The inclusion of members of politically salient social categories within elected parliaments is an essential part of the democratic process. Legislatures that do not reflect society are typically deemed less legitimate, less likely to protect the interests of marginalized groups, and can even spur excluded marginalized groups to destabilize the polity.Footnote 34 Although there is a thriving debate on whether political inclusion leads to advocacy to promote the interests of marginalized groups,Footnote 35 it can be reasonably assumed that groups lacking a visible legislative presence face strong impediments to making their concerns heard.Footnote 36 While scholars have tended to focus on how electoral rules affect the size and types of party systems, a growing body of research indicates that these structures also have a crucial impact on who gets elected. Both electoral systems, which translate votes into seats, and more specific electoral regulations, which directly attempt to influence the election of targeted groups, affect how much access members of politically salient social categories have to political decision-making bodies through elections.
Our aim in this essay is to generate a framework for understanding how electoral rules influence patterns of political inclusion, concentrating on women and ethnic minorities. In short, we argue that electoral rules affect political inclusion by increasing or decreasing incentives for elites to nominate female and minority candidates and for voters to support them. These dynamics, however, are mediated in significant ways by contextual factors, including the level of social acceptance of women or minorities as political leaders, the commitment to the political incorporation of certain social categories, and the mode of electoral mobilization of these particular groups. Following the logic of the arguments made by Ferree, Powell, and Scheiner in this Symposium, we propose that these two elements interact in a structured way: electoral systems affect political inclusion in more indirect ways through psychological effects on elites and voters and thus are shaped much more by contextual factors, while electoral regulations have more direct consequences on the election of historically marginalized groups by requiring the nomination and election of targeted groups and thus are shaped less by political context.
Electoral Systems and Political Inclusion
Electoral systems govern the translation of votes into seats. We distinguish here between the two most common electoral systems, proportional representation (PR) and plurality/single-member district (SMD) elections. These two categories are internally differentiated by features such as district magnitude, legal thresholds, allocation formula, and open-list versus closed-list competition. Electoral systems are identified as a primary factor influencing the election of women and ethnic minorities. PR is often cited as being more conducive to the election of both groups, but for different reasons. The basic logic is that closed-list PR elections promote party-centric, multi-party contests that increase the incentives of parties and voters to support “diversity” candidates.
Party-centric contests make the personal characteristics of individual candidates less influential as voting cues. At the same time, the increased number of parties reduces the electoral threshold of representation, providing more potential avenues for the election of a diverse set of candidates. Conversely, when confronted with candidate-centered elections, all else equal, voters and parties have fewer incentives to support women and ethnic minorities. Faced with a higher electoral threshold and the increased importance of candidate traits in SMDs, parties and voters are more apt to support candidates viewed as “safe and mainstream” who they see as more likely to win election.Footnote 37 Moreover, as Iversen and RosenbluthFootnote 38 have noted in relation to gender, the career trajectories of men tend to create the backgrounds and financial/political connections most conducive to election in candidate-centered contests.Footnote 39 These socioeconomic disadvantages in SMDs are likely to extend to economically marginalized ethnic minorities as well.
While the disadvantages of SMD elections are similar for female and minority candidates, the advantages of PR display important differences. For women, multi-party competition based on party lists is expected to spur increased demand for and supply of female candidates across the party spectrum through a process of gender-balancing.Footnote 40 These dynamics culminate in many instances in the adoption of gender quotas,Footnote 41 which are also generally more straightforward to implement in PR systems due to the use of lists.Footnote 42 Consequently, parties anticipate electoral rewards for placing women on closed-party lists and penalties for failing to do so. For ethnic minorities, the primary vehicle of representation in PR elections is the ethnic party, in which parties appealing to particular ethnicities emerge due to the lower electoral threshold necessary to gain representation.Footnote 43
Nonetheless, despite widespread agreement that PR tends to be more inclusive of women and ethnic minorities than SMD elections, empirical studies have produced a variety of different findings on this relationship. Matland finds that PR promotes the election of women in advanced democracies, but not developing countries.Footnote 44 In contrast, Moser and Scheiner and Moser conclude that PR does not promote the election of women more than SMD elections under certain circumstances.Footnote 45 Reynolds, finally, observes that majoritarian elections tend to elect ethnic minorities in greater numbers than PR.Footnote 46
These varied findings suggest that context mitigates the impact these electoral rules have on the election of women and ethnic minorities. For example, the PR advantage for women presumes that parties will see the nomination of women as an electorally advantageous endeavor and electoral thresholds will be lower under PR than SMD. In party systems with dramatic party fragmentation even in plurality elections, women can gain election at higher rates in SMDs due to lower electoral thresholds. Yet they may gain less representation in PR elections due to lower party magnitude, which results in small parties that do not elect members from far enough down their party lists to reach female candidates.Footnote 47
In societies with biases against women, female candidates are unlikely to gain election under any electoral system.Footnote 48 As Moser and Scheiner show, in states with low support for women as political leaders and high party fragmentation—for example, postcommunist states—women are elected at the same rates under both PR and SMD rules.Footnote 49 At the same time, women's higher socioeconomic status may lessen the disadvantages of candidate-centered elections for women by enlarging the pool of viable female candidates. In short, the impact that different electoral systems have on the election of women is contingent upon factors—cultural attitudes toward women, the socioeconomic status of women, and party system characteristics—that can lessen the disadvantages of SMDs and undermine the advantages of PR.
As for the PR advantage in the election of ethnic minorities, different contextual factors can disrupt the logic that, in ethnically divided states, more parties under PR give rise to ethnic parties that can serve as a vehicle for minority representation. In particular, demographic characteristics of specific ethnic groups can alter the incentives for parties and voters to support minority candidates. Ethnic minorities that are geographically concentrated may reach a critical mass that prompts large, mainstream parties to nominate minority candidates in these regions. Under such conditions, SMD elections may result in similar or even greater levels of minority representation than PR elections.Footnote 50
Yet the logic of ethnic parties serving as the main avenue of minority representation rests on a presumption of ethnic voting. However, the level of ethnic voting may vary across countries and groups and thus alter incentives for the formation of ethnic parties and the nomination of minority candidates by mainstream parties. Moser finds, for example, that more assimilated ethnic minorities in Russia manage to gain election to the national legislature in roughly equal numbers under the PR and SMD tiers of the mixed-member electoral system.Footnote 51 Popular attitudes toward minorities can have the same effect, as Reynolds notes with the ethos of inclusion in South Africa and its effect in facilitating the nomination of minority candidates in parties across the political spectrum.Footnote 52 Thus, to an even greater extent than women's representation, the effects of electoral systems on the election of ethnic minorities are contingent upon the broader context.
Electoral Regulations and Group Representation
Electoral regulations are provisions specifically designed to increase the election of a particular group. These policies have received a variety of labels, but are most often described as “quotas,” “reservations,” or “majority-minority districts.” Like electoral rules, electoral regulations are subject to significant internal variation based on the location of the mandate at the state or party level, the proportion of seats affected, the existence of placement provisions, the specificity of requirements, and mechanisms of enforcement.
Preferential rules have gained prominence recently in discussions of political inclusion due to their introduction in a broad array of countries, most within the last ten to fifteen years. In all, more than 100 countries have witnessed the adoption of gender quotas with slightly less than half being introduced through legal or constitutional reform. Diversity in their design means that quotas have not led to a uniform rise in women's representation: some countries see strong increases, while others witness more modest changes or even setbacks in the proportion of women elected. Most explanations for these variations focus not on aspects of the broader social, economic, and political context, but rather to differences in their design and how they interact with other types of political institutions.Footnote 53
Contextual elements, however, have featured prominently in accounts of gender quota introduction.Footnote 54 The mobilization of women's groups inside and outside parties, for example, has been seen as crucial in getting quotas on the political agenda, both in well-established democraciesFootnote 55 and in societies experiencing dramatic changes in gender roles due to political transitions or reconstruction following years of violent conflict.Footnote 56 Indeed, demands for quotas may be particularly effective during periods of democratic transition, as the policy may be seen to help establish the legitimacy of the new political system.Footnote 57
Case studies also signal the strategic incentives of elites in pursuing quota reform, which may emerge at moments of heightened competition among political partiesFootnote 58 or when party leaders and incumbents seek to portray themselves—usually insincerely—as open to women and their concerns.Footnote 59 The support of international and transnational actors is an additional factor, with many international organizations—most notably the United Nations—issuing declarations recommending that member-states aim for 30 per cent women in all political bodies.Footnote 60 The states that are most subject to international and transnational influence tend to be post-conflict societies and developing countries, where outside actors may play a larger role in shaping electoral structures via moral or material pressures.Footnote 61 Quotas featured prominently, for example, in discussions surrounding the creation of new political structures in the wake of the Arab Spring.Footnote 62
Measures for minorities, in comparison, exist in nearly forty countries and apply to a wide array of groups—many, but not all, of which may be subsumed under the “ethnic minority” label. Nearly all involve reserved seats, although the proportion and identities in question vary enormously across cases. These policies tend to have one of two goals: “protection” or power-sharing, highlighting the importance of national context in defining salient groups and their share of reserved seats.Footnote 63
Protection entails allocating seats to groups that constitute a relatively small contingent of the population, including indigenous peoples, members of minority religions and nationalities, and class- or caste-based groups. The provisions are generally minimal, involving as little as one or two percent of all seats.Footnote 64 In instances of protection, the aim is often to compensate for past oppression. Reserved seats typically numerically over-represent the minority in question.Footnote 65 Historical grounds often trump other considerations and include dealing with colonial legacies,Footnote 66 although transnational influences have grown more important both in cases of conflict and as a means for promoting indigenous rights.Footnote 67
In contrast, power-sharing arrangements involve dividing up most or all seats in the legislature between two or more factions, defined by ethnicity, religion, or language. These policies entail a higher proportion of seats, often as much as 25 to 70 percent, and exist in most regions, including Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. In cases of power-sharing, the goal is to ensure democratic stability in a divided society.Footnote 68 Reserved seats grant group members a guaranteed voice in the political system as a means for preventing their defection which, it is feared, might provoke collapse of the state.Footnote 69 In the wake of conflict, several countries have devised power-sharing provisions based on historical practices of group representation or as part of international efforts to promote consociational political arrangements.Footnote 70
Tensions in Promoting Political Inclusion
Many scholars expect women and ethnic minorities to gain election through different avenues. As Htun has observed, these different routes to electoral representation tend to be translated into distinct institutional mechanisms—quotas for women and reserved seats for minorities.Footnote 71 One consequence of these differences may be that electoral rules, in particular PR, may result in outcomes that favor one social category at the expense of the other. Ethnic minorities, particularly smaller groups, arguably benefit from a more fragmented party system with smaller parties that give rise to ethnic parties. However, women tend to gain election through larger, mainstream parties that require a higher party magnitude—the likelihood of winning more seats in a given district—to reach female candidates further down the party list.
In general, through the manipulation of district magnitude or legal thresholds, PR systems can promote either more fragmented party systems with many parties and low electoral thresholds or less fragmented party systems with fewer parties and higher electoral thresholds. Moreover, ethnic parties themselves may undermine the election of women through their emphasis on ethnic cleavages.Footnote 72 Preferential electoral rules, in particular gender quotas with placement mandates, can potentially remedy this situation by removing party magnitude as a factor in women's representation and requiring all parties to nominate women in winnable positions.Footnote 73
On the other hand, preferential electoral regulations may also lead to tradeoffs in political inclusion. By targeting one social category, preferential rules such as quotas, reserved seats, and majority-minority seats may undermine the election of the other historically marginalized groups that are not targeted. Crucially, in most countries where such regulations exist, only one group is likely to receive representational guarantees.Footnote 74 Such dynamics can be addressed explicitly during quota debates, such that the granting of quota policies for one group opens up—rather than forcloses—options for further groups.Footnote 75
Moreover, as scholars of “intersectionality” have argued, focusing exclusively on one dimension of exclusion—for example, sex or race but not both—can strengthen dominant subgroups over marginalized ones.Footnote 76 For instance, as Hughes shows, countries with minority quotas tend to elect fewer women than countries without measures to increase minority representation. However, in cases where electoral regulations are in place for both women and ethnic minorities (“tandem quotas”), elections have sometimes markedly increased the election of minority women.Footnote 77 A closer look suggests, nonetheless, that this can come at the cost of electing majority women and minority men—and can in fact bolster the electoral share of majority men in the process.Footnote 78
Conclusions
Debates over the political inclusion of marginalized groups have emerged in recent decades leading to flourishing—although often disparate—literatures on electoral structures and group representation. We review and reflect upon this research as it concerns women and ethnic minorities, highlighting some parallels but also some crucial differences when it comes to designing electoral institutions that might facilitate the greater inclusion of these two groups. A notable finding is that distinct electoral rules may shape the electoral prospects of women and ethnic minorities in opposing ways, although there is by no means a firm consensus within the literature—highlighting, in turn, the importance of the broader social, economic, and cultural context in mediating the effects of electoral structures.
The tendency to focus on women or ethnic minorities has led to a compartmentalization of research, limiting opportunities for cross-fertilization of insights. Moreover, it has contributed to a general oversight of individuals—minority women—who lie at the intersections of these identities and thus are doubly marginalized, not only in politics but also in the literatures. This combined state of affairs points to a rich frontier for potential future research, deepening existing insights on women and minorities, exploring tensions and complementarities among these two groups, and taking a serious look at how intersectionally marginalized groups fare, all in relation to the rules, regulations, and contextual factors that shape the contours and outcomes of the political process.
