The Downside of Gender Quotas

Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 61 No.
3, 2008, 442 460 Advance Access Publication 28 March 2008
The Downside of Gender Quotas?1 Institutional Constraints on Women in Mexican State Legislatures
R ZETTERBERG BY PA
Downloaded from http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/ at Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana on September 13, 2013
ABSTRACT
In recent years, a rich and varied body of literature has developed that focuses on the way that institutional structures limit womens substantive representation. Claims have been made that some women legislators are more likely to suffer from institutional constraints than others; those entering legislature via legal gender quotas. Examining two Mexican state legislatures, where only one has adopted legal gender quotas, empirical testing gives no support to the hypothesis; quota women do not seem to confront more obstacles than other women. No such negative side effect of quota legislation is identified. Two reasons are put forward; first, dependency on particular leaders is not isolated to quota women but is part of the overall political system. Secondly, the most strident battles occur within political parties for positions of power; hence gender quotas are perceived as a threat mainly to male colleagues within the party. Two key aspects are identified that deserve closer attention in order to gain a more comprehensive picture of the relationship between gender quotas and institutional obstacles to womens substantive representation: the political agendas raised by quota women and the interplay between different quota provisions and candidate selection rules.
IN the literature on womens substantive representation, the emphasis has been mainly on policy output, identifying the actions women take to act in the interests of [women] in a manner responsive to them.2 Less attention has been paid to the prerequisites necessary for such outputs to occur. This analysis looks at the institutional conditions under which legislators pursue their job, by scrutinising the social structures and (male) practices that are claimed to inhibit women legislators from performing their tasks the way they prefer.3 More specifically, it tests empirically the hypothesis that quota womenthose women who enter legislative bodies via legal gender quotasare more likely to suffer from institutional constraints, and thus have a more circumscribed room for manoeuvre within the legislature, than women who are not elected via gender quotas. These constraints have been identified as a downside of quota legislation. As quotas constitute a legal attempt to break male-dominant structures of politics and increase womens numerical representation,
Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 61 No. 3 # The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org doi: 10.1093/pa/gsn016
The Downside of Gender Quotas?
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thereby constituting an external shock to the predominantly male political system, quotas pose a threat to male politicians.4 Being rational political actors, male party leaderships and parliamentarians are likely to respond to this challenge in at least two ways, in order to maintain political power also whenever a successful implementation of gender quotas generate a rapid increase in womens numerical representation: First, male leaders will select rather politically inexperienced and powerless women to maintain control of the political agenda.5 In contrast to other women legislators, who are expected to have won their seats thanks to having a strong position in the political party and/or in society, quota women may be in a less favorable situation from the outset.6 Secondly, once in parliament male leaders and legislators will try to prevent quota women from exercising political power by putting them in less prestigious positions and by neglecting their proposals.7 Although empirical tests are still rather few, some support has been given to the hypothesis that quota women are more likely to suffer from institutional constraints than other women legislators.8 However, these analyses are almost exclusively based on single case studies in a limited number of countries (mainly India). Nor do they compare the experiences of women entering legislature via gender quotas with those of other women. Therefore, it is not possible to rule out the possibility that institutional constraints are universal problems affecting all women legislators similarly. For this reason, this hypothesis is to be tested by comparing the obstacles that quota women and non-quota women confront in their legislative work, in two Mexican state legislaturesZacatecas and Michoaca n de Ocampo (hereafter Michoaca n). The former state has introduced gender quotas into its electoral code, whereas the latter has not done so.9 By scrutinising the possible constraints facing quota women, this analysis strives at addressing, at least indirectly, the intriguing question of whether positive opportunities for womens increased numerical representation brought by quotas may be linked to increased restrictions for quota women when it comes to carry out reforms of benefit to women as a group,10 that is, with negative consequences for womens substantive representation.11 A focus on working conditions within the legislature, being an important mediating factor to the passage of legislation beneficial to women, increases our understanding of the possibilities for quota women who want to pursue an agenda for the benefit of women to be successful in their attempts.12
Three obstacles to women legislators performance

Inspired by Goetzs three dimensions of political effectivenessaccess, presence and influenceand by theorists of gendered organisations, three obstacles to women legislators performance in parliament have been formulated.13 These are likely to affect women at different stages in a parliamentary process.14 For all obstacles, it is suggested that those
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Parliamentary Affairs
women entering the legislature through legal gender quotas will be more affected than other women legislators: Tokenism, or externally controlled legislator: Party leaderships select candidates that they could control. Marginalisation: Legislator is kept outside leadership positions in the legislature. Invisibilisation: Legislator is ignored in decision-making.
Tokenism refers to the issues of access to legislative bodies and to the impact gatekeepers and candidate selection rules have on legislators possibility to pursue a political agenda once acceding to political office. Scholars have emphasised that nomination procedures and pressures for loyalty are key for understanding under what conditions an individual woman might be nominated to public office, and what kinds of women are usually elected.15 Party leaderships are assumed to respond to the threat gender quotas pose to male dominance by selecting controllable women. As a consequence, quota women will to a larger extent than others lack experience from legislative work as well as party work.16 Thus, these women are so-called tokens (or proxy women). They are accepted as members in elite institutions, however expected to accept the agenda of the dominant groups in the party leadership.17 Whereas tokenism emphasises that legislators room for manoeuvre might be circumscribed prior to acceding to office, marginalisation and invisibilisation pay attention to constraints at a later stage, once legislators have started their parliamentary work. Marginalisation focuses on the formal procedures of selecting legislators to leadership positions within parliament, in particular, male tactics to keep women outside power positions.18 The logic behind this argument is that traditionally dominant groups are accustomed to controlling scarce political resources for its own use; such as legislative leadership positions. If traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women, gain increased access to parliament, members of this group will not be fully incorporated into the legislative process but will be kept on the sidelines.19 Appointments to important positions within the parliamentary structure therefore tends to be given to men, and increasingly so as the number of women increases.20 Given the threat quota legislation poses to male legislators dominance in political decision-making, it could be assumed that men operating within a quota system will respond to this challenge by trying to marginalise quota women, by limiting them to certain committees. For the same reason, there might also be more informal practices of exclusion, in terms of attempts to invisibilise quota women in decision-making. These womens opinions, proposals and policy agendas are, in this case, not taken into account. They are excluded from having influence in decision-making. Thereby, the status
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quo is maintained despite a numerical advancement of this traditionally underrepresented group.21 Tokenism is measured using four indicators, all of them aiming at highlighting the woman representatives lack of independence, or control (see Table 1). The first indicator refers to the way in which women are selected as candidates. It is likely that women who have been appointed by the party leadership will have greater levels of obligation to those who appointed her, resulting in greater difficulties to pursue the political agenda of her electoral campaign, than those who won their candidacy in direct competition with others at constituency level (in primary elections).22 The second and third indicator highlights the question of representatives power base, within the political party or elsewhere in society. A woman representative who has had few or no previous party assignments, within the party organisation or as a representative, and has no leadership experiences from other organisations, may lack her own power base and may therefore have limited room for manoeuvre within the legislature.23 The final indicator refers to a dependency towards family members; for example that the woman has been nominated and elected due to being a relative to an important male politician in the party leadership, and in order to represent his interests in the legislature.24 Marginalisation is measured looking at committee appointments, which are arguably the most important, and by far the most frequently analysed, leadership positions in the legislature.25 More specifically, the key question is whether the committees that the woman representative were assigned to, radically differed from those she solicited.26 However, we should also take into consideration exactly what committees the woman solicited, and why. There is a possibility that a woman solicits a certain (and among her colleagues less requested) committee merely for strategic reasons, perceiving that she will have no chance of having the committee she really wanted, or to avoid negative reactions
1. Analytic framework for analysis on obstacles to women legislators political performance Obstacle Tokenism Indicator Woman representative was nominated through appointment by party leadership Woman representative has had no other party assignments Woman representative lacks leadership experiences from other organisation(s) Woman representative has family ties with male in party leadership Woman representative is a member of/chairs a committee that she has not solicited Woman representative has experiences of not being listened to in the legislature
Marginalisation Invisibilisation
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and treatment in a hostile environment. This might also be a kind of marginalisation. The narrative of women representatives is emphasised when analysing invisibilisation, as they are asked about possible experiences of these practices. Being self-reported claims, this measure does on the one hand not permit careful examination of the actual veracity of these claims. On the other hand, perceiving that one is listened to in decision-making is a key condition for any legislator who wants to pursue a particular political agenda and carry through certain reforms. Moreover, male politicians are also interviewed, in order to look for similarities and differences in attitudes about legislative work and gender relations in parliament.27
Presenting the Mexican case study

The empirical focus of the analysis is on state legislatures in Mexico. The reasons for this are several: The Latin American countries are at the core of quota legislation, with Argentina being pioneer country in quota legislation in 1991 and being the region with the highest share of countries practicing gender quotas.28 A major advantage of focusing on Mexico is its federal system, each state having its own electoral code, and consequently, some states having adopted legal gender quotas, whereas others have not done so.29 Therefore, a within-country comparison is possible. This type of analysis has important advantages to those on national parliaments; it is possible to compare cases sharing key aspects such as electoral as well as party systems, and to a greater extent than in cross-national analyses, also political culture and other cultural or historical factors.30 The two states selected are Zacatecas and Michoaca n, both being among the least developed states of the country.31 Their modern political history has similar features. The hegemony of the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI) was broken by voting a governor from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to power; this occurred in Zacatecas in 1998 (and again in 2004) and in Michoaca n in 2001. In terms of womens presence in politics, similar paths were followed for a long time. Womens representation developed incrementally from a very low share in the early 1990sless than 5% in both statesto about 15% in 2001 (see Figure 1). After 2001, the two states have followed different paths. Zacatecas adopted legal gender quotas in 2003, as parts of an extensive electoral reform package and after two months of protests. The legislation is very strict; candidate lists having more than 70% of the same sex will not be accepted for registration. On proportional lists, the top two candidates may not be of the same sex . In the 2004 elections, the quota law had a positive effect on womens representation. The rate of women representatives in the state legislature doubled from the previous election, to an all time high of almost 27% (eight women of 30).

Figure 1. Womens representation in state legislatures of Zacatecas and Michoaca n, 19922004 (%)
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Source: D. Reynoso and N. DAngelo, Las leyes de cuota y su impacto en la eleccio n de mujeres en Me xico, Pol tica y Gobierno, XIII, 2006, 279 313. Note, in main source the percentage for Michoaca n in 2004 is wrongly put at 20%.
It is suggested that this rapid and large increase might make the threat to male domination more palpableand possible constraints on quota women more visiblethan in cases where a quota reform has only generated small changes. In Michoaca n, on the other hand, the electoral code only has a (hitherto inoperative) recommendation to the political parties not to nominate more than 70% of candidates of the same sex.32 Womens representation has, consequently, continued the incremental track to a level of 17.5% (seven women of 40) in the 2004 elections (see Figure 1).33 Just under 50 interviews were carried out in a field trip to the two states in OctoberDecember 2006.34 In Zacatecas, seven of eight women representatives were interviewed, and in Michoaca n, interviews were done with all seven women legislators (for information about women legislators, see Table 2). A selection of male legislators were also interviewed;35 in Zacatecas three represented the biggest party PRD (50% of the seats), and one from PRI (20%), the National Action Party (PAN) (13.3%) and the Workers Party (PT) (13.3%), respectively. Ten interviews were carried out with male legislators in Michoaca n; four from PRD (having 42.5% of the seats), four from PRI (37.5%) and two from PAN (15%). Questions to legislators concerned issues such as their political as well as family background, experiences of party activities or activism in other organisations, the nomination process and focus of their campaigns, emphasis of their parliamentary work and committee assignments and relations to their fellowlegislators. Additional interviews were carried out with other women ex-legislators, party presidents/vice presidents, presidents of the womens section of the parties and the director-general of the womens agency of each state, in order to have a fuller picture of the political and party structure of the states.
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2. Women representatives in Zacatecas and Michoaca n (in November 2006), by political party, electoral procedure and gender quota Woman legislator Zacatecas Martina Rodr guez Garc a A da Alicia Lugo Da vila Ruth Araceli R os Moncada Martha Ange lica Zamudio Mac as Sara Guadalupe Buerba Sauri Lidia Va zquez Luja n Raquel Zapata Fraire Sonia de la Torre Barrientos Michoaca n Minerva Bautista Go mez Mar a Lucila Arteaga Garibay Citlal Ferna ndez Gonza lez Vero a Reyes nica Garc Mar a Cruz Campos D as Mar a del Roc o Luquin Valdes Ana Luc a Medina Galindo Political party PRD PRD PRD PRD PRD PT PAN PAN Electoral procedure Entered via gender quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Yes, legal quota Noa
Prop. repr. Majority vote Majority vote Majority vote Majority vote Prop. repr. Prop. repr. Majority vote
PRD PRD PRD PRD PRD PRI PAN
Prop. repr. Prop. repr. Prop. repr. Majority vote Majority vote Prop. repr. Majority vote
Yes, party quota No No No No No No
Note: aLegislator competed in primary elections with male competitors.
Tokenism
Looking jointly at the indicators of tokenism, the analysis gives no general support to the hypothesis that women entering parliament through gender quotas are more likely than other women legislators to be controlled by particular leaders or party leaderships. This does not mean that elected women are necessarily free from problems of external control, the most critical problem being the flexible candidate selection rules. However, flexible (and mostly centralised) nomination rules as well as emphasis on personal ties appear to be key features of the Mexican political system, mostly operating similarly across state legislatures, be it quota or non-quota systems, affecting the rules of the game for all players. To some extent this problem is counterbalanced by the fact that barely any of the elected women, again without discrimination between women elected via gender quotas and others, seem to owe their candidacy to certain family ties.36 Moreover, most of the elected
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women who run a high risk of becoming tokensquota women and non-quota womenappear to have some kind of power base within the party; a majority of the nominated women had leadership experiences from the party executive at state level or from the state government.37 The general problem of flexible candidate selection procedures is evident when analysing the ways in which legislators were selected as candidates; indications of problems of tokenism are visible among both quota women and non-quota women. As the electoral code in neither state has strict rules for candidate selection procedures, the ways in which candidates were nominatedand hence the risk of suffering from tokenismdiffer from legislator to legislator. In general, the less control of party leaderships, and the more transparent the nomination procedure, the less likely is a woman to suffer from these problems. From a strict candidate selection perspective, most women operating in a quota system run quite a high risk of becoming tokens. Appointments were frequently, although not always, used by party leaderships mainly for single member districts. This is perhaps most evident for PRD, in which all five women candidates (of which four won their districts) were handpicked by the party leadership, mainly the governor.38 However, the problem of handpicking candidates is to some extent counterbalanced by the nomination of women candidates that appear to have a power base within the party and/or among the electorate. For instance, one woman participated in the primary elections to mayor in her municipality, losing closely to a male competitor: Being the runner-up of the primary elections [they saw] that I had strong support in the municipality. [Therefore] they asked me to run for the state legislature.39 The risk of external controls over women representatives is not isolated to quota women, nor is it isolated to women representatives. A similar pattern exists among male legislators entering the legislature through single member districts; there are those winning primary elections in competition with others, but also those being handpicked by party leadership: I was invited by the executive committee. [. . .] They knew me [and] they thought that I had the chance to win.40 For women legislators in Michoaca n, the main risk of external control appears to occur when they sought proportional representation seats, due to the importance of support from party factions and their leaders for nomination. Some women were approached by male party colleagues to run for candidacy, the governor included: [The governor] told us that he needed people he trusts in the state legislature. [Therefore] he was going to ask some of us to run for office as there were bills he wanted to introduce and things were going to be much more difficult without him having staunch supporters [in the legislature]. [. . .] It was as good as a safe way to get to the legislature.41 Other women, not only in Michoaca n but in both states, needed
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back-up from leaders of particular groups in order to register for candidacy: The co-ordinators of the group decided to make a list of four persons and later restrict it to two. [. . .] It is also a matter of log-rolling at the [ party congress] in which you identify how many votes do each group have and for whom will they vote. Therefore they decided not to register too many people.42 Also in these cases the nominated womenand menare likely to have a political power base within the party. This reduces to some extent the risk of external control. Many of them, regardless of whether they were quota women or not, had been directors of the womens section (or another section) of the party executive at state level. On rare occasions, nomination procedures are less likely to generate tokenism; such as primary elections at constituency level in which those affiliated to the party have the right to vote.43 In these cases, a few dominant leaders do not hold the key to nomination. Basically, two women seem to have been selected this way; one in Zacatecas being the only one having entered without the help from gender quota legislation, and one in Michoaca n. Notably, both are young and relatively inexperienced in politics, factors that they claim were to their advantage in the electoral competition: I think that [voters] have appreciated my youth and that I am a new politician. People are fed up with having the same candidates as always [. . .] and even more when [the candidates] have done a bad job.44 Thus, their situation was very much the reversed to that of most other women, who from a candidate selection perspective ran quite a high risk of becoming tokens, yet counterbalanced this problem by having some kind of power base within the party. A lack of a powerful position within the partyor in other political organisationswas in this case compensated by a more decentralised and transparent candidate selection procedure.45
Marginalisation
Table 3 summarises the picture of committees solicited, and committees assigned to, women legislators in the two states. Both legislatures have fairly decentralised systems of committee assignments in which each legislator is given the right to solicit one to three committees.46 The committee assignments correspond fairly well to those solicited by women legislators. This is most obvious in Michoaca n, in which almost all women chair the committee they solicited. In Zacatecas however, a different picture emerges if only the chairmanships are examined. However, widening the perspective, looking at memberships in general, the requested committees do appear to correspond fairly well to the actual committee assignments. Thus, it could not be concluded that quota women suffer more from marginalisation than other women representatives. Looking at committees that are chaired by women, a number of quota women as well as non-quota women chair committees that deal
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3. Comparison of committees solicited by women legislators and committee assignments, in Zacatecas and Michoaca n N ZACATECAS MICHOACA Legislator (Party) Martina Rodr guez Garc a (PRD) A da Alicia Lugo Da vila (PRD) Committee(s) solicited Education Committee assignments Ecologya, Education, Human rights Legislator (Party) Minerva Bautista Go mez (PRD) Mar a Lucila Arteaga Garibay (PRD) Committee(s) solicited Education Committee assignments Educationa, Gender equality, Societal communication Interiora, Justice, Human rights
Electoral issues, Municipal develop., Gender equality
Ruth Araceli R os Moncada (PRD) Martha Ange lica Zamudio Mac as (PRD) Sara Guadalupe Buerba Sauri (PRD) Lidia Va zquez Luja n (PT)
None in particular, accepted those I was offered (Not interviewed)
Law and ordera, Science and technology, Gender equality, Legislative studiesa,b Constitutional issuesc, Editorial issues, Culture Municipal develop.a, Culture, Ecology Electoral issuesa, Agrobusiness, Industry and business Finance (#2)a, Gender equality, Electoral issues Interiora, Education, Health
Interior, Justice, Human rights
Citlal Ferna ndez Gonza lez (PRD) Vero nica Garc a Reyes (PRD) Mar a Cruz Campos D as (PRD) Mar a del Roc o Luquin Valdes (PRI) Ana Luc a Medina Galindo (PAN)
Gender equalityc, Law and order, Constitutional issues Justice, Budget, Any on social issues
Gender equalitya, Law and order, Constitutional issues, Indigenous culturea, Justice, Budget
Raquel Zapata Fraire (PAN) Sonia de la Torre Barrientos (PAN)
Electoral issues, Municipal develop., Law and order Finance, Gender equality, Electoral issues Education
Rural development, Administration and control Health
Rural development, Administration and controld Healtha Gender equality, Justice Human rightsa, Gender equality, Internal practices
Human rights, Gender equality, Justice
Vigilance, Finance, Tourism
Gender equalitya, Electoral issues, Migration issues
Notes: Underlined words legislator had the committee she solicited; alegislator chaired the committee. bShe introduced a bill to have such a committee. cThere is reason to be cautious about this information, as she might have referred to committee assignments, and not to those she solicited. dAfter some time she was appointed co-ordinator of the party parliamentary group, chairing the board of the legislature.
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with justice issues and parliamentary practices (law-making and elections). Women not entering via gender quotas also appear to be involved in committees on social issues (health, education). Committees on economic issues, on the other hand, are rarely chaired by a woman. If preferences were not brought into the analysis, this would perhaps be an indication of marginalisation of women, both of those entering through gender quotas and others. However, taking committees solicited into account, a general picture is that women legislators themselves emphasise these issues. Rarely do they request assignments on committees covering economic issues, be it quota women or not. When it comes to identifying the motives for choosing certain committees, a dominant pattern emerges; women legislators (both quota women and others), and also male representatives, commonly emphasise their professional background. This seems to be a key feature also when appointing committee chairmanships. The coordinator of the PRD party group in Zacatecas, who was a key individual in the negotiations related to committee assignments, emphasises that [Some] are teachers. . .[these are put in the committee on] education. Others are lawyers. . .[they go to] legislative committees. Others are engineers. . .[they are appointed to committees related to] the productive sector. In this manner we were working [with the appointments].47 The strong concentration of lawyers among women legislators, more than half of them having a university degree in law, is likely to account for womens membership of justice committees and of those related to legislative issues. At least in part, self-selection rather than marginalisation seems to account for a focus on certain issues.48 There is, however, at least one case in which marginalisation problems are likely to occur, namely in the selection of members to the committee on gender equality. This committee is requested by quite a limited number of women (see Table 3); yet in both states there are only women on this committee. Mainly in Michoaca n, both men and women suggest that the biggest advantage for being appointed to the committee on gender equality is being a woman; As you are the only woman. . .we put you on the committee on gender equality.49 Thus, ascriptive rather than professional characteristics were emphasised when selecting members to this committee. This suggests that male legislators in the two states give generally limited importance to this committee, and that gender equality issues, in their minds, equal womens issues. Despite this problem, there are further evidence that marginalisation in general is not a major factor, neither for quota women nor others. For instance, one of the quota women, who is a highly qualified teacher, requested but did not get the chair of the committee on education. If marginalisation were a great problem, she would most likely be put on a committee of low prestige. However, she was appointed to one of the most prestigious committees; the Interior
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Committee.50 Another example is a quota woman with a law degree who did not request a particular committee. She was appointed to chair the rather prestigious committee on constitutional issues.51 One reservation should be made, however. Few women requested those committees that were perceived as most prestigious and therefore most contested among male legislators, for example finance and budget committees. As a consequence, it is not possible from this analysis to rule out the possibility that there might be strategies of marginalisation whenever a significant number of women aspire for such chairs, thereby challenging the positions of their male colleagues.52
Invisibilisation
In general, women legislators feel that they are listened to by male colleagues, and therefore are able to influence political decision-making. A majority say that relationships of mutual respect exist between themselves and their predominantly male colleagues. Various women interviewed highlight committee work as a forum for mutual compromise. Thus, these bodies are less described as battle fields and more as negotiation tables. Some women also use expressions such as team when they talk about their relations to their colleagues on the committees. Importantly, this picture is somewhat more valid for Zacatecas, practicing gender quotas, than for Michoaca n. Thus, just as in the cases of marginalisation and tokenism, the hypothesis gains little support. Women legislators in Zacatecas are generally positive towards their possibilities to influence in decision-making. Many of them give credit to their male colleagues on the committees.53 There is more of a mixed picture in Michoaca n. Some women perceive that their opinions have been taken into account and that they have excellent relations to their male colleagues, feeling very comfortable to work with them.54 On the other hand, others have mainly negative experiences. Interestingly, negative experiences are almost exclusively concentrated to those women who have no female colleagues in the partys parliamentary group: To a certain extent I feel that they get bothered when you have a good proposal or when you show them that you are qualified. [. . .] So they try to ignore you, they do not pay attention to you, they try to minimise your proposals and. . .they forget about you.55 Another woman who also reported acts of invisibilisation has a slightly different story. She perceives that her partys parliamentary group of 14 men listens to her and supports her when she comes up with a proposal. However, she also perceives that she is not part of the discussion; rather, she is expected to take the nurturing role, stopping the boys from fighting: [It feels like] they are discussing only with each other [and] when I am around I become the go-between. [. . .] [I become the conciliator] when they are getting upset.56 These results contradict the hypothesis that legal gender quotas generate relatively big problems of invisibilisation. An explanation for this
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finding is put forward by some of the, mainly ruling party quota women from Zacatecas, where the current governor is a woman. The election of a woman governor in 2004, former womens rights activist Amalia Garc a, appears to have had positive consequences for women legislators: The governor has the capacity to convince people. That way, bills are passed more easily. [. . .] This is very important [. . .] as she supports women.57 There are, however, arguments against such an explanation. Most importantly, quota women indeed express that they have been invisibililised, and thereby ignored in decision-making with their proposals neglected. However, this occurs less in the legislature, but more within political parties.58 The reason for this, according to both male and female interviewees, is that the harshest political battles are fought prior to entering parliament, for positions of power. Gender quotas modify the rules of the game within political parties, requiring them to involve more women in electoral processes. The greater presence of women in party activities creates greater challenges to male dominance in politics. Consequently, it is more likely that males practice invisibilisation of women within the parties. It is important to note that such practices continue to occur within the majority party, despite the powerful position Amalia Garc a holds, having formed and currently leading the most important party faction in Zacatecas (New Sun ForumForo Nuevo Sol). This argument downplays the role that Garc a is likely to play in overcoming invisibilisation problems; not only within her political party, but also within the legislature. It is necessary, however, to be cautious when drawing conclusions. It is not possible to rule out the possibility that invisibilisation problems are related to political agenda. If this is the case, invisibilisation might be a greater problem whenever a larger group of quota women is more coordinated, more gender conscious and more focused on carrying through reforms in the area of gender equality than what have been the case for quota women in Zacatecas. In its state legislature, women representatives have had much more heterogeneous political agendas. Moreover, whenever focusing on womens interests, emphasis has mainly been on supporting women rather than on challenging male privileges in politics and in society.59 This more diverse focus of women legislators, and the limited attention paid to gender issues, might on the one hand be due to their attempts to substantively represent women in a different manner than to enact laws that are of benefit to women as a group. By working effectively and showing that women are qualified to be politically responsible, not only on certain issues but in any kind of area, they could be political role models to women and thereby promote womens political agency.60 On the other hand, the lack of emphasis on gender issues might be for strategic reasons related to their future political career,61 or, to put in bluntly, to the fact that
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they are not particularly interested in such issues. The analysis gives some support to both these interpretations.
Conclusion
In this analysis, the focus has shifted from a policy output perspective for analyzing womens substantive representation, to the analysis of parliamentary practices affecting the likelihood of womens substantive representation. More specifically, it empirically tests the claim that women entering parliament through legal gender quotas are more likely than other women representatives to face institutional constraints once elected. No general support has been found for this hypothesis. The results indicate that quota women are no more likely to suffer from tokenism, marginalisation or invisibilisation than other women legislators. Thus, any fears that quota legislation has such a downside appearat least in this empirical contextto have been exaggerated. Given the close link between institutional constraints and possibilities to carry out reforms that are beneficial to women, this analysis suggests that quota legislation does not decrease the likelihood of such reforms. In other words, and challenging hypotheses in recent studies, mechanisms designed to increase womens descriptive representation might not necessarily be bad for womens substantive representation.62 Two main reasons for this are identified: First, minimally regulated candidate selection rules appear to be a general problem in the Mexican political system, making personal ties and loyalty to dominant groups and leaders a key feature both in quota and non-quota systems. Therefore, any political player has to struggle to avoid becoming a token, not only quota women. Secondly, attempting to understand the no effect of gender quotas on marginalisation and invisibilisation, it is suggested that the harshest battles are fought within political parties, for positions of power. If this is so, and given that marginalisation and invisibilisation are practices of dominance in order to maintain political power, such strategies are perhaps more visible within political parties than in the legislature. As a future political career in Mexican politics seems to be dependent on ties and loyalty to dominant leaders and groups, gender quotas are mainly a threat to male party colleagues. Once in parliament, a woman is no longer a challenger to a male colleagues position in the same way as during the candidate selection process. These results differ from previous empirical work. Trying to understand the differences, it might be argued that other studies have uncovered particular constraints on quota women due to the lack of comparison in these analyses between quota women and other women legislators. If this is so, structural constraints of quota women are probably part of a more general pattern of discriminatory practices towards women.63 The analysis gives some support to this hypothesis. Constraints on quota women were expected to be relatively palpable in
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Zacatecas, due to the strong numerical effect of quota legislation on womens numerical representation. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to be cautious when attempting to generalise the findings of this study. First, as part of a machista culture, a rather strict labor division between men and women is likely in Mexican legislatures, in which women are expected to focus on particular issues (social issues and so forth) and men on others (economy, security and so forth). Quota women in this analysis have not challenged these roles. It might be suggested that the lack of effect of gender quotas on structural constraints is due to this very fact, and that a more coordinated group of quota women challenging male privileges in politics and society will have a harder time fighting for their basic rights as legislators. Quota womens experiences within political parties support this hypothesis, as they suffer from male strategies to maintain power when challenging male dominance in candidate nomination. Future research should therefore pay close attention to the political agendas of quota women, in order to have a closer understanding of the relationship between gender quotas and womens substantive representation in general, and the institutional constraints facing women legislators in particular. Second, although no general effect of gender quotas on tokenism is identified in this particular study, the analysis sheds light on the paradoxical relationship between gender quotas and candidate selection procedures of political parties. The former aims at democratising political parties by forcing them to be more inclusive in nomination processes. However, without strict and transparent rules on how to select women candidates, quota legislation provides no solution to the fairly undemocratic practices of candidate selection. In the worst case they might provide a fresh mantle of legitimacy to the same old process [introducing] new players to the political arena but [making] them play according to old rules.64 Having shown that a number of quota women were handpicked by party leadership, a question should be asked whether such practices of candidate selection are likely to increase as a consequence of quota legislation, in general or in particular political contexts. If this is the case, the risk for tokenism undermining quota womens performance in the legislature may be enhanced everything else being equal.65 Thus, further light should be shed on the interplay between different quota provisions and nomination procedures, and how these control which women are nominated in the first place as well as their possibilities to carry through legislation that benefit women. Thereby, a more comprehensive picture will be possible of the relationship between gender quotas and the institutional constraints setting the limits to women legislators opportunities to substantively represent women.

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For helpful comments, I would like to thank participants in the workshop What is going on in political representation? The substantive representation of women at the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops in Helsinki, 7 12 May 2007. A special thanks to the workshop directors Sarah Childs and Karen Celis. My deepest gratitude is also sent to Per Adman, Christina Alnevall, Li Bennich-Bjo nguez R. and Sara Sjo Dom rkman, Christina Bergqvist, Edme qvist Monaco, for providing critiques of earlier versions of this article. Last but not least, I thank all interviewees for kindly sharing their experiences and thoughts with me. L. Schwindt-Bayer and W. Mishler, An Integrated Model of Womens Representation, Journal of Politics, 67, 2005, 407 28. This definition of womens substantive representation paraphrases Pitkins definition of substantive representation: Acting in the interests of the represented in a manner responsive to them (H. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, University of California Press, 1967, p. 209). Whereas Pitkins definition mainly refers to representative roles, other definitions includes policy output in the definition: the passage of legislation beneficial to women as a group (S. Childs and M.L. Krook, Gender and Politics: The State of the Art, Politics, 26, 2006,18 28). Regardless of definition, the point is that focus has been mainly on analysing these policy outputs. See for example A.M. Goetz, Womens Political Effectiveness: A Conceptual Framework in A.M. Goetz and S. Hassim (ed.), No Shortcuts to Power. African Women in Politics and Policy Making, Zed Books, 2003. L. Baldez, The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?, Politics & Gender, 2, 2006, 102 09; D. Dahlerup, Introduction in D. Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas and Politics, Routledge, 2006. L. Baldez, The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?; D. Dahlerup, Introduction. D. Dahlerup, Introduction. Cf. D. Dahlerup and L. Freidenvall, Quotas as a Fast Track to Equal Representation for Women: Why Scandinavia is no longer the model, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7, 2005, 26 48; M. Hawkesworth, Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions, American Political Science Review, 97, 2003, 529-550; R.M. Heath, L Schwindt-Bayer and M. Taylor-Robinson, Women on the Sidelines: Womens Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures, American Journal of Political Science, 49, 2005, 420 36. See for example N. Kudva, Engineering Elections: The Experiences of Women in Panchayati Raj in Karnataka, India, International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society, 16, 2003, 445 63; A. Ghosh, Womens Reservations and Electoral Politics in Urban Local Bodies: An Analysis of Chennai Municipal Corporation Elections, 2001, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 10, 2003, 117 41. See however G. Abou-Zeid, The Arab region: womens access to the decision-making process across the Arab Nation in D. Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas & Politics, Routledge, 2006, for an alternative conclusion. There are different kinds of legal gender quotas, the two most common arrangements being quotas to candidate lists and reserved seats (see for example D. Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas and Politics, Routledge, 2006). In this analysis, attention is paid to the former. It is, however, possible that institutional constraints on quota women differ across quota systems. There is a huge debate on how to define womens interests, or as expressed here; the benefit of women as a group (see for example L. Wa ngnerud, Testing the Politics of Presence. Womens Representation in the Swedish Riksdag, Scandinavian Political Studies, 23, 2000, 67 91). In this paper, no universal answer is suggested. Rather, it suggests that definitions are context-specific, varying from case to case, depending on claims made by womens organisations and so forth. Thus, womens interests may be both feminist and non-feminist, or to put it differently, both strategic and practical (see note 59). K. Beckwith, Numbers and Newness: The Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Women, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 40, 2007, 27 49. As women legislators (as others) have multiple identities, they are not assumed to necessarily represent women in the first place. However, it is suggested that if those women who want to work for the benefit of women as a group have a hard time fighting for their basic rights as legislators, they will have greater difficulties in carrying out such reforms (D. Dahlerup, The Story of the Theory of Critical Mass, Politics & Gender, 2, 2006, 511 22). A.M. Goetz, Womens Political Effectiveness: A Conceptual Framework; see also J. Acker, Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations, Gender & Society, 4, 1990, 139 58.
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As the ambition is to illuminate the different obstacles that women legislators might confront, there is no assumption about correlations between the obstacles. However, it is of course possible that one single legislator might suffer from more than one obstacle at the same time. S. Childs and M.L. Krook, Should Feminists Give Up on Critical Mass? A Contingent Yes, Politics & Gender, 2, 2006, 522 30. D. Dahlerup, Introduction. M. Hawkesworth, Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions. It should be emphasised that these pressures for loyalty are not necessarily restricted to women politicians. For instance, loyalty in terms of party discipline is crucial for the functioning of representative democracy in most countries. But more importantly, in clientelist systems personal ties to dominant leaders are of vital importance also for male politicians (re)nomination (see for example D. Dahlerup, Introduction). However, the suggested difference is that these men as well as nonquota women are less dependent on such ties, and also earn their nomination and election thanks to their strong position within the political party or elsewhere. S. Childs and M.L. Krook, Should Feminists Give Up on Critical Mass? A Contingent Yes. R.M. Heath, L. Schwindt-Bayer and M. Taylor-Robinson, Women on the Sidelines: Womens Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures, p. 420. R. M. Heath, L. Schwindt-Bayer and M. Taylor-Robinson, Women on the Sidelines: Womens Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures. See for example M. Hawkesworth, Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward a Theory of Raced-Gendered Institutions. See for example P. Norris, Legislative Recruitment, in L. LeDuc, R.G. Niemi and P. Norris (ed.), Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, Sage, 1996. D. Dahlerup, Introduction. S.M. Rai, F. Bari, N. Mahtab and B. Mohanty, South Asia: gender quotas and the politics of empowerment - a comparative study in D. Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas, and Politics, Routledge, 2006. It could be argued that women who come from political families are more strongly politically socialised and therefore more efficient. If this is so, however, we would expect such women to be integrated in the political party also prior to acceding to political office and thus already have a power position within the party. Therefore, the indicators of tokenism should be looked at jointly and not separately. R.M. Heath, L. Schwindt-Bayer and M. Taylor-Robinson, Women on the Sidelines: Womens Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures. See also T. de Barbieri, Ge nero en el trabajo parlamentario: la legislatura mexicana a fines de siglo XX, Clacso, 2003. Of course, we cannot expect everyone to have their first preference. Therefore, it is important to compare quota womens perceptions with those of other women, as well as with their male colleagues perceptions. See for example S. Childs and M.L. Krook, Gender and Politics: The State of the Art. Quota Project, Global Database of Quotas for Women, http://www.quotaproject.org, downloaded on March 21, 2006. The 31 state legislatures (and the legislature of The Federal District of Mexico City) have 20 to 75 seats (R. D. Hecock, Electoral Competition, Globalization, and Subnational Education Spending in Mexico, 1999-2004, American Journal of Political Science, 50, 2006, 950 61). All state legislatures employ a mixed electoral system, using both a first past the post system of single member districts and proportional representation. R.D. Hecock, Electoral Competition, Globalization, and Subnational Education Spending in Mexico, 1999-2004. A limitation with choosing the Mexican case, however, is the no-reelection principle, dating back to the Mexican revolution in the early twentieth century. Therefore, there are no legislators who were both in the legislature during the quota reform and immediately after its implementation. UNDP, Indicadores de Desarrollo Humano y Ge nero en Me xico, United Nations Development Program, 2006. Ideally, a comparative case would be to prefer which has no writing at all about gender equality in parliament. However, such states are rather few in Mexico, and Michoaca n is suitable in many other aspects. The advantages are therefore considered more important than the disadvantages. Moreover, with very few exceptions, the interviewees claimed that the recommendation has had no effect whatsoever on political parties rules for candidate selection. It should, however, be added that two of the major political parties, PRI and PRD, have introduced so-called party quotas (50% and 30%, respectively). However, in the election to the state legislature of Michoaca n in 2004 only PRD complied with these rules, and to proportional representation only.

33
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The average rate of women in Mexican state legislatures was 20.4% in 2005 (D. Reynoso and N. DAngelo, Las leyes de cuota y su impacto en la eleccio tica y n de mujeres en Me xico, Pol Gobierno, XIII, 2006, 279 313). By that time, the legislators had served about two-thirds of their three-year term. These were selected with the ambition to interview co-ordinators of the party group by the time of entering parliament, in order to know more about the process of committee assignments, as well as to have variation in political party, committee, and age. Cf. N. Kudva, Engineering Elections: The Experiences of Women in Panchayati Raj in Karnataka, India. Perhaps there is one exception from this pattern, as one of the quota women in Zacatecas is the sister-in-law of the former governor. A very limited number of women legislators, quota women and others, has a political background in civil society, prior to involve in party politics. Thus, leadership experiences from other political organisations are generally scarce. Interviews were done with four of them, of which three openly expressed that it is very unlikely that they would have been asked, had there been no quota legislation. Interview with Sara Guadalupe Buerba Sauri, Zacatecas, 1 November 2006, authors translation. Interview with Eugenio Torres, Morelia, 6 December 2006, authors translation. Interview with Mar a Lucila Arteaga Garabay, Morelia, 27 November 2006, authors translation. Interview with Minerva Bautista Go mez, Morelia, 23 November 2006, authors translation. Quite ironically, running for single member districts is rare among Mexican women, relatively proportional seat candidacies. Low self-esteem, very expensive campaigns and discriminatory attitudes among the constituency are some of the reasons for not doing so (see for example V. Rodr guez, Women in contemporary Mexican politics, University of Texas Press, 2003). Interview with Sonia de la Torre Barrientos, Zacatecas, 8 November 2006, authors translation. See also V. Rodr guez, Women in contemporary Mexican politics. See for example P. Norris, Legislative Recruitment. After a discussion within the partys parliamentary group, party coordinators from different parties negotiate the assignments. They could be appointed either by party leadership, being therefore a somewhat more centralised system (for example PAN and PRD in Zacatecas, PRI in Michoaca n), or in election within the partys parliamentary group (for example PRD in Michoaca n). For all parties, in both states, coordinators were men. Interview with Jose Cha vez Sa nchez, Zacatecas, 9 November 2006, authors translation. This is an argument against those claiming that women are socialised to have lower ambitions in politics. Interview with Mar a del Roc o Luquin Valdes, Morelia, 28 November 2006, authors translation. Among the most prestigious and heavily negotiated committees are the committees on vigilance, interior, finance, budget and justice, and to a slightly minor extent, those on education and constitutional issues, as brought up by both male and female interviewees. One woman did not succeed in having any of the committees she solicited. Being a lawyer, this might on the one hand be another indication of the importance of professional background, as none of the committees that she solicited were related to her academic career. On the other hand, it might also be an example of marginalisation. From this analysis, it is difficult to have a closer idea. Unfortunately, the analysis gives no general answer to the question why so few women requested the most prestigious committees. It might be due to a lack of interest, but also due to an impression that they were not going to get the assignment. As one of them puts it: I have found some allies who help me to carry through some of my [legislative] projects. [. . .] The male colleagues in my committee have been especially helpful (interview with A da Alicia Lugo Da vila, Zacatecas, 6 November, 2006, authors translation). Interview with Mary Cruz Campos D as, Morelia, 6 December 2006, authors translation. Interview with Ana Luc a Medina Galindo, Morelia, 29 November 2006, authors translation. Interview with Mar a del Roc o Luquin Valdes, Morelia, 28 November 2006, authors translation. Interview with Martina Rodr guez, Zacatecas, 16 November 2006, authors translation. These reports of invisibilisation problems within political parties, are arguments against the thought that quota women might not want to admit to themselves, or to an interviewer, that they suffer from male domination. Thus, they are arguments against the thought that the results might be biased. Cf. M. Molyneux, Mobilization without emancipation? Womens interests, the state, and revolution in Nicaragua, Feminist Studies, 11, 1985, 227 54, in which she distinguishes between strategic and practical gender needs/interests. Bills introduced by women in Zacatecas concern e.g. economic support for single mothers and a law regarding the Womens Agency of Zacatecas (INMUZA). Various of the women interviewed emphasised that efficiency, and showing good results, are important for women legislators who want to be an example for other women; in any kind of area, and not
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only in gender equality issues. As one of the quota women from the majority party puts it: When there is a woman governing I want people to say that thats a good government!; not because she is a woman but because there are reconstructions, services, social welfare. Those are the results [I want]; good organization of the government, good administration of the public finances (interview with A da Alicia Lugo Da vila, Zacatecas, 6 November 2006, authors translation). See also C. Bacchi, Arguing for and against quotas: theoretical issues in D. Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas, and Politics, Routledge, 2006. As noted by a woman of the PRD executive committee in Zacatecas: If you aspire for a seat [...] it is a disadvantage [to focus on gender equality issues]. [...] Male colleagues support women that are attached to them, so they could decide what to do through her (interview with Mar a Luisa Sosa, Zacatecas, 21 November 2006, authors translation). If this is the case, it is a bad career strategy in Mexican politics to focus on issues that benefit women as a group. See also G. Abou-Zeid, The Arab region: womens access to the decision-making process across the Arab Nation. Cf. K. Beckwith, Numbers and Newness: The Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Women. See, for example, G. Abou-Zeid, The Arab region: womens access to the decision-making process across the Arab Nation. L. Baldez, The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?, p. 106. See however L. Baldez, The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?, who shows that handpicking of candidates decreased at federal level in Mexico after quotas were introduced, as political parties did not have to meet the quotas in cases where they had primary elections.

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