Early Adoption of Reserved Seats

Taiwan's early adoption of reserved seats was a result of the country's inheritance of the Constitution of the Republic of China. When the Republic of China established its constitution in 1946, it included a stipulation ensuring reserved seats for women at all levels of elected offices. Since the Republic of China was established in 1911, women activists fought to have universal suffrage and called for reserved seats to be added in the mid-1920s. In 1924 when the warlords asked to meet Sun Yat-Sen, the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, to discuss state affairs, Sun responded by demanding a national conference to include representatives from various groups. Then he named nine different social groups but excluded women as a group. Women's organizations argued that it would be difficult for women to become representatives in the other groups, so they demanded to be a recognized group and sent their group representatives to the national conference. By the late 1920s, simultaneous efforts were underway for universal suffrage and reserved seats for women. The eventual enactment of the 1946 constitution realized both goals (Huang Reference Huang2012). While universal suffrage became an international norm by the mid-twentieth century, the early provision of reserved seats for women was exceptional relative to prevailing international standards.

After the Communist Party defeated the Nationalist Party during the Chinese Civil War, the government of the Republic of China moved to Taiwan in 1949 and implemented the 1946 constitution. Taiwan was subsequently placed under authoritarian rule for decades. However, local elections were held since the early 1950s, and elections for partial parliamentary seats were permitted by the late 1970s. Although these elections were neither fair nor competitive, about 10% of the seats were reserved for women (Chou, Clark, and Clark Reference Chou, Clark and Clark1990, 84–88).

Problems with Reserved Seats

The early adoption of the reserved seats ensured a certain degree of women's political representation. In the 1950s, the proportion of women's representatives in all levels of elected offices was around 10% (Chou, Clark, and Clark Reference Chou, Clark and Clark1990, 90–92). With rapid economic development and women's greater socioeconomic status since the 1960s, the limited number of reserved seats soon became meaningless and obstructed women's political participation. By the late 1980s, the reserved seats system became heavily criticized by feminists from both liberal and pragmatic perspectives.

The liberal feminist critique of the reserved seats emerged as early as the 1970s. Annette Lu, a feminist pioneer in postwar Taiwan who later became Taiwan's first female vice president in 2000, argued that the reserved seats “were merciful and encouraging but they were neither fair nor glorious” (Lu Reference Lu1974, 55–57). Elected female politicians also shared similar sentiments and called to abolish the reserved seats as they consider women competitive enough to win seats on their own merit. As reserved seats were a constitutional requirement, the chairperson of the ruling party's Committee on Women's Affairs suggested that the parties nominate more women, which would render the reserved seats meaningless (Wu Reference Wu1989).Footnote ¹

Pragmatic critics argued that the ruling Nationalist Party had used the reserved seats to manipulate vote distribution in order to maximize their seat shares. This was shown by the fact that the Nationalist Party seldom nominated more women than the number of the reserved seats (Liang Reference Liang1989, 26). Up until the early 1990s, Taiwan's electoral system for the national and local elections was based on single nontransferrable vote, multimember district (SNTV-MMD). There were different laws governing reserved seats for different elections. Depending on the district magnitude, a district either had no reserved seat or only one seat reserved for women. Few districts had more than one reserved seat. The practice under the authoritarian rule was to nominate one woman in the district who had one reserved seat. If no other woman ran in the same district, then she would get elected even if she gained only one vote. Under the SNTV system, the ruling party would then reallocate the votes meant for the woman to other candidates so as to maximize their winning seats. The counter strategy from the opposition parties would be to nominate one woman to compete for the reserved seat. This usually led to more competition in that electoral district and might render the reserved seat meaningless, as the reserved seat would be used for the woman candidate who did not receive enough votes to get elected. The low number of reserved seats was therefore limited in promoting women's political participation. In fact, it became a ceiling since parties tended to nominate women just to capture the few reserved seats.

International Influence at a Crucial Moment

Taiwanese feminists did not have a clear position on gender quotas until 1995. While many countries adopted gender quotas as a result of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, Taiwan, or the Republic of China, was excluded from any United Nations-related events because it was forced out of the United Nations in 1971. Politically isolated from the international community, Taiwan was unaware of the UN agenda on gender equality. For example, the UN's agenda on “Decade for Women,” “Women and Development,” or “Women in Development” did not feature in the government policies or the feminist movement's discourse. While local feminist advocacy and organizational efforts were influenced by the western experience since the 1970s, there was little connection between the feminist movement and the UN's agenda until the 2000s. Despite this, Taiwan's quota reforms in the 1990s show that international norms can still have an effect. The international influence on quota reforms emanated indirectly from the 1995 Beijing Conference and came at a crucial moment.

Before 1995, the ruling Nationalist Party and the most important feminist organization had noticed the effects of gender quotas in the Nordic countries, but neither pushed for similar quota reforms in Taiwan. After the country began democratization in 1987 and amended its 1946 constitution in 1991, women continued to have reserved seats with a low quota level.Footnote ² In 1992, the Awakening Foundation, the earliest established feminist organization in postwar Taiwan, released the Charter of Women's Rights, which detailed how women's rights should be protected and criticized the low number of reserved seats as an insufficient measure against gender inequality. The Charter recommended increasing the number of reserved seats but fell short of specifying a number or percentage (Tsui Reference Tsui1992, 36–38). Subsequently, in early 1995, the Nationalist Party held a conference on women's status to discuss a proposal to reform the reserved seats system and to advocate for the possibility of a 40% gender quota in political representation (Liang Reference Liang1995, 110). However, these proposals were not formalized and failed to have any influence on the political parties or institutions.

The breakthrough for quota reforms came when renowned American feminist Jo Freeman spoke in Taiwan in October of 1995 in a training camp held by feminist groups. The event, A Night for Outstanding Women in Politics, brought female politicians from all major political parties together. There, Freeman gave a speech on women and politics in the United States. When asked whether reserved seats should be abolished in Taiwan, Freeman suggested the concept of “critical mass” and highlighted the importance of the “one-fourth” threshold for women to make a real impact in any organization. Freeman's response was well received by party leaders such as Peng Wan-Ru, the chairperson of the Committee on Women's Development of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Peng was inspired by the “one-fourth” suggestion and pushed for the party quota rule within the Democratic Progressive Party thereafter.Footnote ³

Freeman's talk in Taiwan occurred after her participation in the 1995 Beijing Conference in China, and her response regarding the reserved seats planted a seed in the minds of local feminists such as Peng. Before the talk, neither Peng nor other feminists had regarded gender quotas as an important strategy to promote women's political participation. Based on my conversations with senior feminists, I have learned that Peng's decision to push for a party quota within the DPP was influenced by Freeman. It should be noted that in Freeman's own report on her experience of attending the Beijing Conference and the parallel NGO forums held in nearby Huairo, she stated that “in all of these workshops there was a great interest in the role of reserved seats for women” (Freeman Reference Freeman1996, 11). Hence, Taiwan was indirectly affected by the Beijing Conference resolution or the discussions in the parallel NGO forums. In other words, through Freeman, Taiwan was informed of the international trend of quota adoption in the 1990s, although at that time, Taiwanese feminists had little idea of what went on in the Beijing Conference or understood the impact of norm diffusion.

Quota Reforms in the 1990s

In December 1996, the opposition DPP adopted a one-fourth candidate gender quota. The rule was, in each electoral district, for every four candidates the party nominated, there should be at least one for each sex. The DPP's candidate gender quotas also triggered further reforms to raise the numbers of reserved seats for the local and national elections. After the DPP adopted candidate quotas, feminist activists attempted to increase the number of reserved seats and include the one-fourth rule for the reserved seats in all levels of elections in the 1997 constitutional amendment. The campaign was not successful but received a lot of media attention. A year later, in 1998, feminist activists lobbied the female Minister of Interior to include the one-fourth quota in the draft of the Local Government Act. When the Local Government Act was enacted that year, the reserved seats for local elections were increased to one-fourth, and the quota of reserved seats was raised from 5–10% to 15–25%, depending on the district magnitude.Footnote ⁴

There are differences in the “one-fourth” quota rules between the DPP and the Local Government Act. While the DPP's quota was “gender neutral” and applied to men and women, the reserved seats stipulation in the Local Government Act was only for women. According to the DPP's rule, if the party nominated three women in a district, then the fourth candidate must be a man. However, the Local Government Act stipulated that the “one-fourth” quota was to be reserved for women candidates.

Reserved seats for women in parliament were effected after a 2005 constitutional amendment. While the electoral system for local councils remained intact, the electoral system for parliament was changed to parallel voting in single member districts. As a result of the constitutional changes, three major changes relating to women's reserved seats were made. First, the total number of seats in parliament was reduced from 225 to 113. Second, the electoral system was changed into a parallel system, consisting of single member districts (73 seats), party lists (34 seats), and indigenous districts (6 seats). Third, at least 50% of the party list presented by each party must be filled by women. With the new constitutional amendment, the percentage of reserved seats in parliament totaled 15% since the constitution stipulated that 50% of the party list seats should be for women, and the party list seats accounted for approximately 30% of the total seats. Feminists were disappointed with the constitutional amendment, as the percentage of women in parliament had already exceeded 15%. Although the percentage was not progressive enough for enhancing women's political participation, it was still higher than the previous law, which set the level of reserved seats for national elections at 5–10%.

Besides the increase of reserved seats at local and national elections, the DPP's candidate gender quotas also had a contagion effect on the Nationalist Party. After the Nationalist Party lost the presidential election and ended its long-term rule in 2000, the party also implemented reserved seats for women in its nomination rule as a gesture of reform. However, the reform was limited to the party list in parliamentary elections and did not apply to local or districts elections. Therefore, the scope of the reform was narrower, and the reform became obsolete after the 2005 constitutional amendment.

There was a series of quota reforms in the 1990s. The DPP's adoption of party quotas led to legal and constitutional reforms as well as reforms within the Nationalist Party. While the DPP is not a leftist party, it is comparatively more progressive than the Nationalist Party. The pattern of contagion was similar to the quota adoption patterns in many countries—initiated by the leftist parties and gradually becoming legislation or a shared norm of major political parties (Caul Reference Caul2001).

The Impact of the Increased Number of Reserved Seats

The increased number of the reserved seats has increased women's political representation in Taiwan. For example, as shown in Figure 1, between the 1960s and 1980s, there was no significant increase of women in local councils at the city and county levels. The numbers only increased in the mid-1990s and more quickly after 2002, when the number of reserved seats in local elections was increased. Today, women constitute approximately 30% of Taiwan's local councils, and one city (Tainan City) had reached 40% in 2009—the highest percentage of women in any of Taiwan's legislatures.

Figure 1.

Percentage of female representatives in city/county councils in Taiwan.

Source: The Republic of China Election Statistics Summary; the Republic of China Central Election Commission Databank. http://db.cec.gov.tw/ (October 3, 2014).

A more important impact of the quota reforms was on electoral competitiveness. My research shows that when more reserved seats were available, fewer women were elected through the reserved seats (Huang Reference Huang2013). Between the 1960s and 1980s, among all the women elected as city/county councilors, approximately 30% of the women were elected through reserved seats. In the three local elections since 2002, after the number of reserved seats was increased, the percentage of women elected through reserved seats dropped to 11%. In other words, more reserved seats encouraged more women to run for elections. Consequently, the increased supply of women candidates increased the level of electoral competition. Under the SNTV electoral system, female candidates are more likely to win enough votes and are less dependent on the reserved seats to win office.

The additional reserved seats over time have also had an impact on changing Taiwan's political culture in two ways. First, compared to those sons and nephews of senior politicians, now more daughters and nieces are also more likely to run for offices. Taiwanese local election candidates often enter politics because of their parents or senior relatives in politics. In the old days, local politicians, mostly male, tended to hand their political resources to their male offspring. However, with the increase of reserved seats, female offspring are also more likely to inherit the resources as they run for the reserved seats. Second, with more women in the councils, the old practice of male politicians engaging in backroom dealings in commercial sexual establishments has also become less rampant. A former female parliamentary member told me that even if the men do so, they still need to return to the meeting chamber to negotiate with female politicians. This is because, when there were more women in the councils, men sometimes did not occupy enough seats in a committee to meet the quorum required to pass the resolution or bill. If a female politician happens to be the party whip, then political negotiations were less likely to take place in the commercial sexual establishments.

At the national level, the electoral reforms that changed the SNTV electoral system to a parallel system that skewed toward SMDs may have had a negative impact on female politicians. More careful analyses are required to estimate the impact of the changing electoral system on women's political participation at the national level. Thus far, evidence shows that the percentage of women parliamentarians has grown since the parallel system was first implemented in 2008.

Gender Quotas Beyond Elections: Following the International Trend Again

Efforts to increase women's political participation have moved beyond electoral politics. After the DPP won the presidential election in 2000, many feminist activists were recruited into the government or asked to serve on government commissions. In 2004, the cabinet-level gender commission, comprised of both bureaucrats and members of women's organizations, passed a resolution that all the policy consultative committees and participatory commissions at all ministries should adopt one-third gender quotas whereby each sex should hold at least one-third of the seats in those committees and commissions. By 2008, most of the more than 500 committees and commissions in the national government had complied with this resolution. The Department of Gender Equality, a bureaucratic unit established in 2012 within the cabinet, now monitors gender quotas of government committees and commissions.

Additionally, there are also efforts to impose gender quotas for corporate boards. In 2011, the cabinet adopted a new Policy Framework on Gender Equality that states that all the boards of state and public enterprises as well as any organization with more than 50% of its endowment or budget funded by the government are required to adopt one-third gender quotas. This policy is in accordance with recent trends initiated in Norway and other European countries, which maintain that gender quotas should be applied to company boards to enhance gender equality in the corporate world. Many feminist activists and gender scholars, including myself, were involved in drafting the framework. Whether and when the state and public enterprises would comply with the quota requirement remains to be seen.

Conclusion: Lessons from Taiwan

Taiwan is an example of the positive effects of gender quotas on women's political representation. A few key lessons can be drawn from the Taiwanese experience. First, low quota levels can become ineffective and can be an obstacle for women's political participation. Second, even though Taiwan was politically isolated for decades, international trends on quota adoption infiltrated through the local feminist movement and policy networks. Taiwan's experience affirms the observation that the adoption of gender quotas is a global phenomenon (Krook Reference Krook2010). Third, even if the feminist movement was not as mass-based as in South Korea, a few critical feminists in key positions can still exert pressure and ensure gender quotas become part of the policy options. Fourth, once policy makers, who are mostly male, became accustomed to the idea of gender quotas, they also tend to be less resistant to quotas, especially when men are also beneficiaries.

In Asia, women are underrepresented in politics. Yet, Taiwan has bucked this trend. Despite sharing similar levels of education and labor participation rates with Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, Taiwanese women are more represented in politics than all the countries examined in these essays. The higher percentage of women in Taiwanese politics suggests that institutions rather than socioeconomic factors matter. For example, when we compare Taiwan to Japan—Taiwan's colonizer for half a century between 1895 and 1945 and more economically and technologically advanced—Japanese women still constitute less than 10% in the parliament, and Japan has resisted gender quotas. A key challenge ahead for quota scholars is to explore the impact of quotas on the quality of democracy. Although having more women in politics can have a substantive impact, the definition of success for quota strategies should still go beyond numbers.