Democracy, Representation, and Women: A Comparative Analysis

The value of political equality is central to normative theories of democracy: it is argued that women are equal citizens and therefore should share equally with men in public decision-making. By contrast, empirical theories typically define democracy by the presence of institutions such as a multi-party political system and competitive elections. In fact, the concept of empirical democracy may encompass a complex range of practical realities, including cultural, socio-economic, and political factors. This multifaceted understanding of empirical democracy is used to help explain the descriptive representation of women in national parliaments. The goal of the article is to advance understanding about which factors help or hinder women in entering parliament in countries defined as democratic. Its principal argument is that these factors differ according to the length of the democratic experiment. The analysis shows first that the proportion of women in parliaments is influenced by a plurality of interacting factors. Second, it shows that the mix of factors influencing the percentage of female legislators differs according to the length of the country's democratic experience. In countries where democracy has prevailed for only a short time, the voting system is the most important factor explaining the proportion of women parliamentarians. By contrast, in well-established democracies the most powerful explanation is found in an egalitarian conception of gender roles. The conclusions reminds us that empirical democracy is a complex, heterogeneous, and multifaceted phenomenon; consequently, analysis intended to reach a better understanding of the presence of women in parliaments must refrain from uniformly applying indicators to all countries, the realities of which are, in fact, quite different.