Gender Quotas and Women's Representation: Lessons from Algeria

• In Event: Gender in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes

Abstract

The increase in women’s presence in national legislatures has taken place in many non-democratic countries due to the adoption of gender quotas. The country which ranks first in the world is Rwanda, a non-democratic country. But, most research on gender quotas and women’s representation has focused on democratic countries. There has been some work on non-democratic contexts, but the focus has been on sub-Saharan Africa. To fill a gap in the literature, this dissertation explores the impact of gender quotas on women’s descriptive and substantive representation outside of sub-Saharan Africa by conducting the first in-depth case study of women’s representation Algeria. I find that women parliamentarians substantively represent women by helping them gain access to state resources but their presence has not lead to major advances in women’s rights. Moreover, due to the presence of various factions, I find that not only are there divisions between women affiliated with the regime and women affiliated with the opposition, but there are also divisions among pro-regime women, which makes it more difficult for them to work together to further women’s interests. This will be the first in-depth study of women’s representation in Algeria. It will shed light on the complexity of women and politics in Algeria and call for future research on women and politics in contemporary authoritarian regimes.

Author

• Meriem Aissa, Rutgers University, New Brunswick