Public responses to engineering equality

Gender quotas and satisfaction with democracy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11891507
AutoresNeil S Williams (0000-0001-5398-2990, Department of Political Science Georgia State University USA, autor de correspondencia), Alexandra Snipes (0000-0002-4527-8706, Department of Political Science Emory University USA)
Año2024
Volumen64
Número2
Páginas599-625
Fecha de publicación2024-07-29
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Political Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0304-4130 • E-ISSN: 1475-6765
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1475-6765.12713
OpenAlexW4401098884
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas86

Does the enactment of gender quotas in legislatures affect satisfaction with democracy? Although extensive research has generally affirmed the potential of gender quotas to advance women's political representation, our article investigates how quota adoption has shaped public attitudes toward democracy. We argue that positive effects resulting from the descriptive representation of women could be attenuated by negative reactions to the implementation of a quota system. Specifically, we posit that the backlash to these compulsory parity‐corrective policies will lead to lower levels of satisfaction with democracy, particularly for men. Using cross‐national survey evidence from as early as 1973 covering 69 countries and well over a million respondents, as well as a generalized synthetic control design to causally assess the impact of quotas, we find strong support for our expectations regarding the negative effects of quotas on democratic satisfaction. However, we do not find clear evidence that gender conditions this relationship and report heterogeneous region‐specific findings with ideology and support for quotas as moderators. Importantly, we observe the strongest negative associations between quotas and satisfaction in contexts with higher levels of corruption, specifically in Latin America. Seeing that quotas have the potential to generate lower levels of democratic satisfaction among men and women, our analysis contributes to our understanding of public responses to fast‐tracking women's representation and has broader implications for other top‐down initiatives aimed at deepening norms of democracy and equality

Affect (linguistics · Affirmative action · Democracy · Demographic economics · Economics · Ideology · Latin Americans · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Survey data collection · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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