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Quota Or No Quota: The Effect Of Gender Quotas On Women’S Ability To Provide Substantive Representation, Sara Lindsay Walsh

Political Science Senior Theses

The primary goal of this thesis is to determine the effect of gender quotas in national legislatures on the ability of female legislators to provide substantive representation. The secondary goal of this thesis is to determine which kinds of gender quotas are conducive toward strengthening overall democracies. This study will determine whether any and which kinds of gender quotas allow women parliamentarians to provide substantive representation by measuring the legislation enacted to address women’s issues (namely domestic violence legislation, reproductive rights legislation). This study draws from an accumulation of primary and secondary sources to examine whether parliaments successfully enact legislation …