129*** 0.211*** 0.0991* (0.02) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04)

university degree 0.0217 0.129*** 0.209*** 0.0956* (0.02) (0.03) (0.03) (0.04)

women same rights men 0.00259* 0.0146*** 0.0116** 0.00147

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(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)

employed -0.0165 0.101* 0.0359 -0.0436 (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.03)

housewife -0.0342 0.112 0.00714 -0.0637** (0.03) (0.06) (0.05) (0.02)

student -0.0126 0.122* 0.0561 -0.0687 (0.01) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04)

retired_other -0.0253 0.0237 -0.0462 -0.0725 (0.02) (0.04) (0.03) (0.04)

unemployed -0.0211 0.0486 0.00826 -0.0794 (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.04)

Constant 0.974*** 0.466*** 0.311*** 0.0392 (0.02) (0.06) (0.06) (0.05)

Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Clustered SE Yes Yes Yes Yes Observations 18764 18183 18249 18824 Adjusted R-squared 0.232 0.202 0.085 0.212 Standard errors in parentheses * p<0.05 ** p<0.01 *** p<0.001" Source: Author's calculations based on WVS Data

Discussion

This first part of the paper sought to study the effects of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement using an empirical analysis of a large dataset for different countries. I first looked at women‟s participation trends compared to men‟s and established a puzzle. In many cases, the levels of women‟s political actions increased after the enactment of a gender quota when compared to men.

The first regression analysis shows that there are no significant results of quotas on women‟s political engagement for the four outcomes. Although quotas seem to have an effect on political participation that is statistically significant in some cases, they do not have an effect on women‟s political engagement. In some of the outcomes such as petitions the effect was negative. It is possible to consider two possibilities that would explain the direction of this coefficient. On one hand, if obtaining the quota was an important public policy for women, then it could be the case 19

that once it was obtained women decreased their levels of engagement. On the other hand, if quotas contributed to increase the number of women representatives in parliament this could reduce the level of women‟s political engagement if they think their interest will be represented in Congress by those newly elected representatives. This is also why it is important to consider the overall policy debates going on in each country and how those debates could affect both men and women‟s chances of becoming politically engaged. Our separate regressions show a statistically significant effect of quotas for women in most of the outcomes, but this effect is slightly offset by a statistically significant effect of legislated quotas going in a different direction. However, it is not possible to conclude that quotas do not have an effect on women‟s political engagement. In this regression quotas and legislated quotas may be capturing an unobserved variable that could influence the coefficients. It could be the case that other relevant policies for women were also debated at the time that the quota was adopted that drove women to be more engaged. Many countries establish a gender quota at a time of general political reforms, it could be the case that these coefficients are capturing the effects of these other policies.

If this is the case, it could explain why men also display statistically significant coefficients for the existence of a gender quota and the existence of a legislated quota. Although most of the results of this regression seem to align with the idea that quotas should not have an effect on men, it seems necessary to consider that maybe those coefficients are capturing the unobserved effects of a different policy or circumstance.

There also are some caveats in the analysis of this section. First, it was necessary to deal with some of the limitations of the data that did not permit me to explore the potential effects on other relevant outcomes such as following politics in the news, participating in non-political organizations and discussing politics with friends. Moreover, it was not possible to use all the countries in the data set as they often did not have enough points of data to estimate the regression with fixed effects. Even if we included relevant controls at the individual level and accounted for potential unobserved factors with the fixed effects at the country level, there can be contextual differences not related with regime change that are not being accounted for in this model.

Although when restricting the sample to women there were some significant results that would suggest that quotas have a symbolic impact that encourages women to become more involved in politics, there is always the question that maybe the women who report taking political action or belonging to political parties are “always takers”, that is women who would have been politically active anyway. I am not controlling for this in any of these regressions and if this is the case the results of this analysis would be biased. And, as it was already stated, that coefficient could be capturing the effects of other policy discussions.

However, these results offer the potential to establish some further hypothesis related to the effect of gender quotas. Although those hypotheses go beyond the scope of this study, one

20

possibility to consider is that if gender quotas have an effect on women‟s political engagement it may only be on women who were interested in politics in the first place. The establishment of a gender quota might, then, only send a signal to those women who would always be active in the first place. Another potential hypothesis to consider is that if quotas increase the visibility of women politicians, then, the coefficient may not be capturing the effect of the quota, but the effect of having more women in politics. Finally, the effects of quotas might lead political organizations to increase recruitment effort thus leading more women to become interested in politics. Although in this last case, it is more likely that those who would participate in these efforts are more likely to take political action than the average woman.

Moreover, the coefficients for whether a country transitioned to democracy are often significant, so it could be the case that the seeming effect of quotas on men is capturing an unobserved variable related to political liberalization or change that could have an effect both on men and women.

Case Study: Women’s political engagement in Argentina

The first part of this study provided some insights into the potential effects of gender quotas on women‟s political engagement. The analysis of this section produced some inconclusive results. Part of that reason could be explained by the limitations in the data, the differences between all the countries and the lack of specific information surrounding the adoption of a quota in those countries and other policy debates that could have affected the outcomes of interest. So, given that when restricting the sample to women there seems to be an effect of quotas on political behavior, and that the country level analysis shows that women become more politically engaged after the enactment of a quota, the puzzle of whether and how quotas influence women‟s political behavior remains. To overcome some of these limitations and to attempt to shed light on some of the mechanisms through which quotas could influence women‟s political engagement, in this second section of the paper, I am going to analyze the case of Argentina.

Gender quotas in Argentina

In 1991, Argentina was one of the first countries to adopt a legislated gender quota at the national level. Although many other countries in Latin America followed, the case of Argentina is especially interesting based on this early adoption. Argentina‟s political system is headed by a President who is directly elected by the people for a four year term with the possibility of reelection for another term. It has a Congress with a lower Chamber composed of representatives elected based on multimember constituencies and a proportional electoral system. Senators are elected three for each province. Two Senators belong to the party that obtains the majority of the

21

votes and the third belongs to the first minority8. Argentina has a multiparty system with two to three major political parties and several smaller parties.

Most accounts of this process that lead to the adoption of the gender quota in Argentina highlight the role of women, especially those involved in political parties to obtain the law. But a close reading of newspapers of the time also provides information that President Menem made the quota a priority and his intervention was pivotal to get the legislation passed in the House. The quota law or ley de cupos as it is commonly known (Law 24,012) was adopted after Argentina transitioned to democracy. Argentina had been living under a brutal dictatorship from 1976 until 1983 when it transitioned to democracy and elected Raul Alfonsín of the Radical Party (UCR) as the first president of the new democratic era. According to Lubertino (2003) women‟s participation in political parties increased exponentially during this time and women played an important role in the transition to democracy. However, despite their contributions and large numbers within political party structures they did not have access to positions of power.

The quota law was, from the start, a project that originated with women who were active in politics. Following Lubertino‟s firsthand account they originally did not envision a legislative quota as the only avenue to increase women‟s participation in Congress, but instead pursued different possibilities (including a political party quota). In 1989 a woman Senator from the Province of Mendoza from the UCR party, Margarita Malharro de Torres, introduced a bill to amend the Electoral Code that required all political parties to implement a minimum of 30 percent quota for women candidates (Lubertino 2003, 33). The bill did not only seek to increase the number of women candidates on party lists, but also to place them on positions with real chances of being elected. The origins of this bill can be traced to the National Congress of UCR Women that took place in October of that year. Ten days after the introduction of the bill (On November 16, 1989) a coalition of women representatives from different political parties headed by Norma Alegrone de Fonte (UCR, City of Buenos Aires) and that included Florentina Gómez Miranda (UCR), Ines Botella (PJ), Matilde Fernandez de Quaracino (Democracia Popular), Blanca Macedo de Gomez (UCR) and Ruth Monjardín (Partido Federal) also presented similar legislation in the House. This bill also stipulated that no more than 70% of the lists could be composed of the same sex and that for every two candidates of the same sex there should be at least one of the other sex (Lubertino, 2003, 31).

According to Lubertino (2003, 32) this legislation was especially favored by mid-level women politicians who felt systematically excluded from positions of power in favor of their male cohorts. Malharro de Torres‟ bill was debated and passed in the Senate, but would not be taken up by the House until November of the following year. During the debate in the House, many doubted that the bill had the necessary votes to pass. In fact many doubted whether there will be quorum to vote on it, but at the same time many speculated that a nominal vote would discourage

8 Before Argentina reformed its Constitution in 1994, the President was elected by an Electoral College for one term of six years. Senators were elected by the legislatures in each province. 22

many representatives from voting against it since their negative vote would be highly visible. The session extended until the first hours of the next day when President Menem intervened through the Interior Minister, Jose Luis Manzano, in what would be a decisive move to get the law approved. The debate had extended until the early morning of the next day and the quota law seemed to be in jeopardy. It seems that many representatives where still undecided on their vote. A decisive moment came when the Interior Minister showed up in Congress with an order directly from Menem: “The president wants this bill to pass”. According to an article published in Clarín on November 8, 1991 it was the push that got the support of representatives from the PJ.

During the debate a group of representatives proposed to make changes, but that was opposed by those who wanted the law passed as it would require sending the bill back to the Senate for a new debate and vote. Overall, most political parties supported the law with the exception of Union del Centro Democratico (UceDe) and Movimiento al Socialismo.

In 1992 President Menem signed a decree regulating the implementation of the Law 24,012 determining the place women candidates had to occupy on candidate lists. According to Lubertino (2003, 35), the decree had both positive and negative aspects. Although it did not establish a floor to estimate the number of candidates, for those cases where there were two seats up for election, it effectively established a 50 percent quota.

However, the story of Argentina‟s ley de cupos does not end there. In 1994 Argentina reformed its National Constitution where 100 of the 300 representative to the Constitutional Assembly were women. The new constitution establishes a number of provisions that favor women. Citing Lubertino (2003, 35), these provisions are:

Article 37, second part: ‘real equality of opportunity as between men and women for access to elective and political party office shall be guaranteed by positive action in regulating the political parties and the electoral regime’.

Article 75, section 22: ‘the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ... is of constitutional rank’.

Article 75, section 23, first part (among the areas of competence of the National Congress): ‘To legislate and foster positive action measures that guarantee equal opportunity and treatment, and the full enjoyment and exercise of the rights recognized by this Constitution and by the international treaties in force on human rights, in particular with respect to women ...’.

Second transitory provision: ‘The positive actions alluded to in Article 37, final paragraph, may not be less than those in force at the time this Constitution is adopted, and shall last as long as the law determines’.

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The new constitution also implemented several institutional changes. One of those changes affected the Senate. Until the new constitution senators were not elected by popular vote, instead they were appointed by the legislatures of their provinces. For this reason, when the ley de cupos was debated it would only be implemented in the lower chamber of Congress, and that was the case in 1993. However, after the constitutional reform, the issue of applying the quota to the Senate rapidly came up. This issue spurred another round of debates, in particular because each province has the right to elect three senators, two from the party that obtains the majority of votes and a third from the first minority. Because of this provision, including a quota for the senate would raise it effectively to 50% if one of the candidates on the list had to be a woman. For the minority party it could also act as an exclusionary mechanism. Parties that knew would not reach the majority would nominate women for the second spot securing a Senate seat for men.

On March 8, 2001 then President Fernando de la Rúa (Alianza) signed a decree further regulating the quota law (Decree number 1246/2000) that settled many outstanding issues with the law and the previous decree and defined the issue for Senatorial elections.

Article 12: ‘The thirty percent (30%) of posts to be filled by women as prescribed by Law No. 24,012 is a minimum. In those cases in which the mathematical application of this percentage were to result in fractions less than one, the concept of minimum quantity shall be the next greater unit, and shall be governed by the table which, as Annex 1, is an integral part of this Decree.” (Lubertino 2003, 37).

In the first twenty years of democracy Argentina made significant advances to improve the legal situation of women, especially, their participation in elected office. The quota law significantly increased the number of women representatives in the National Congress both at the House and the Senate, and it lead many provinces to slowly consider or adopt quota provisions for local legislative bodies.

Women’s participation trends in Argentina

Going back to the country level data for Argentina, there seems to be a positive trend in women‟s discussing politics with their friends after the enactment of the quota. The percent of women who discussed politics with their friends was lower than the percent of men in the years before the adoption of the quota, but in the years after that difference became narrower and ultimately the percent of women discussing politics with friends surpassed that of men. However, there is no information about the year 1991 to exactly rule out a discontinuity. Moreover, the years 1984- 1995 contain both political and economic changes that could have caused women to be more attentive to discussing politics with their friends, especially regarding the state of the economy.

For the variable political action there was a decreasing trend in the percent of respondents who reported having taken any political action for both men and women. There was also a difference between these two groups with the percent of men reporting having taken political action being

24

larger than the percent of women. However, after 1991 the negative slope becomes positive for both groups but it is steeper for women eventually surpassing men. Men on the other hand experience a positive change in slope after 1991 that in 1995 becomes negative. Although it is not possible to assume the quota produced this effect, it is also not possible to rule out that possibility in part due to the persistent positive trend for women. When looking at the trend for two of the political action outcomes disaggregated (petitions and demonstrations) there was also a discontinuity in 1991 when the percentage of women reporting having signed a petition increased. In this graph the comparison with men is very similar to the overall taken political action outcome. Men experience a positive change in slope after 1991, but then fall into a decreasing trend. A somewhat similar situation is replicated for participating in demonstrations. After 1991 both groups experience a positive change, but it is only persistent for women after 1995.

For the variable membership in a political party it is possible to see that a few years later after the year the quota was adopted there was a slight change in the slope for women. Conversely, although men had also an increasing trend in their membership in political parties, in 1995 it experienced a negative change in slope that put the percentage of men reporting to be members of a political party much lower than the percent of women reporting on the same category.

This analysis provides some interesting puzzles that can help identify, in the next section, the possible mechanisms that could drive women to be more engaged in politics than men in the period after the adoption of the gender quota.

Increased visibility for women politicians

Before a bill was even introduced for debate, women affiliated with political parties began to discuss their role after the transition to democracy. They fought and suffered the consequences of the dictatorship side by side with men, yet with the new democracy they found themselves relegated to secondary positions or shut out from power altogether. As Lubertino explains (2003, 32) in 1988 women accounted for 48 percent of the members of political parties nationwide. Women comprised also more than half of the electorate, and as such were seen as an important constituency in time of elections.

Lubertino (2003, 33) contends that women became aware of their common condition as women that allowed them to work together beyond their different ideologies and party affiliations and the quota became a common rallying point. According to this author, with the advent of democracy members of the women‟s movement saw the need to attract a broad base of women, and it seems from the account of this protagonist that establishing links with women in political parties was very important. Women in political parties started talking about gender and tried to transmit these ideas to the base. Although it seems that the women‟s movement and women political party activist where active in fighting for gender equality and, in this sense, quotas were a fundamental issue on the agenda, one can wonder to what extent they were successful in

25

mobilizing women who would not normally be interested in politics. It seems from this account that their work was more prominent with women who were already politically active9. Other accounts of the process such as Sapriza (2008) also recognize the role of women‟s groups, social organizations and political parties that supported the quota law. Following Lubertino‟s contention that women belonging to different political forces found common ground in the struggle to increase political representation in Congress through the quota, she mentions that they organized in 1990 the Red de Feministas Politicas (Network of Feminist Women Politicians).

One possibility to consider is that quotas have an indirect effect on women‟s political engagement by increasing the visibility of women politicians. As Desposato and Norrander (2008) point out the visibility of women‟s politicians contributes to women‟s political engagement. In Argentina there are two ways that that could have happened.

First, many prominent women in political parties were instrumental in setting the issue of quotas on the agenda. When reviewing the accounts that lead to the adoption of a quota, many authors highlight the role of women and the feminist movement. Lubertino (2003) contends that it was by the initiative of women, especially women in political parties that the issue of quotas was first brought up, and that it was thanks to their pressure on members of their political parties and cheering from the galleries of Congress that the law was passed. Newspaper articles published during this period agree that the role of women politicians was very important. They mobilized local politicians and, most significantly, organized meetings and a demonstration outside of Congress the day the bill was up for a vote in the House that gathered many women. The Consejo Naciónal de la Mujer (National Council for Women) lead by Virginia Franganello along with women leaders belonging to 14 political parties organized a demonstration outside of Congress to support the treatment of the law by the House of Representatives (La Nación, November 6, 1991). According to reports gathered in newspapers about 3000 women were present in that demonstration. The Council organized media campaigns featuring famous artists and musicians saying that they supported the quota, in addition to organizing other events to discuss the law.

Although the activity of women during this time was important, there are two things to note. First, as with getting the issue on the agenda it came from politically active women who already occupied public office or that were active members of political parties. In the second place, it doesn‟t seem that there were broader demonstrations other than when the law was debated. In

9 Another element that contributed to guide the agenda and introduced the issue of quotas, was the links established by women activist and politicians with women in political parties in other countries. Women pushing for quotas established links with women with political parties in Spain and Germany, and with women in South American countries such as Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay. In many of these cases such as Spain, Germany, Uruguay and Brazil, links were with women in specific political parties, normally with the left. Additionally, many of the early proponents of quotas participated in international conferences where the issue was debated such as the United Nations Women‟s Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985 and the XVIII Congress of the Socialist International in 1989. The women who traveled to those events would share their documents which would in turn foster more discussion on the issue (Lubertino 2003, 32-33). 26

general newspapers and the literature don‟t make any mention of the activities of regular women. Although it is possible to speculate that recruitment could play a role here, it doesn‟t seem that there were active recruitment efforts on the part of these organizations that extended beyond their bases. There is also no information about the potential success in mobilizing the general public of the media efforts organized by the government other than the results of polls reported in the papers that show that the majority of the population supported the initiative.

In the case of the decree that established the quota for the Senate, Lubertino highlights that it was also thanks to the pressure from the women‟s movement. Once again I looked through Clarín and La Nación for evidence of women‟s mobilization and activism around this issue but I found no evidence of large scale mobilizations. Activism seems to have been concentrated on women politicians and those already active within political structures.

However, there is a second way quotas could have influenced women. Quotas significantly increased the number of women in Congress; there is always the possibility that they influence women‟s political engagement indirectly by increasing the number of relevant women in politics. As Burns et al (2001) show, when there is a female candidate women become more interested in campaigns and the political process. Looking at the graph for political action in Argentina, it is possible to see that in 1995 women‟s participation catches up with men‟s and experiences another, albeit smaller, spike. A possible explanation is that the first group of women elected through the quota entered Congress in 1993 significantly increasing the number of women representatives. Argentina reformed its constitution in 1994 and one third of the representatives to the Constitutional Assembly were women. Some of the representatives – for example Elisa “Lilita” Carrió10 - gained notoriety as national political figures during that time.

It is possible to hypothesize that on one hand the prominence of women politicians and their efforts to mobilize support for the ley de cupos may have increased women‟s interest in politics and political engagement. On the other hand, it is also possible to hypothesize that after the enactment of the gender quota women politicians gained more visibility in national politics and that caused women to become more politically engaged. Assuming that this would have no effect on men, this can also help explain the lower levels of men‟s political engagement during those years.

Political and economic instability

However these possible explanations are not enough to explain women‟s increased political engagement. It is possible to argue that although more women politicians could increase women‟s interest in politics, they could also have the opposite effect if women think that their interests are represented in Congress. So, it is necessary to look at other possible mechanisms that can have a positive effect on women‟s political engagement.

10 Carrió is one of Argentina‟s most prominent women politicians. A current representative for the City of Buenos Aires in Congress, she was also a Presidential candidate in the elections in 2008. 27

In Argentina there is a long history of women‟s activism related to political and economic crises, in particular during the last years of the country‟s history11. During the military dictatorship in the seventies emerged one of the most well-known examples of women‟s activism, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who first started their demonstration in 1977, a year after the military coup. Two other organizations emerged during this period the Asociacion Juana Manso in Cordoba (1978) and Union de Mujeres Socialistas created by traditional socialist leader and feminist advocate Alicia Moreau de Justo in 1979.

During the transition to democracy, women‟s activism saw further expressions. In particular, this time saw the emergence of forms of activism linked to low income women and housewives concerned with the economic situation of the country and the increasing cost of living. These protests were known as “vecinazos” (Sapriza 2008: 59). The housewives organized in a national movement and arranged national boycotts refusing to purchase products protesting inflation and lack of food supplies. They made a point of refusing to identify with any political party or ideology, and especially with traditional feminine forms of participation in charity organizations. (Sapriza 2008: 60). Despite their efforts and innovation to build a national movement, Sapriza contends that ultimately, maybe because of this lack of ideological definition, they fell victim to a “nuestra politica es la de nuestros maridos” („Our politics is our husband‟s”) which deprived these women of a separate political identity. Freytes Frey and Crivelli (2007, 244) conclude that during the 1980s social movements such as these, composed mainly of women, did not normally challenge traditional gender stereotypes, including the role of women in the political sphere.

The period between the adoption of the gender quota and the collapse of the economy in 2001 was of both relative prosperity for sectors of the upper and middle classes and of increase

11 Women‟s activism is not exclusively related to economic and political events. Traditionally, political participation in Argentina acquired many forms, and it extended beyond the vote. Argentines were active in civic associations, especially linked with immigrant groups such as the Italian and the Spanish, newspapers and other organizations. According to Sábato these organizations where fundamental to create what she calls a “culture of mobilization” (Sábato 1998, 21). Women were interested in public life and actively participated in these organizations. Because women in Argentina did not obtain the vote until 1947, their political activity took place within these types of structures. In their fight to obtain political rights women in Argentina used maternalist arguments to justify their inclusion in the political arena (Nari 2000, 2004). Dora Barrancos (2002) contends that the history of women‟s political participation in Argentina is marked by the logic of inclusion and exclusion. For example, in the past while women could be part of political parties such as the UCR and participate in political actions they could not vote. One of the most salient examples if that of Elvira Rawson, who belonged to the UCR party and acted in what is known as the Revolución del Parque in 1890. This logic can be transposed to the quota law. While women were half of the electorate and active in political parties they still faced significant trouble to access political office. So, traditionally women were active in civic organizations and they organized congresses such as the Feminist Congresses during the early twentieth century. From this early stage women envisioned their political participation outside traditional forms such as voting. They were active in charitable organizations, newspapers (Sosa Newton 2000) and they created their own organizations such as the Consejo Naciónal de Mujeres a nationwide organization that, according to Vasallo (2000) is an example of an organization that sought to coordinate women‟s political activity nationwide. They organized Congresses, a practice that extended until the twenty-first century. And they were also involved in charitable organizations, sometimes, but not always, linked to the Catholic Church. Other organizations included: Centro Socialista Femenino, Centro Union y Labor, Liga Feminista Naciónal de la República Argentina, Centro de Universitarias Argentinas, Consejo de Mujeres, etc. 28

marginalization the poorer sectors of society. It was these sectors that produced new social movements in Argentina tied to the poor such as Piqueteros12. According to Freytes Frey and Crivelli (2007, 244) women made up 75 percent of members in piquetero organizations. However, despite their large numbers, women in these organizations were often relegated from positions of leadership (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, 244) replicating much of the situation that women experienced in political parties less than a decade earlier. In general, men are national and regional level leaders, while women are predominant at the local neighborhood level where they can develop their communal social work activities (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, 251). Even for women in these movements certain political attributes associated with leadership are mainly perceived as „masculine‟. This is not the view of those women who participate in trainings and workshops. They are more critical of this situation and they highlight the the deep seated differences in the opportunities to gain political experience available for men and women (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, 253).

However, according to these authors, women‟s involvement in these movements lead them to reassess their capabilities to work outside the home, including their ability for political engagement (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, 249). Some of these activities included forms of political action such as participating in demonstrations and in assemblies related to the piquetero movement, and engaging in communal social work. In some organizations these activities were accompanied by the creation of specific spaces for women, including workshops and trainings with the participation of feminist activists (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, 250).

In 2001, ridden by an unmanageable debt and a monetary policy that pegged the peso to the U.S. dollar that was impossible to sustain, the Argentine economy collapsed amid lootings, cacerolazos13 and street demonstrations. According to Borland and Sutton (2007, 700) women constituted the majority in some of these protests and demonstrations. These movements included piqueteros, but also popular assemblies, bartering clubs and factories taken over by workers. Some of the women‟s groups included Mujeres Agropecuarias en Lucha (Agricultural Women in Struggle) (Borland and Sutton 2007, 703).

It seems that both the harder living conditions imposed on low income sectors by the economic policies of the 1990s and the crisis in 2001 were a significant factor that spurred women‟s

12 Piqueteros is a poor people‟s movement associated with the unemployed that emerged in the nineties with a series of road blocks and pickets in the mid-nineties in the cities of Cutral-Có and Plaza Huincul. The movement later extended to the Province of Buenos Aires where piqueteros organized a picket that lasted for 18 days demanding social subsidies (planes sociales). Being unemployed they lacked union representation and the ability to voice their demands through formal channels. 13 Pot-banging protests were orchestrated mostly by the middle class in response to the corralito, a monetary policy that prohibited extracting bank deposits beyond a certain amount. The bulk of the protest activity against then President Fernando De la Rúa took place between December 19 and 20. These days where characterized by lootings, pot-banging and street demonstrations. Two protesters linked to poor-peoples movements died in confrontations with the Police at Plaza de Mayo, the traditional site of political mobilization in Buenos Aires. Once in power, President Duhalde turned all the bank deposits in U.S. dollars to a devalued peso (the Argentine currency) which spurred another round of cacerolazos and legal action against the government. 29

activism, in particular, related to political action such as demonstrations and other forms of contentious politics. In many other activities, especially those linked with social movements, women‟s participation can be explained by a sense of social injustice and the need to improve one‟s condition. Regardless of the form of participation, it was the economic crisis that drove many women to political engagement as a response to the disruption that the crises imposed in their daily lives. It is estimated that, in 2002, some 12,766 protests took place in Argentina creating new spaces and frameworks for women‟s activism both for women who had no previous history of mobilization and those with links to the feminist movement (Borland and Sutton 2007). However, this type of mobilization resulting from an economic crisis is not new and it can be traced back to the housewives movement of the eighties.

Women in Argentina had been active in women‟s organizations and in political parties, and they also formed and joined other organizations in particular in response to the periodic upheavals of the Argentine economy. It seems then, that although quotas produced an effect increasing the number of women in parliament, they do not seem to have a strong relation with women‟s activism as described above, and that some levels of political engagement can be explained by contextual factors occurring after the quota was adopted.

Ripple effects of quotas

The establishment of a gender quota in 1991 helped to start the debate around the place of women in politics in Argentina. This is another avenue that could explain women‟s increasing levels of political engagement. Newspaper reports from the period covered in this study show that there was a debate about the role of women in politics, in particular their difficulties in gaining access to positions of power. Most of the politically relevant positions in Congress were still occupied by men by the time the first cohort of women representatives elected through the quota left Congress in 1997, including heading all the relevant Committees.

In 2001 the quota law from 1991 was extended to the Senate creating another round of debates around this issue. A reading of newspaper articles around this time seems to confirm that it contributed to increase the number of women Senators. However, despite these advances it is only toward the end of the period covered in this study that women began to move to positions of power. For example, Lilita Carrió introduced a bill to increase the number of women in government administrative bodies. And In 2004 a 30 percent gender quota was established both in Unions and the Supreme Court. The establishment of a gender quota for unions is a significant step since it was largely obtained thanks to the role of women union delegates. Although it is not possible to conclude that the original gender quota drove women to become more active to demand their rights, it is an interesting avenue for further research that aligns with the hypothesis presented in this study.

30

Conclusions

This paper sought to answer the question of whether quotas have a symbolic effect that encourage women to become more engaged in politics by sending the signal that politics is not an area reserved for men. According to this view, quotas would have a direct effect on women‟s political engagement. The empirical analysis conducted in this study does not provide conclusive evidence in support of this direct effect. However, it is also not entirely possible to reject it. In this sense, due to the limitations of this study, it is necessary to conduct further research that attempts to isolate this potential symbolic effect of gender quotas.

On one hand, there are factors that can lead women to be more politically engaged than men. Based on the case study, in Argentina women have a long history of activism in particular responding to the upheavals of the economy. Both the organization of housewives and the women related to the piquetero movement are examples of this phenomenon. In this sense, further studies are needed that can help tease out the relationship between these other contextual factors and the establishment of the gender quota. In this sense, a possible hypothesis is also that the economy drove women to take political action and that their work in this organizations lead them to reflect on their ability to take political action. The study of women‟s activism in Argentina seems to indicate that this might be a possible explanation (Freytes Frey and Crivelli 2007, Borland and Sutton, 2007).

Another element to consider from this case study is that in Argentina the debate around gender quotas took place at a time when the country was implementing different economic and political reforms. Although women experienced higher levels of political engagement when compared to men, it is possible that the effect in participation does not respond to the enactment of a quota, but to these other policies. Further research on both the indirect effect of quotas and the relationship of quotas with other public policies that could affect political behavior seems necessary.

Gender quotas could influence women‟s political engagement indirectly. The case study helped identify the possible mechanisms that could lead quotas to have an effect on women‟s political engagement. One of those mechanisms is that when quotas increase the number of women in politics and in particular the number of women candidates. Quotas introduce an incentive for political parties and other organizations to recruit and mobilize women. Based on the evidence from the case study, it seems that mobilization and recruitment efforts were limited to women who were already politically active; however, this may not always be the case. Future research on the indirect impact of quotas should explore whether they encourage recruitment and mobilization efforts that reach out to women in general.

Although the analysis conducted in this paper does not provide conclusive results on the effect of quotas on women‟s political engagement, it is necessary to recognize the need to conduct further studies that explore this phenomenon. Whether a policy produces intended or unintended effects

31

in people‟s political engagement depends on several factors that relate to the policy itself, the context around it and they way it is actually implemented. All these factors should be taken into account in future studies of the effect of quotas on women‟s political behavior. There are many differences in how a gender quota can be designed and how it takes into account variations in the political system of the different countries. The effect of quotas on getting more women elected depends on whether a country has multimember constituencies or single-member constituencies or if it has a proportional electoral system versus a “first past the post” system, for instance. We do not know how these elements help translate the symbolic impact of quotas to the general population. And if quotas, ultimately, have an indirect effect through increasing the number of women candidates and representatives and their visibility, variations in these factors would influence their potential effect.

Moreover, the way laws are implemented and the process that leads to the adoption of the legislation can also influence the potential symbolic effect of a gender quota. Finally, for those interested in the impact of quotas on other forms of representation other than symbolic. It seems, based on our case study, that quotas14 although they increase the number of women in parliaments, they do not always translate in positions of power for women. This is another factor to include in future studies of this phenomenon.

Although it was not possible to confirm the hypothesis of this study, this paper points out to two conclusions. First, I agree with views such as Dahlerup and Frendenvall (2010), Krook et al (2009) and Zetterberg (2009) that there should be more studies that explore the symbolic impact of gender quotas to understand both the extent and limitations of this policy. As far as the conclusions of this study, I recognize that there are a number of caveats with both the cross- national comparison and the case study that can also be addressed in future studies.

Finally, as part of the policy feedbacks literature, this study brings attention to some questions about the symbolic impact of quotas and public policies. On one hand, it highlights the many factors that can influence the impact of a public policy on political behavior. Further studies are needed that can help isolate those effects. What types of approaches are more appropriate to tease out this impact? Even if there is reason to assume that a policy will have a symbolic impact that could affect a group‟s political behavior, what are the mechanisms though which that effect takes place and that determine what policies will have feedbacks while others don‟t?

14 Especially legislated quotas. 32

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Appendix

All graphs are the author‟s calculations based on data from the WVS five wave dataset.

Have taken political action Agentina 30

25

20

15 Men Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5

0 1984 1991 1995 1999 2006

Have taken political action Australia 50 45 40 35 Men 30 Women 25

Percent ofrespondents Percent 20 15 1981 1995 2005

37

Have taken political action Brazil 50 45 40 35 Men 30 Women 25

Percent ofrespondents Percent 20 15 1991 1997 2006

Have taken political action Chile 50 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 Women 15 10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2000 2005

38

Have taken political action India 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1995 2001 2006

Have taken political action South Korea 30

25

20

15 Men 10 Women

5 Percent ofrespondents Percent

0 1982 1990 1996 2001 2005

39

Have taken political action Mexico 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 15 Women 10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2000 2005

Have taken political action Peru 50

45

40

35 Men 30 Women 25

Percent ofrespondents Percent 20

15 1996 2001 2008

40

Have taken political action Poland 50 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 Women 15

10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1989 1997 2005

Have taken political action South Africa 40 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2001 2007

41

Have taken political action Spain 35

30

25 Men 20 Women

15 Percent ofrespondents Percent

10 1990 1995 2000 2007

Demonstrations

Have participated in demonstrations Argentina 30

25

20

15 Men

10 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5

0 1984 1991 1995 1999 2006

42

Have participated in demonstrations Australia 50 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 Women 15

10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1981 1995 2005

Have participated in demonstrations Brazil 45 40 35 30 Men 25 Women 20

15 Percent ofrespondents Percent 10 1991 1997 2006

43

Have participated in demonstrations India 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1995 2001 2006

Have participated in demonstrations India 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1995 2001 2006

44

Have participated in demonstrations South Korea 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 15 Women 10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1982 1990 1996 2001 2005

Have participated in demonstrations Mexico 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 15 Women 10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2000 2005

45

Have participated in demonstrations Peru 60

50

40

30 Men

20 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 10

0 1996 2001 2008

Have participated in demonstrations Poland 36 35 34 33 32 Men 31 Women 30

Percent ofrespondents Percent 29 28 1989 1997 2005

46

Have participated in demonstrations Spain 35

30

25

20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5

0 1990 1995 2000 2007

Have participated in demonstrations South Africa 35 30 25 20 15 Men Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2001 2007

47

Petitions

Have Signed a Petition Argentina 30

25

20

15 Men

10 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5

0 1984 1991 1995 1999 2006

Have signed a petition Australia 50 45 40 35 Men 30 Women 25

Percent ofrespondents Percent 20 15 1981 1995 2005

48

Have signed a petition Brazil 50 45 40 35 30 Men 25 Women 20

Percent ofrespondents Percent 15 10 1991 1997 2006

Have signed a petition Chile 45 40 35 30 Men 25 Women 20

Percent ofrespondents Percent 15 10 1990 1996 2000 2005

49

Have signed a petition India 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1995 2001 2006

Have signed a petition South Korea 30

25

20

15 Men 10 Women

5 Percent ofrespondents Percent

0 1982 1990 1996 2001 2005

50

Have signed a petition Mexico 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 15 Women 10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2000 2005

Have signed a petition Peru 45 40 35 30 Men 25 Women 20

Percent ofrespondents Percent 15 10 1996 2001 2008

51

Have signed a petition Poland

50 45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 Axis Title Axis Women 15 10 5 0 1989 1997 2005

Have signed a petition Spain 30

25

20

15 Men

10 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5

0 1990 1995 2000 2007

52

Have signed a petition South Africa 40 35 30 25 20 Men 15 Women 10

Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2001 2007

Discuss Politics with Friends

Frequently discuss politics with friends Argentina 40 35 30 25

20 Men

Axis Title Axis 15 Women 10 5 0 1984 1995 1999

53

Frequently discuss politics with friends Australia 80 70 60 50

40 Men 30 Women

20 Percent ofrespondents Percent 10 0 1981 1995

Frequently discuss politics with friends India 60

50

40

30 Men

20 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 10

0 1990 1995 2001

54

Frequently discuss politics with friends Mexico

45 40 35 30 25 Men 20 15 Women

10 Percent ofrespondents Percent 5 0 1990 1996 2001

Frequently discuss politics with friends Spain 38 37 36 35 34 Men 33 32 Women 31 Percent ofrespondents Percent 30 29 1990 1995 2000

55

Frequently discuss politics with friends South Africa 60

50

40

30 Men Women

20 Percent ofrespondents Percent 10

0 1990 1996 2001

Membership in political parties

Membership in political parties Argentina 50

45

40

35

30 Men 25 Women

20 Percent ofRespondents Percent

15

10 1984 1995 2006

56

Membership in a political party Australia 60

50

40

30 Men

20 Women

Percent ofrespondents Percent 10

0 1981 1995 2005

Membership in political parties South Korea 70

60

50

40 Men 30 Women 20

Percent ofrespondents Percent 10

0 1982 1996 2005

There was almost no difference between women and men in Spain so this graph was not included.

57