A Comparative Study of Electoral Gender Quotas in Sweden, Germany, and South Korea
This paper uses Swedish, German, and South Korean cases from the area of quota policy to examine the interactions of main actors involving quota campaigns in the three countries. The aim of this study is to establish under what circumstances the state actors best incorporate women’s policy demands and contribute to equal representation of men and women in politics. This study shows that while the three countries have introduced quotas, there are variations in the tracks to equal representation of women and men, in the actors and motivation in quota reform, and in types of quotas. It has demonstrated that the variations are largely related to each country’s political systems and to how women are integrated into society. The analysis has also emphasized that women were key actors in the success of each country’s quota reform. Both the Swedish and German cases have shown that the high proportion of women in those countries’ parliaments heavily depend on the support of women’s organizations inside political parties. In contrast to these two countries, South Korea has demonstrated a case in which a strong women’s movement outside political parties was the major force in leading the successful quota campaign. The comparative analysis of the three countries in this study contributes to illuminating the global diffusion of quotas, and dynamics of quota policy formation in countries with different political conditions.
Keywords:
electoral gender quotas, women’s political representation, women’s movement, dynamics of women’s policy formationIntroduction
Despite the adoption of electoral gender quotas (hereafter quotas) in over 100 countries, they remain a highly controversial concept. In countries such as the United States, the term quota itself is politically untenable.1 A range of policies has been introduced in many parts of the world since the early 1970s aimed at increasing women’s political representation.2 Among them, quotas have come to be the most frequently adopted. Quotas, also known as positive discrimination policies, are designed to balance the number of men and women in the decision-making hierarchies of governmental organizations, public commissions, or electoral candidate lists (Mazur, 2002, p. 65). The use of quotas as a tool to make unprecedented leaps in the representation of women is a fairly recent global phenomenon. A significant proportion of quota-adapting countries has turned to them within the last 15 years, particularly since the mid 1990s. While the rapid dissemination of quotas around the globe is a notable development, individual quota campaigns differ in terms of actors, their motivations, and the types of quotas adopted. The variations are largely related to the political cultures (i.e., the level of democracy and the styles of policy community) and gender regimes of individual countries.
Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP) scholars have emphasized the international comparative analysis of women’s policy formation because such analysis is useful “to identify the dynamics of the formation of policies that purposefully strike down gender hierarchies and/or promote women’s rights as a group” (Mazur, 2003, p. 366).3 FCP work has clearly identified that women’s movement actors have played important roles in the formulation and, in some cases, the implementation of women’s policies. It has been observed through FCP work that the demands of certain feminist movement actors have been incorporated, to varying degrees, in policy content and that some of the policies have undoubtedly contributed to the improvement of women’s status and the reduction of gender-bias within hierarchies. In this light, FCP scholars assert that women’s participation throughout the process of policy formation is a significant precondition of the success of women’s policy items such as quotas (Dahlerup, 2003, 2006).
This paper will examine the interactions of main actors involved in quota campaigns in the three countries in order to establish under what circumstances the state actors best incorporate women’s policy demands and contribute to equal representation of men and women in politics. In order to achieve this, it will focus on the analysis of the interplay of actors within and across women’s movement organizations and the state.4 A good indication of the state actor’s commitment to quotas is given by women’s cooperation between women in political parties, women’s/feminist movement organizations, and women’s policy officers in the development of a specific policy. This is suggested by many feminist scholars (i.e., Dahlerup, 2003; Mazur, 2002) who have observed the conditions of women’s policy success, and is also confirmed by this study. In this paper, we also discuss that parties’ electoral competition is a decisive motivation for their adoption and advancement of quota policies.
In the field of FCP, international comparative analysis of quotas has emerged as a new research agenda. In recent years, a growing accumulation of literature on quotas has been presented. The majority of it focused on the experiences of contemporary Western post-industrial (or party) democracies including Sweden and Germany, mainly seeking to answer the question of why those countries are more woman-friendly.5 Trans-national analysis within the same region is useful to study the diffusion of the concept of quotas among neighboring countries, not around the globe. They are further limited in exploring similarities and differences in the policy formation process between individual countries which vary in terms of regional location, political culture, and gender regime. On the other hand, few cross-national studies have examined the South Korean case, specifically focusing on the interplay of actors in quota campaigns. Therefore, the comparative analysis of the three countries in this article contributes to illuminating the global diffusion of quotas, and dynamics of quota policy formation in countries with different political conditions.
Sweden, Germany, and Korea have adopted quotas in common in order to increase women’s representation in parliament. Nonetheless, each country’s individual quota campaigns differ in terms of actors, their motivations, and the types of quotas adopted. While voluntary party quotas were introduced in Sweden and Germany through 1980s and 1990s, the political parties in Korea adopted quotas only in the year 2000, after the state’s adoption of legal quotas. Meanwhile, Sweden is unique from Germany and Korea, in terms of its track to equal representation of men and women in politics. For instance, women made up over 30 percent of the Swedish parliament members even before the major political parties introduced quotas. In the cases of Korea and Germany, women took up fewer than 10 percent of the parliament seats when quotas were first introduced. Furthermore, the three countries show different ways in which actors within and across women’s movement organizations and the state cooperated in a development of quota policies. These similarities and differences are important in understanding different levels of women’s representation in parliament of the three countries, shown as 47.2, 32.2, and 13.4 percent in Sweden, Germany and Korea, respectively.
The organization of this article is as follows. The theoretical perspective on quotas is presented, including the two distinct tracks to equal gender representation in politics, the main actors, and different motivations in quota reform. The next section shows the details of the processes of the implementation of the quota system and its consequences in Sweden, Germany, and South Korea, in order. The principle discussion in this section focuses on the interplay between women and state actors in the processes of quota reform. Comparison is provided in the third section. The primary source of the analysis in this article is the existing FCP literature of quotas as well as other literature relevant to the three countries’ experiences with quotas. Segments of discussions are additionally based on interviews conducted by the authors from March to May 2007 in Stockholm, Berlin and Seoul.6
Theoretical Perspective on Electoral Gender Quotas
The ‘Fast Track’ versus the ‘Incremental Track’
The two alternative tracks to equal representation of women and men in politics are considered to be ‘the fast track’ and ‘the incremental track’. These are viewed as involving separate discourses, distinct quota types, and an account of the actual speed of historical development in women’s representation (Dahlerup & Freidenvall, 2003, 2006). ‘The incremental track’ discourse is in line with the view that women lack similar political resources as men but the prejudice against women will gradually disappear corresponding to the development of society. Thus, the notion of gradualism is a key concept of ‘the incremental track’. This is most relevant to the Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Today’s extraordinarily high representation of women in Scandinavian parliaments, exceeding 40 percent, is not simply a result of quotas but a gradual improvement in gender equality. This view is sustained by the fact that it took the Nordic countries approximately 60 years to cross the 20 percent threshold and an additional 10 years to reach 30 percent (Dahlerup, 2006, p. 7; Freidenvall, 2006, p. 55). Therefore, it is misleading if quotas are singled out as a major factor to explain the high representation of the Nordic women in parliaments.
On the other hand, ‘the fast track’ discourse opposes the idea of gradual improvement in women’s representation. According to this discourse, gender balance will not come about naturally but rather through equality policies such as quotas which protect women from being excluded and discriminated against by men in politics. Differently from the Nordic countries, many countries in the ‘West’, including Germany, adopted quotas starting in the 1980’s as a springboard for women’s representation. The large majority of quotas in many regions of the world including Africa, Latin America, and Asia were introduced after 1995, the year of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing.7 In Beijing a Platform of Action was adopted by governmental delegations seeking to ensure women’s equal participation in all forms of ‘power structures and decision-making’ (Tripp et al., 2006, p.113). Most of the countries which adopted quotas after 1995, including South Korea, are regarded as semi-democratic or non-democratic.
Types of Quotas and Motivations in Quota Reform
Most quota policies are the result of combined normative and pragmatic motivations. In many of the post-industrial democracies, including Sweden and Germany, political parties are central institutions, both in public debates and in decision-making processes. In those countries, quotas are voluntarily adopted by one or more political parties. This type of quota is known as a party quota. In such cases all political parties in a country do not necessarily accept quotas. Notably, party quotas are more likely to be supported by left-wing socialist parties than centrist and right-wing parties in the countries constituting ‘party democracies’ (Berqvist, 1999). The spread of quotas across political parties in those countries can best be explained by the contagion theory.
The contagion theory underscores that electoral considerations come into play when decision makers elect to introduce quotas subsequent to their adoption by a key rival (Matland & Studlar, 1996). In other words, parties identify quotas as an effective tool for winning women’s votes, providing a decisive motivation for parties’ adoption of quotas. Contagion theory predicts that smaller but still competitive parties, usually on the political fringes, start to actively promote women and larger parties move to emulate them (ibid.). This happens for at least two reasons. First, by nominating women, smaller parties may demonstrate that there is no electoral penalty in promoting women. Second, larger parties will feel increased pressure to respond themselves by more actively promoting women, fearing losing votes to the innovating party. Over time, as each party reacts to an assumed threat from political rivals on the issue of equity in representation, the perceived need to nominate women will flow across the political system to virtually all parties. This process is driven by party competition. Contagion theory is more pertinent to stable democracies than the semi-democratic or non-democratic states because political parties in most stable democracies have established considerable autonomy and power. On the other hand, Matland argues, ‘in the semi-democratic states, political parties tend to be more localized in the capital and often indistinguishable from the parliamentary or governmental party’ (2006, p. 276). Under these conditions there is likely to be less electoral competition for democratic values such as gender equality between political parties.
In the meantime, most of the semi-democratic or non-democratic states accustomed to regulating the proceedings of political parties, prefer legal quotas. Such quotas, mandated in a country’s constitution or by law (usually in the electoral law), are mostly preferred in the countries of Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and some semi-democratic African countries. In his more recent study, Matland argues, “legal quotas face a much tougher time in democratic states” because “there is likely to be resistance from the political parties and certainly in states with a liberal citizenship model the proposals will be met with arguments that imposing such a requirement is undemocratic” (2006, p. 277).8 This argument is supported by all the interviewees met by the authors in Stockholm and Berlin during the fieldwork. For instance, Uta Kletzing, a scholar from Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, elaborated the argument by pointing out, “German people have a general tendency to show resistance if they are legally imposed to accept public policies because they do not want the free choice of the voters to be restricted by policies”. Regarding this issue, the Swedish interviewees showed a more progressive attitude. Maria Jansson, a political scientist at Stockholm University, mentioned, “the Swedish are very proud of their extraordinary high representation of women in parliament today and thus it would remain almost the same for a long while even if political parties abolished their party quota rules”. These interviews clearly demonstrate that the idea of legal quotas would not be preferred by countries like Sweden and Germany.
One of the convincing explanations for the motivation of semi-democratic or non-democratic nations to adopt legal quotas is that the countries, recently freed from dictatorial or authoritarian regimes, wanted to be perceived as ‘more democratic’ through adopting quotas. Clara Araaujo and Ana Isabel Garcia (2006, p. 87) examined the Latin American region as a case study and stated that “the extension of women’s rights was seen as a means of overcoming traits that gave these countries a less modern image vis-à-vis the international community”. They also emphasized the pivotal roles of the UN and international economic institutions such as the IMF that monitor countries’ political and economic reforms. That is, under pressure from international organs to reform, those countries saw “the adoption of specific polices for women associated to the concept of ‘good governance’ in the global market, as part of the very idea of ‘modernization’” (ibid., p. 88). This is also relevant to their claim that the differences by level of democracy in the frequency of legal quotas are partially explained by the power of political parties.
Mobilization of Women During Quota Campaigns
Although political parties are the major actors in the implementation of quotas and control the nomination process, women are frequently the ones who initiate quota campaigns. They approach state actors (women’s policy agencies, elected officers, president, and so forth), sometimes with guidance from international and transnational actors (Krook, 2006).9 In large, the women who mobilize for quotas belong to three different groups: grassroots women’s movements, women’s caucuses inside political parties, and governmental policy agencies. These women actors cooperate in various ways within and across the groups, depending on the gender regime of individual countries. In the majority of the party democracies, female party members as a group are the major actors who strategically presented quotas as a way to attract more women voters (Krook et al., 2005, p. 195). Female party members often work with women in grassroots organizations, administrative bodies, or both.
On the other hand, quota campaigns in semi-democratic states were primarily led by women in civil societies characterized by strong grassroots organizations. They actively participated in their country’s democratic transitions. Women in political parties rarely appeared in the countries’ quota campaigns as the proportion of elected women in political office remained low in most countries. Additionally, in the presence of weak ‘party democracies’ in those countries, it was rare for women to join political parties. In short, the international and transnational actors institutionally acknowledged feminist agendas and placed pressure on governments in semi-democratic nations, serving as a stimulus for a local women’s movement in support of quotas.
In many parts of the world, women within the state, largely located in Women’s Policy Agencies (WPAs), also play key roles in securing women’s political representation. The last few decades have witnessed a proliferation of WPAs around the globe. According to Joni Lovenduski (2005, p. 4), “the establishment of WPAs changed the setting in which the women’s movement and other feminists could advance their aims, as they offered, in principle, the possibility to influence the agenda and to further feminist goals through public policies from inside the state apparatus.” Hence, WPAs could increase women’s access to the state by promoting women’s participation in political decision-making, and by inserting feminist goals into public policy. However, Lovenduski also points out “WPAs vary considerably in their capacity, resources and effectiveness, and rising questions about the circumstances under which they most likely to enhance women’s political representation” (ibid., p. 6).
With respect to mobilization of women actors, women both within and outside political parties often work in conjunction with women in WPAs, as both take a principled standpoint on the need for increased women’s representation. Amy Mazur (2002, p. 4) explains that the presence of a ‘strategic partnership’ or ‘triangulation of empowerment’ between women in elected office, women’s/feminist movements and organizations, and women’s policy offices in the development of a specific policy is one of the most important conditions for women’s policy success. This is because ‘strategic partnership’among feminists from the three different areas is effective in persuading non-feminist decision makers in government and political parties to consent to pursue feminist demands for public policy. Therefore, in order to understand the dynamics of the formation of quotas, it is crucial to analyze quota campaigns with a special focus on the campaign participants and their strategies in the policy formation process.
Country Case Studies
Sweden
Sweden is well-known for its extraordinarily high representation of women in politics. Sweden occupied the number one position before being recently overtaken by Rwanda. Similar to other Nordic countries pursuing ‘the incremental track’, the level of women’s parliamentary representation in Sweden reached as high as 30 percent in the early 1980s, even before quotas were officially introduced by the parties. Since the early 1990s when quotas were implemented by all of the major parties in the Riksdag, women’s representation has remained above 40 percent.10Table 1 shows the details of the parties and quotas.
Swedish Parties and Quotas
Party quotas are adopted voluntarily by all the major parties. The Green Party is the first Swedish party that adopted a 50 percent quota for women on party lists using a zipper system (alternating men and women). With the help of this quota, the Green Party was able to attract many voters from other left-wing parties including the SAP. Feeling threatened by the loss of additional female votes, the left-wing parties, Liberal Party, SAP, and Left Party adopted zipper system quotas over time. Unlike these four parties, three parties with a conservative bent (Christian Democratic Party, Moderate Party, and Center Party) have adopted a ‘softer’ approach, either a recommendation or target. They target or recommend 40 or 50 percent women’s representation but the achievement of this target relies on the nomination committees in each party who determine the lists of candidate sat the final stage of candidate nomination.
As demonstrated in Table 2, women’s representation in the Riksdag increased rapidly from 1971 (14.0 percent) to 1980 (27.8 percent). This was possible as a result of the debate on increased democracy and the involvement of more women in politics (1967-1972), one of the first major debates on political representation in Sweden. A coalition of women’s groups inside political parties, called the Fredrick Bremer Association, consisting of the women’s groups from four different parties (the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Centre Party, and the SAP), led the discussion. The debate resulted from political parties’ initial adoption of guidelines for women’s representation in parties and elected office (Sainsbury, 2004, 2005, p. 197).
Women’s Representation in Riksdag (percent), 1961-2006
In the late 1980s when most of the major parties adopted quotas (target or recommendation), women’s representation rose to a high of 37.5 percent. The increase in women’s representation was a product of a debate on quotas for administrative bodies which appeared in 1985-1987. This debate was primarily led by the women’s policy agencies in government, including the Advisory Council to the Prime Minister on Equality between Men and Women and the Ministry of Gender Equality (ibid., pp. 203-207). These agencies brought into question the low representation of women in both national and regional administrative bodies. Specifically, women in the Swedish government used the 1980 and 1985 UN Women’s Conferences to make the issue visible in both domestic and international spheres. There they stressed the necessity to improve the representation of women in corporate and bureaucratic channels. In response to the women’s policy agencies’ demands, quotas were introduced in all government bodies, contributing to a rapid growth of women’s representation in decision-making positions in the bodies.
After the 1991 election, however, women’s representation decreased to a low of 32.9 percent, the first decline since women earned their suffrage in the late 1920s. In the wake of the decline of women’s parliamentary representation (1991-4), the third and last debate on quotas emerged, the debate over establishing a women’s party. Uniquely, the debate on the establishment of women’s party was mainly initiated by a women’s organization outside political parties and government, called Support Stockings. Later, the debate was taken up by the Social Democratic Women’s Federation (SSKF), the women’s caucus within the SAP (Freidenvall, 2005).
The decline in women’s representation following the 1991 election was a great shock to many women in Sweden who had enjoyed a continuous rise in the number of women in parliament and believed it would continue indefinitely. Immediately after the election women formed a network, the Support Stockings, with the rallying cry, ‘Half the power, full pay’ (Sainsbury, 2005, p. 207). The founders of Support Stockings were a small group of academics and women in civil society. Afterward, it grew as a national women’s network. Support Stockings’ activities focused on improving women’s representation in parliament and preventing the new coalition government headed by moderates from weakening the public sector and women-friendly policies. Support Stockings considered the major reason for the decline in women’s representation in parliament to be the parties’ failure to nominate women in compliance with their own quota rules. Therefore, they declared that if the parties would not allocate half of their parliamentary seats to women they would establish a women’s party (Freidenvall, 2005).
The Support Stockings’ declaration of a pending creation of a women’s party was perceived as a pressing threat to the existing parties, especially the SAP, which called itself a women’s party. At that time the SAP had only a 40 percent recommendation quota for women. The SSKF joined with Support Stockings in pointing out to the male elite of their party that less than 40 percent of the total SAP parliamentary seats were occupied by women. SSKF also emphasized that women were absent in the final decision-making positions in both local and national committees and raised the question, ‘Are the Social Democrats a Women’s Party?’ Moreover, SSKF informed the party leadership that they could not help but join Support Stockings in establishing a women’s party if the leadership rejected the SSKF’s demand of a half share of power (Burness, 2000). At that time, a series of public opinion polls conducted by the media revealed that approximately 25-40 percent of the respondents were willing to vote for a prospective women’s party (Stark, 1997). As a consequence of the combined pressure from women inside the party, the external women’s movement, and the media, the male leaders of the SAP had no choice but to adopt 50 percent quotas for women in 1993. In the third debate, however, the women’s policy agencies in government remained mute as they were otherwise occupied with improving women’s representation in governmental bodies.
Germany
As in Sweden, voluntary party quotas appear in Germany. Women’s representation in the German parliament was lower than 10 percent until the early 1980s. However, more women began to appear in parliamentary seats beginning in the mid 1980s when the Green Party, followed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Left Party, adopted quotas. As Table 3 shows, four parties among the six major parties participating in the Bundestag employ quotas. Both Alliance 90/The Greens and the Left Party have a 50 percent quota for women on party lists. SPD introduced a quota system in 1988 with a target of 25 percent by 1990, 33 percent by 1994 and 40 percent by 1998. A requirement of the 40 percent rule is that the lists should be zippered, with the option of allocating every fifth place to someone of either gender. In the case of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), at least one-third (i.e. every third candidate) of a CDU electoral list must be women. Failure to meet this quota means internal elections for CDU delegates must be repeated. The delegates are also candidates for election on the national level. Quotas have not been introduced by the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which have the lowest women’s representation in Germany.
German Parties and Quotas
Table 4 shows the changes in women’s representation in the Bundestag from 1945 to 2005. It is manifest that German women’s representation has increased rapidly since the adoption of quotas by the major parties.
Changes in Women’s Representation in the Bundestag (percent), 1949 - 2005
Until the 1970s quota rules were rarely discussed in Germany.11 Debates about the need to increase women’s political representation came to the forefront with the rise of the Green Party, the emergence of the new women’s movement, and a change in public attitudes toward gender equality (Whal, 2006; Hwang, 2004).12 The Green Party introduced a fixed 50 percent quota for candidates in parliamentary elections in 1983 and incorporated the mechanism into its party statutes in 1986. In their first participation in a national election in 1983, the Greens won 28 seats, 10 of which were taken by women. Since then, they have continued this strategy and have achieved gender parity in terms of political representation. The introduction of the 50 percent quota along with the success of the left-libertarian Greens with female voters put considerable electoral pressure on competing parties, particularly the Social Democrats (ibid.). In the SPD, the issues of the Greens were put forth largely by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialdemokratischer Frauen (ASF), the women’s commission of the SPD during their quota campaigns.
The SPD is the party with the longest tradition of policies in favor of women’s equality in Germany. In 1988, the SPD declared a 40 percent quota of women for party positions and parliamentary seats. The SPD’s official adoption of quotas was a product of a long quota campaign led by the ASF. While the ASF had demanded a better representation of women for decades, the majority of ASF members rejected quota rules until the mid 1980s due to a perception of quotas as unnecessary. The dominant frame used by actors both for and against quotas concerned equality and quality. The two contesting views about quotas were expressed as, on one hand, ‘quota rules hinder quality’ while on the other hand ‘quota rules improve quality’ (Kamenitsa & Geissel, 2005, p. 210). The former view, sustained by the opponents of quotas, was an expression of the fear that if gender were a criterion, quotas would lead people who do not possess the necessary skills and abilities to be politicians and the quality of politics would deteriorate. They also argued that quotas would violate the equality principle of the party. Thus, they endorsed the view that “‘good politicians’, be they men or women, would make their way up through the party machinery by performing well” (ibid.).
However, proponents of quotas within the ASF argued that female politicians would enhance the quality of policy making and political outcomes. This argument was compatible with the dominant discourse within the SPD. The SPD, having its roots in a working-class movement, emphasizes that ‘good politics’ and ‘good governance’ require the representation of all groups within society, including women (ibid.). The ASF’s quota campaign accelerated after the Greens’ quota adoption in early 1980s. Pro-quota ASF members began active participation in party meetings and conferences, promoting the idea that quota rules are a means of supporting women in the party and in politics. The idea of ‘enhancing the quality of politics’ was also highlighted. Finally, the ASF proposal on quota rules was passed at the 1988 SPD conference by an overwhelming 87 percent majority (Wahl, 2006; Meyer, 2003).
As discussed above, the ASF was the main actor directing the SPD’s quota campaign. Women‘s groups outside the party or Women’s Policy Agencies only peripherally engaged in the campaign. This is largely because the conservative CDU, a ruling party at that time, appointed the minister of WPAs and the SPD quota rule issue was perceived as outside the mandate of the WPAs. Hence, the ASF appeared to assume the function of a quasi-WPA in the debate in so far as it was a women’s organization that influenced party policy-making (Kamenitsa & Geissel, 2005, p. 210).
In the case of the CDU, the Union always supported a policy of ‘free will’, ‘partnership’ and ‘freedom of choice’. However, in 1996 the CDU accepted the notion of a ‘soft quota’, the so-called quorum, aiming for one-third of all elected offices and party positions to be held by women. It was a top-down reform for women because it was the chancellor at that time, Helmut Kohl, who proposed the policy out of a fear of losing support with women voters (MacKay, 2004). When the quorum was first introduced in the CDU, there was resistance against such an autocratic reform among CDU members concerned about degradation of the quality of politics or the production of female politicians as ‘quota ladies’. As a result, the leadership of the Union decided to instigate a five-year test period of the soft quota by maintaining the practice only as recommended and voluntary. However, the target was not met in 1996. After the five-year of voluntary quorum test period, the Union finally accepted the soft quota and enshrined it in the party constitution. This implies that the contagion theory is relevant to the German case.
South Korea
South Korea is one of many countries that espoused quotas in the post-1995 period. Differently from the experience of Sweden and Germany, it was not until the early 1990s when South Korean women began to publicly discuss the need of quotas. Women’s groups in civil society, outside the political parties, were the major actors that directed South Korea’s quota campaign. The introduction of quotas became an important issue addressed by the women’s movement before the 1993 local governmental elections. However, the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference had a strong impact and the demand for quotas was lent legitimacy through reference to the Beijing Platform for Action. In 2000, before the 16th (2002) election, the Political Party Law was changed to stipulate that 30 percent of the party’s list must be women candidates. Then, before the 17th (2004) election the electoral law was changed again to require that parties nominate women on 50 percent of their list and to 30 percent of district positions. The 50 percent quotas for women in the List PR are compulsory but the 30 percent of district positions is a recommendation with no legal sanctions for non-compliance. The law resulted in an increase of elected women to 13.4 percent in the April 2004 election, up from 5.9 percent in the previous legislature.
Table 5 demonstrates the quota principles written into four parties’ constitutions. These four major parties have a 50 percent quota for women in the List PR system in accordance with the Political Party Law, and a minimum 30 percent quota for district positions.
Quota Provisions Appearing in the Koran Parties’ Constitutions
Among the four parties, Minnodang has most closely upheld their quota principles. The party has adopted quotas for not only women but for laborers, farmers, and people with disabilities. Therefore, Minnodang self-evaluates that the party is a role model for other parties in terms of adopting and implementing quotas. However, due to its relatively weak position in South Korean politics, in practice it is difficult to correlate the role of the South Korean Minnodang with the impetus for other parties to adopt quotas provided by the Green Party in Sweden and Germany.
Changes in Women’s Representation in the South Korean Parliament from 1988 to 2004unit: people (percent)
Table 6 shows the changes in the percentage of women in the South Korean parliament. More women have been elected from the national List PR than from the single-member or two-member district systems in each election. In 2004, after the introduction of quotas in the Political Party Law, women made up 51.8 percent of those elected from the national lists. This means that all political parties nominated women candidates in accordance with the 50 percent quota law. However, it is important to note that only 18.3 percent of the South Korean parliamentary seats are given to the winners of the List PR. With merely 10 women elected through the district system and 29 women from the PR list, 39 women (13.4 percent) were successful in winning parliamentary seats in 2004.
Grassroots organizations worked closely on the quota campaign with women politicians within the political parties. The women’s movement in civil society provided outside pressure on male elites in the parties to increase women’s representation, while women politicians worked from within their parties (Eun-Kyung Kim, 2005, pp. 145-155). This view is also sustained by the interviews with South Korean experts, including female scholars and former elected officials, and leaders of women’s organizations. The demand for quotas by women’s groups was on the rise during presidential elections in 1997 and 2002. Women’s organizations strategically approached presidential candidates from each party and demanded that they include quotas in their election pledges (ibid.). One effective way of prodding the candidates was to promote competition among the candidates by contrasting women’s policies, including quota policy, in the candidates’ pledges and announcing the outcome of the investigation to the media. The women’s movement emphasized the expansion of women’s representation in politics as an important condition for the development of South Korean democracy, a key plank in each candidate’s election campaign at that time. Therefore, political parties were obliged to accept women’s demands for quotas in fear of losing women voters (Won-Hong Kim et al., 2001).
There are three key civil organizations that vigorously led the nation-wide quota campaign. They are ‘Women’s Network for Quotas’, ‘Women’s Political Network’, and ‘Korea Women’s Political Solidarity’ (ibid.). Two largest women’s organizations in civil society, Korean Women’s Association United (Yeo-yeon) and Korean National Council of Women (Yeo-hyeop) established the first organization, ‘Women’s Network for Quotas’in 1994, holding in common the idea that quotas were mandatory in South Korea to increase women’s representation. The second group, ‘Women’s Political Network’ was created in 1998. Finally, the most recent is ‘Korea Women’s Political Solidarity’ (KWPS), established in 2003 in preparation for the 2004 elections. As many as 321 women’s organizations joined the KWPS. The KWPS was a significant actor in the 2004 quota reform (Eun-Kyung Kim, 2005, pp. 76-81).
At the early stages of the quota campaign, the mobilization of ‘Women’s Network for Quotas’ was crucial not only in publicizing the need for quotas but also in pressuring political parties to adopt quotas. The Network utilized various methods, including sending public statements for quotas to party offices and visiting the party leaders to persuade them to adopt quotas. Immediately upon its establishment, the Network demanded the parties incorporate a 10 percent quota rule for women into the List PR in the 1995 local governmental elections. Prior to the 1996 general elections, the Network called for 30 percent of the district positions and 50 percent of the List PR. The Network’s persistent demands for quotas had their effect in 2000, when the National Assembly first decided to reform the Political Party Law and insert the 30 percent quota rule.
Examining the roles of women within the political parties, it is notable that elected women made a significant contribution to their party’s quota reform. The interviews support this view. For instance, Kim Hee-Sun in Minjudang, Go Eun Gwang-Soon in Yeolin Wooridang, and Kim Jeong-Sook in Hanaradang were the major female politicians, mentioned by all the interviewees. For instance, one interviewee, Yee Yeon-Suk (a former politician in Hanaradang), mentioned that elected women took an active part in the nomination committees of their parties and made efforts to convince male members of the committee to select more women. Additionally, the elected women participated in a cross-party alliance. For instance, according to Yee, women who became the head of a women’s caucus in their parties kept each other updated on the progress of their respective quota campaigns and used the information to persuade party leaders. Women’s conglomerations inside the parties, however, were generally not as active in ensuring quotas. Substantial participation by women in women’s sections in the South Korean political parties has been emphasized in line with the view that their mobilization is essential to representing women’s interests in the process of policy decision-making. Yet, their role remains limited and many women in these sections do not necessarily share feminist interests and goals. Because of this, women’s sections in the political parties have been little involved in the quota campaign (Hyun-Ock Cho, 2003).
In the case of women’s policy agencies in government, they have taken a neutral position on quotas. Nonetheless, the Presidential Commission on Women’s Affairs (PCWA) in 1998 attempted to support the quota campaign in indirect ways such as provided an educational program informing voters of the importance of gender balance in political representation. The Commission also offered financial support to women’s organization in civil society to train women to become political leaders.
Comparison and Conclusion
Table 7 is a brief summary of quota policy in Sweden, Germany, and South Korea. The level of women’s representation differs by country; Sweden demonstrates the highest (47.3%) among the three, while South Korea possesses the lowest (13.4%). The similarities and differences in the categories below among the three countries are important factors impacting the different levels of women’s representations.
Summary of Quota Policy in Sweden, Germany and South Korea
In all of the three countries, women are key actors in enforcing quotas. Yet, the characteristics of national women’s movements were considerably different from one another. In Sweden, women in political parties, women’s grassroots movements and organizations, and women’s policy offices worked together in a variety of ways during the three different quota campaigns. The Swedish case is evidence that alliances are an important condition for women’s policy success. Two critical strategies used effectively by Swedish women during the quota campaigns were the establishment of a women’s party and addressing women’s poor representation issues through United Nations’ conferences.
In the case of Germany, women inside political parties were most active in directing the quota campaigns while women in both civil society and women’s policy agencies barely participated in the campaigns. In South Korea, women in the grassroots movement and elected politicians led a successful quota campaign, especially through pressuring presidential candidates to make an issue of quotas during their election campaigns. The strategy of approaching the potential head of state and framing quotas in the context of democracy discourse were effective because political leaders of the 1990s wanted to create a new democratic image of leadership divorced from the authoritarian past. The women’s policy agency in the South Korean government has made efforts to support the quota campaign to some extent, while maintaining its neutrality. However, most women members of the South Korean parties have shown little interest in quotas, as well as other gender equality policies, which can be seen as a weak point of the South Korean women’s movement.
The motivation for political parties to adopt quotas can affect their willingness to carry out the quota policy. For both Sweden and Germany, party competition over women’s votes was one of the most salient factors compelling the parties to adopt quotas. As discussed earlier, contagion theory is relevant in both Sweden and Germany. In Sweden, quotas were transferred from the Green Party to the Left Party to the SPD to the conservative parties. The same pattern appeared in Germany: from the Green Party to the SPD to the CDU. In both countries, the introduction of quotas by the Green Party was significant in that it initiated the parties’ electoral competition with other parties, at first with the larger, left-wing parties and later to larger right-wing parties. The competition for women’s votes promoted by the women’s movement in each country is the reason why parties in the two countries implemented their quota rules without any legal sanctions for non-compliance.
Meanwhile, contagion theory bears little relevance to the South Korean case. Quotas were not transferred from one political party to another one in South Korea but were an element in the Political Party Law, blanketing all parties simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that women’s demand for quotas increased the competition among the South Korean political parties, especially via presidential elections. Among the major South Korean parties, Minnodang has made the greatest effort to implement quotas for women not only in the List PR but also for district positions, even though the 30 percent quota provision for district systems is recommended rather than compulsory.
In conclusion, the comparative analysis of the processes of the implantation of quotas in Sweden, Germany, and South Korea has shown that while the three countries have introduced quotas, there are variations in the tracks to equal representation of women and men, in the actors and motivation in quota reform, and in types of quotas. It has demonstrated that the variations are largely related to each country’s political systems and to how women are integrated into society. The analysis has also emphasized that women were key actors in the success of each country’s quota reform. Both the Swedish and German cases have shown that the high proportion of women in those countries’ parliaments heavily depends on the support of women’s organizations inside political parties. In contrast to these two countries, South Korea has demonstrated a case in which a strong women’s movement outside political parties was the major force in leading the successful quota campaign. It is difficult to identify which manner of women’s mobilization is more effective for the success of women’s policy formation without detailed examination. However, as the FCP scholars have argued, the Swedish experience seems to illustrate that women’s coalitions within and across grassroots women’s movement/organizations, political parties, and WPAs are most effective not only in persuading non-feminists (male political elites) to concede to pursue women’s demand for quotas in political arenas but also in achieving the policy goals.
Glossary
1 In the United States, the notion of setting aside a determined percentage of anything for anybody is politically untenable (Baldez, 2006).
2 Gender balance in political representation is important for a number of reasons. Four major reasons are (Dahlerup, 2003): women make up half of the population and hence have the right to half of the seats (the justice argument); women have different experiences (biological or socially constructed) that deserve representation (the experience argument); women and men have partly conflicting interests and thus men cannot represent women (the interest group argument); and, finally, female politicians can be role models, paving the way for other women to enter politics.
3 Amy G. Mazur, Dorothy M. Steson, Drude Dahlerup, Joyce Outshorrn, Joni Lovenduski are some of well-known FCP scholars.
4 A nation’s electoral system is also one of the most significant variables affecting the success of quotas. However, it is not discussed in this article and is outside the research focus of this study.
5 There is a recent cross-national comparative analysis of quotas, published as a book titled Women, Quotas and Politics. It covers many regions of the world, including Latin America, Africa, and Asia (South Korea is not included) as well as Western countries. However, the cross-national comparison in the book is mainly made within major regions of the world, rather than between regions.
6 In conjunction with the personal interviews, a questionnaire survey on the ideas of quotas was conducted in Sweden, Germany and South Korea from March to April 2007. The 30 respondents to the survey in each country were randomly selected from political parties, grassroots women’s organizations, women’s policy agencies, and academic fields. The survey outcomes are not used directly in this article but they provided the researchers with a general understanding of each country’s quota reform.
7 For details, see the studies, Araújo and Isabel García (2006) for Latin America, Tripp et al. (2006) for Africa, Antić and Lokar (2006) for Balkan region, Rai et al. (2006) for South Asia, and Wahidah (2006) for Indonesia.
8 This is also relevant to his claim that the differences by level of democracy in the frequency of legal quotas are partially explained by the power of political parties. In most stable democracies, political parties have established considerable autonomy and power. On the other hand, in the semi-democratic states, political parties tend to be more localized in the capital and often indistinguishable from the parliamentary or governmental party (Matland, 2006) .
9 State actors include national women’s policy agencies, national leaders, governing coalitions, representatives in parliament, party leaders, and judges in national and local courts (Krook, 2006).
10 Sweden has a 100 percent Open List PR electoral system. The PR system has been effective in increasing women’s representation since the political parties began to implement quotas.
11 Women’s political representation in Germany has typically lagged behind some other Western European countries, but began to catch up in the 1990s. One of the reasons for poor women’s representation in German politics could be explained by the fact acoalition of the two conservative parties, the CDU and CSU, has ruled the country for the majority of post-war German history (1949-1969, 1982-1998, 2005-present) (Meyer, 2003). Up to the late 1980s, the coalition identified working mothers and child care centers as a threat to the family and especially to the children. Therefore, they were not also in favor of child care, working mothers, divorce, or abortion, as well as women’s political participation. Despite the women-unfriendly characteristics of the coalition, the coalition had an ironically large number of women supporters.
12 Feminist interests were promoted through the active participation of women in the formation of a new, leftist party in the late 1970s, the Greens. Along with environmental protection and pacifist issues, feminist demands for a more egalitarian society were integral to the Green party platform. Green party supporters, on average, were younger, better educated, and more left-leaning-and many were women. In this demographical and ideological context, gender equality was an accepted principle.
Acknowledgments
* This study was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2005-005-J01002).
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